For the first four months I’m in China, I’m attending a Chinese training course called IUP (Inter-University Program) designed for graduates and professionals who wish to rapidly improve their Chinese. The State Department generously issued me a grant to improve my language before starting my comedy research in full, for which I’m very thankful, and so this week I dove into my intensive coursework with relish.
I know I will need to improve my language a great deal to be confident performing onstage in Chinese. This is why even though IUP requires me to be in class from eight to two every day and provides over a hundred new characters a day to learn, somehow my interest in the language, alongside copious amounts of caffeine, is strong enough to get me through the day. Actually, most of that might be the caffeine, but it’s so much more heroic to think otherwise.
Another reason I am excited about IUP is that one class a day is tailored to your specific interest. In my case, this means a teacher and I spend several hours a week one-on-one engaged in trying to understand Chinese comedy.
I had my first comedy-study class today, and for the material to study, I chose a 20-minute short by the comedian Zhao Benshan called 不差钱, “I’m Not Out of Money.” Mr. Zhao plays a grandfather who has brought his daughter along to a restaurant in order to greet a famous TV host who happens to be coming by their rural village. His underlying motive is to convince the TV host, who in real life hosts a talent show, to make his stiff and uninteresting granddaughter into a star.
However, when he arrives at the restaurant—a Scottish style restaurant with a quirky effeminate waiter dressed in a kilt—he realizes he has forgotten all his money at home. So he tips the waiter before the meal, asking the waiter to “give him face” by saying that the restaurant is out of the most expensive dishes when he tries to order them. In this manner, Mr. Zhao looks like an amazingly generous host but doesn’t have to pay like one.
“Bring me a two-kilo lobster!” Zhao shouts, smiling at the TV host as he orders.
“We’re out of the two kilo lobsters,” says the waiter.
“Well, then, do you have one kilo lobsters?”
“…Do I?” the waiter squeaks.
Zhao is perhaps the most amazingly natural comedian I’ve ever seen. His every movement is so relaxed that even the other actors onstage—who were quite skilled—seem to be playing roles, which highlights his own lines even more. Just like in real life, the expression he shows the world sometimes hides his character’s inner feelings—but also just like a real person in real life, sometimes he succeeds in hiding these feelings and sometimes they slip out.
Studying the sketch with a teacher was quite interesting. My teacher, Ms. Wang, had printed out the script for me to follow along—a good thing, as Zhao Benshan’s Northeastern Chinese accent was difficult to understand. The hour consisted of me learning a lot about the Northeast, the differences between culture and language of the Northeast and Beijing, and the comedic effect of these differences.
A lot of times I would have completely missed sections of the humor without the teacher’s help. There was a minute-long segment with a fast-moving series of Mahjong puns and some funnily named relatives that flew completely over my head when I first saw it.
Other times, I would need a nudge to remind me that I’m in China in order to get the joke. For instance, when Zhao is talking to the TV host about the royal greeting the village is preparing for him, he says, “They’re preparing a big room all for you, and they’ve made it look very nice, they’ve printed out a giant picture of you and hung it on the wall, and the whole place is full of flowers!”
“What color are the flowers?” Mr. Bi, the TV host, asks, nervously pushing Mr. Zhao away.
“Oh, we’ve got white, yellow, you know. Everyone’s thinking about you and they’re moved to tears!”
A giant picture, everyone meeting in a big room covered in yellow and white flowers, everyone crying—Mr. Zhao is describing a Chinese funeral. Originally I had thought the joke was that the preparation was over the top. This was still true, but the body of the joke was that Mr. Bi was uncomfortable because if he went there it would be like attending his own funeral, which is much funnier. Really, getting into the second layer revealed a lot, and also alerted me to funereal callbacks that would slip into conversation later in the sketch.
In an essay to Fulbright, I likened culture to the layers of an onion, and the tool of language to a knife: A blunt control will chop through the onion without revealing the many layers present, whereas with a fine knife one can inspect each layer individually. Extra language practice serves as a whetstone for sharpening my abilities, to better access these hidden layers. When studying comedy, this many-layered approach is definitely needed, but I knew the secret: if I want to get at these many layers, I’m going to need to ask a lot of dumb questions.
I’ll admit that pausing a video and asking “Why is that funny” left me feeling about as stupid as one can feel. I’m here, ostensibly, because I know what’s funny. Asking such a question reveals a boldfaced lack of knowledge and inspires a feeling in me that language learners know well: the feeling that despite my ability to function as an adult in China, every now and then my ability is comparable to a slow five-year old’s. It’s that most humbling of reminders that the Chinese language doesn’t give a damn about Latin honors.
But I look forward to looking stupid. I know that every time I miss a joke and pass up the chance to find out why I missed it I’m really just shooting myself in the foot. The classroom especially is a place where I can ask stupid questions and use them to learn. And this is excellent, because the stupid questions are always the ones where we learn the most, the quickest; after today’s class, I’d love to see where I find myself after another fourteen months of stupid questions.
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For the very curious-minded (or Chinese), here is the link to the video! http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMzUwMzUyODIw.html