CITY GUIDE >Highlights
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CITY GUIDE >Highlights
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Funny...ha-ha or peculiar?
By Gan Tian (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-03-05 09:33
Every culture has its own sense of humor. That's why Jim Carrey in The Mask might not make all Chinese people laugh, but a piece of crosstalk can. The Chinese do humor in several forms: xiangsheng (crosstalk) was the most popular, then came xiaopin (comic skit), and now errenzhuan (two-person sketch). Crosstalk, known in China as the "art of laughter", is a traditional art form between two performers satirizing society and its people through funny stories. Although a good crosstalk performer is said to be "earning a living by talking", it is not the case in the West. English entertainment journalist David Drakeford, who has lived in Beijing for five years and has learnt a little bit of this art, finds it is interesting because the jokes are all about ordinary people. "I heard one skit that went like this: A says 'I work at a famous English school. B asks him 'Are you a teacher there?' A replies 'I only open the door for others.' This common joke between two ordinary people is very funny. Of course they are professional comedians so the timing is important," Drakeford says. He likens Chinese crosstalk to the Western tradition of a comedy duo and requires four skills of its performers: speaking, mimicking, teasing and singing. "Chinese humor uses slaptick and wordplay," says Drakeford. "Western humor is probably more political, more satirical and sometimes kind of nasty," |
