I guess humor is probably one of the last things you understand about a foreign culture, so I knew when Deepak asked me to tell him some jokes that it was going to be interesting. It was my fault; he asked about my weekend and I decided to toss him a joke to see how he would take it.
cool_alone_guy (3:20:09 PM): but how was it?
aokie99 (3:20:23 PM): good. good conversation.
cool_alone_guy (3:20:45 PM): On which topic?
aokie99 (3:21:00 PM): deepak.
cool_alone_guy (3:21:14 PM): Who is he
aokie99 (3:21:19 PM): you.
cool_alone_guy (3:21:27 PM): oh
aokie99 (3:21:32 PM): i'm just kidding.
cool_alone_guy (3:22:03 PM): Kidding?
aokie99 (3:22:16 PM): joking.
cool_alone_guy (3:22:33 PM): Nice joke.
cool_alone_guy (3:23:12 PM): do you know a joke?
cool_alone_guy (3:23:20 PM): Any joke
aokie99 (3:23:20 PM): yes.
aokie99 (3:23:25 PM): lots of jokes.
cool_alone_guy (3:23:29 PM): tell me
aokie99 (3:23:34 PM): what kind of joke?
cool_alone_guy (3:24:00 PM): any kind of joke.
aokie99 (3:24:45 PM): i don't know if you will understand.
cool_alone_guy (3:25:19 PM): I will understand you tell
cool_alone_guy (3:28:29 PM): once there was a man who was incide the cuboared. Tell me why he had not dieing.
aokie99 (3:28:59 PM): he had food to eat.
cool_alone_guy (3:29:12 PM): because he was already died.
[Abe considers what this could mean. Unable to unpack it, he presses on.]
aokie99 (3:29:31 PM): that's pretty funny. here's one for you:
aokie99 (3:30:24 PM): So this guy walks into a bar and says, "Gve me two beers." The bartender obliges him. The guy looks into his wallet and says, "Give me two more beers." So the bartender gives him two more beers. The man went on like this until he had put down ten beers, and keeps on going in his wallet and asking for two more beers. So the bartender asks, "What's in your wallet that you keep looking at?"
aokie99 (3:30:34 PM): So the man opens his wallet and says, "The more I drink, the prettier my wife gets."
[rimshot]
cool_alone_guy (3:33:21 PM): The prettier my wife gets?
aokie99 (3:33:45 PM): his wife looks prettier as he gets more drunk.
aokie99 (3:33:51 PM): do you understand?
cool_alone_guy (3:34:29 PM): Yes
aokie99 (3:34:52 PM): here's another:
aokie99 (3:34:56 PM): You know you're a redneck when your stair master has an ashtray!
[rimshot]
cool_alone_guy (3:36:06 PM): Sigrate
aokie99 (3:36:19 PM): cigarette.
cool_alone_guy (3:36:48 PM): Yes
cool_alone_guy (3:37:09 PM): this is the ans?
aokie99 (3:37:14 PM): yes.
cool_alone_guy (3:37:46 PM): Ask me some another jokes?
aokie99 (3:40:36 PM): Yo mama's fart stinks so bad that George Bush declared it biological warfare.
[This seemed like a good idea. Surely ghetto humor would translate well. And what could be more universal than passing gas? Especially if you eat lots of indian food.]
aokie99 (3:41:22 PM): do you like this one?
cool_alone_guy (3:41:59 PM): Do you know sardars? Yes
aokie99 (3:42:05 PM): what?
cool_alone_guy (3:43:26 PM): Those had pagdi on there head?
cool_alone_guy (3:44:25 PM): Do you know
aokie99 (3:44:37 PM): i don't understand what you are saying.
[Anyone who can explain where he was going with this will have my deep gratitude.]
cool_alone_guy (3:45:18 PM): Ok leave it. Hear's one for you.
cool_alone_guy (3:50:18 PM): one man says to salesman "that show me curtains"? Then salesman ask"sir why do you want curtains"? Then man says"i want for my computer". Then salesman says"sir curtains are not for your computer". Man says"do you know in my computer the windows are been installed.
[Ladies and gentlemen, we have translation.]
cool_alone_guy (3:53:43 PM): Had you understand?
aokie99 (3:54:25 PM): "do you understand" is the correct phrase.
aokie99 (3:54:31 PM): yes, i understand. very funny.
aokie99 (3:54:35 PM): here's another for you:
aokie99 (3:54:39 PM): Yo mama so ghetto, her wedding cake was made out of cornbread.
[silence]
aokie99 (3:54:45 PM): do you understand?
cool_alone_guy (3:55:02 PM): No
aokie99 (3:55:32 PM): that's okay.
cool_alone_guy (3:55:57 PM): Explain me
aokie99 (3:56:44 PM): this is what's called a "yo mama" joke. it was originally an insult, but mostly we say it just to be funny.
aokie99 (3:56:58 PM): it comes from black (african american) culture.
aokie99 (3:57:58 PM): "ghetto" is a kind of poor, black culture.
aokie99 (3:58:14 PM): cornbread is kind of like a food for low-class people.
aokie99 (3:58:47 PM): so this joke is a way of saying that someone's mother is low-class.
aokie99 (3:58:52 PM): do you understand?
cool_alone_guy (3:59:05 PM): Yes
aokie99 (4:00:00 PM): here's another:
cool_alone_guy (4:00:03 PM): it was good.
aokie99 (4:00:04 PM): Yo mama is like a Big Mac, full of fat and only worth a buck.
[more silence. A dog barks in the distance.]
cool_alone_guy (4:01:42 PM): Nice jokes.
aokie99 (4:02:09 PM): try saying it to you friends. they will laugh and laugh.
cool_alone_guy (4:02:48 PM): They wont understand.
aokie99 (4:03:03 PM): but still it's fun to say.
aokie99 (4:03:11 PM): do you know blonde jokes?
cool_alone_guy (4:03:31 PM): No
cool_alone_guy (4:03:36 PM): tell me
[Making blonde jokes to Indians might be like making "it was sooo hot..." jokes to eskimos, but he insisted.]
aokie99 (4:04:25 PM): Why did the blonde nurse take a red magic marker to work? In case she had to draw some blood.
cool_alone_guy (4:07:17 PM): Good joke very funny
aokie99 (4:07:39 PM): do you get it?
aokie99 (4:07:43 PM): the meaning?
cool_alone_guy (4:08:44 PM): Tell me
Next time I'm going to bring out some Dennis Miller rants. He'll eat that up for sure.
Posted by aokie at August 9, 2004 06:53 PMthis is both appalling and refreshing, both enviable and not. this makes my night, friend, like seeing yo mama so black when she gets in the car the oil light comes on . . .
Posted by: jeremy at August 10, 2004 12:07 AMIn my experience, mother-in-law jokes are pretty much universal. I can't imagine why.
Posted by: zellyn at August 10, 2004 10:03 AMa sardar is a sikh. a pagdi is a turban. he was trying to say, 'you know, the guys with the turbans on their heads.' they drive all the taxis in india and are known for their boisterous attitudes. he's trying to give you the equivalent of polak jokes.
this was painful to read.
Posted by: amy at August 10, 2004 12:02 PMAmy, thanks for the clarification. I probably could have given him jokes that translated better, but then I found a website and just decided to give him the 100% americano version.
Why is this painful, or appalling?
i'm not sure, maybe it's painful because i know the feeling of being in a new culture where you're trying really hard to understand what's going on. something would seem terribly funny to everybody else and i couldn't figure out why. i would feel ignorant for not getting the joke.
makes me want to jump in and start translating, so i can protect his dignity--not that you're attacking it.
Posted by: amy at August 10, 2004 02:45 PMcan you interepret the joke about the dead man in the cuboared? for the benefit of all of us.
Posted by: abe at August 10, 2004 03:09 PMthat's one of a whole series of little kids' jokes. like knock-knock jokes, i guess; stupid funny:
Q: Why didn't the guy who was locked inside a closet die?
A: He was already dead.
there are hundreds of these kinds of riddles. a lot of them involve animals.
Posted by: amy at August 10, 2004 07:36 PM