Part 3. Humor, its role in our lives.
Keywords
humor, cultures, self-deprecating, rakugo, stereotypes.
Vocabulary
simultaneous interpretation, lighthearted, frivolous, favorably, sport, self-deprecating, rakugo, intersperse, improvisation,mesmerize, connoisseur, perpetuate, stereotype, inscrutable, caricaturize, sporting, Yank, consensus, butt, punch line, perish, Simul International, Edo period.
A. You're about to hear a listening passage by radio producer Jim Metzner on humor in Japan.
The piece has been divided into three parts. Read over the following questions before you listen to the passage.
Write one or two sentences to answer each question.
Part 1. When you laugh with someone, it's like a bond has been established between you.
So it's only natural to think that through humor two very different cultures could find some common ground.
Say, for example, that you're on your first business in Japan.
You've been asked to make a presentation at a board meeting, and you're wondering what a good opening remark might be.
Something the Japanese would understand and appreciate. Something funny.
Typically an American public speaker would break the ice with the audience by an anecdote, a joke.
And when we see anyone doing that, we more or less conclude that the person is not serious.
Masumi Muramatsu is chairman of Simul International and the founding father of simultaneous interpretation in Japan.
He's also a student of cross-cultural humor.
He cautions that what may seem natural and funny to Americans may not always translate that way to the Japanese.
Among ourselves, we do have our humor and we exchange jokes or lighthearted remarks, but all these are done at a very private and personal level, never at an official level or for public addresses.
You never hear a Japanese prime minister beginning his state of the nation message with a joke.
It's received by the audience, Japanese audience as being frivolous, therefore not serious and therefore not sincere.
Does that mean you should leave your sense of humor behind when you visit Japan?
No, we like to see people with a sense of humor.
If you, for example, tell a story about how you tried to speak Japanese but have failed, that's a humorous situation and Japanese hosts will react favorably.
They will laugh and they will say, oh, he's a good sport.
Self-deprecating is very much a part of our custom. We do it constantly among ourselves.
Therefore, we should understand when visitors do that in the form of humor.
Of course, there are things that Americans think of as funny that the Japanese just don't understand.
Very often people will have to work through interpreters, and sometimes interpreters are unable to cope with words plays or puns or something,
type of jokes that Americans are fond of, ethnic jokes, religious jokes, which are not easily understandable, let along translatable.