Friday, December 7, 2007
Filipino Humor
Klaus had an article last week on this topic and I had what I thought was an interesting comment to post when a brown out lost it for me. So, here’s the pie, from my American perspective!
I enjoy a good sense of humor, and what different cultures consider funny is a fascinating thing to think about. I do not claim to have a complete understanding of Filipino humor, but here are some things I have observed.
1. Filipinos love jokes involving a ‘play on words’ especially ones that involve English and another Filipino language, or about people making funny mistakes with English.
Examples:
What is this? (Holding your right hand out, wiggling your fingers to the left.) Answer: Pusit (octopus). And what is this? (Holding the left hand out, wiggling the fingers to the right) Answer: Opposite.
A tourist was visiting the Philippines
Erap, when he won the vice presidency was supposed to have declared, “I told you I would win by a landscape!” There are many jokes about politicians who mangle English in funny ways.
Like the fellow in Agusan Sur, Manuel Dela Plaza, who didn’t have a lot of English, but was a well known politician. He had a speech writer who wrote his speeches in English. One day he was addressing an assembled group of educators and began his speech, “Good morning to you all, teachers, principals and administrators. Smile at the audience from time to time.”
2. There are many, many jokes involving priests, nuns, prayer and all things Catholic. Here is a joke which my friends found hilarious every time they told it, and after several repeats, I still can’t find the humor in, at least not to warrant the kind of enjoyment it invoked in my friends!
A man went to buy a parrot from a priest. (A lot of jokes also contain parrots) The priest told the man that it was a very religious parrot, and showed him that when you raise the right foot of the parrot, it would say the ‘Our Father’ and if you lifted the left foot, it would say a grace for the meal. The man was impressed and bought the parrot from the priest. When he took it home he tried it himself. Sure enough, when he lifted the right foot, the parrot recited the ‘Our Father,’ and when he lifted the left foot, it said a grace for a meal. Then he lifted both feet and the parrot shouted, “Animal! (bad insult) Put me down!” [uproarious laughter…]
Here is another: A little boy went to church and prayed, asking God to give him a bicycle, within four days, by Friday. Everyday he prayed and reminded God how many days were left. Friday came and went, and he had no bicycle. Saturday he went to the church, to the statue of Mary, put his arm around the statue and held a knife to her throat and prayed, “Listen God, I’ve got your mother!”
3. There are a lot of jokes about handicapped people which people think are really funny. In a culture that defines and describes people by their most prominent attribute (the fat one, the dark one, the short one, the bald one, the crippled one, the harelip, the ugly one, the one with pimples, etc. I guess this is understandable. In our culture we do our best to pretend that no one is in any way different from anyone else, to the point of denial. I never thought any of these jokes were funny. One I remember was also a play on words, using the word ‘bugtot’ which means hunchback and making it come out ‘book taught’ in a sentence.
4. Filipinos do not use sarcasm or irony in their humor. Americans (and probably Brits) use a lot of sarcasm and irony, and it is not understood or well received here. When we make comments like, “Oh, right! I’d love that!” when we mean the exact opposite, it doesn’t fly. Or when we say of a bad experience, “I’d love to do that every day of the week!” it makes no sense. Sarcastic remarks come across as negative and maybe even a little mean. Jokes that have ironic or sarcastic punch lines fall flat.
5. Dirty jokes are called ‘green jokes.’ People find it very amusing to compare various body parts to fruits and vegetables.
Bruce mentioned that most of the jokes he told to Elena’s family did not get the desired response, and gave an example of one such joke: “One cannibal says: I hate my mother-in-law. The other cannibal says: Never mind, just eat the vegetables.”
I can think of a couple things that might have made this not seem funny. First, we use the word ‘hate’ very freely, but here, people would generally not say that they hated a food. If the first cannibal had said, ‘I don’t like my mother-in-law,” you might have gotten a laugh. The other thing is that people here do not tell ‘mother-in-law’ jokes. Mothers-in-law are serious business; called ‘Mama’ and respected, even if they cause problems. So, if you had changed it to the neighbor, or a member of a disrespected minority, you would probably have had a laugh.
Related Posts:
Get Your Own Filipino Name!Hi, I’m AmericanLola
Cebuano Speaking Tips Cont.
Losing Face
Cebuano Grammar #1
# 1 jc said:
here’s one…
q:how are bananas and breasts related?
a:they’re both saging!
# 2 jc said:
filipinos love green jokes and do not have qualms if they’re so disgusting…. and most jokes are politically incorrect
# 3 macky said:
yep. green jokes and erap jokes. those are definitely popular. when i was still a young teen, it wasn’t unusual to have an older relative, like an uncle or my dad, to say a green joke. its all for fun. in erap jokes, ramos and cory would pop up from time to time to give erap more grief.
i tried to translate a funny filipino comic strip that i enjoyed to an american cousin. it’s called “pugad baboy”. it was topical, funny and very filipino. as expected, my english translation came out horribly and there i realized that there are just some jokes that will never be understood except in its own native language.
# 4 AmericanLola said:
Yes, Macky, I know a couple jokes in Cebuano that there is no point in translating, as they make no sense at all in English! And in fact, often the jokes I hear in Cebuano I do not ‘get’ even if I understand the words. Humor is deep culture.
# 5 Klaus said:
Hi American Lola, gret post. Thanks a lot. Yeah, humor is deep culture.
# 6 RichardInSC said:
That was a tasty slice of pie, AmericanLolo! What a great follow up to Klaus’ post. What you indicated was indeed what I suspected. I really don’t hold language as the critical differences in humor between cultures (except that, from anecdotal evidence, Filipino word-play in English is very witty indeed!).
Revulsion at humor directed at those who are handicapped or labeling them by prominent physical attributes. That is actually a relatively recent phenomenon in western based cultures. In Ancient Rome, it was common. For example, Marcus Tullius Cicero, had as is cognomen, Cicero (latin for a physical defect that he or a member of his family had http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cicero). As little as a hundred years ago, in the US, those kind of jokes would have probably been considered funny in many places. Heck, my dad even told me a few (didn’t find them very funny at the time, and you should have seen my mother’s face) when I was a kid. Most people from the US and Europe don’t find them funny at all and as you know, , but that’s a case I mentioned earlier in Klaus’ thread…humor touches on cultural differences in a way that nothing else can.
And, of course, the ‘Green Jokes’. In this area, with the mindset in the US and all other Western countries, this stuff can not only make you an instant social pariah (depending on which social circles you swim in), but you can lose your job, get sued, go to jail, etc for telling one of these to the ‘wrong’ people at the wrong time. I suspect that is not the case in the Philippines, though I really don’t know, not living there. That one is so dependent on context and ‘present company’ that it really belongs in a category by itself. Are there any firings and lawsuits in Philippines concerning someone who made such a joke in the wrong company? I somehow doubt it. Perhaps the Filipino approach to that particular topic is more healthy than ours. We allow such jokes in very restricted environments (movies, tv, etc), but it seems that if a common man or woman makes such a joke and someone overhears, then it’s all over…perhaps those jokes are only safe for the powerful and well-connected to make in the US. That does seem to be the case somehow.
One final thought about American/British Sarcasm is in order here. The truth is, Filipinos are correct in detecting a certain ‘meanness’ in this form of humor. In most cases, it falls under the general heading of ‘friendly ribbing’. I suspect it’s origin is something unique to western culture that is actually offensive to most other cultures. And this one strikes at the heart of a huge difference between asian and western culture (or at least asian and British/American culture, since I’m not an expert in other European cultural humor). We are a somewhat confrontational culture and very much enjoy digging at each other. It’s a playful game we play and we all seem to know it, so it’s very fundamental to us. Asian cultures emphasize harmony and avoid giving offense at great cost to themselves personally at times. This is one of the great areas of misunderstanding between the two cultures and leads to a lot of the problems we experience personally when we interact. Throughout my life, it ways always a great joy and fun game to give a friend the most subtle, yet witty ‘insult’ we could come up with. You could only risk this with people you knew well, but it was built in to our upbringing. Over time, it became more generalized, so doing to anybody at all seems to be the norm. Doing that in Filipino or any Asian culture would be risking a permanent enemy, I suspect.
Anyway, I did find some of these jokes amusing, but like you, didn’t find others funny at all. That is exactly what is to be expected, but the examples of what is funny and what is not is what is interesting. Thanks for sharing your observations and thoughts. A really great post!
Best Regards,
Richard
# 7 rob said:
Great post, AmericanLola. I read this recently from another blog, which also describes Filipino sense of humor pretty well (see the section ‘The sense of humor’): http://mdmechiang.blogspot.com/2007/07/things-i-will-miss-from-philippines.html
Filipino humor also uses a lot of facial expressions, and the delivery of the words matter a great deal. There is also a lot of non-sequitur style similar to what you see in Stephen Chow movies.
# 8 AmericanLola said:
Thanks for your interesting comment, Richard!
Rob, thanks for the link! I went there are really did enjoy her description of ‘impish’ Filipino humor! I think Filipinos have more fun than most people in the world! They love to laugh and are not self conscious, even adults like to play group games and sing. I think that is a gift!
# 9 Andrian said:
AmericanLola love you for being in CdO. I am a Cagayan-on by heart….
Anyhow, I just would like to add that Filipinos do indeed have a brutal sense of humor. One amusing thing that I have noticed living in the Philippines for the past 26 years (now I am in my 3rd year in London), is that regardless of what social circle one flutters, green jokes are purely not only tolerable but well accepted. Here in the UK if ever I try to blurt out a green joke, poeple directly think that I am rude. Indeed the cultural difference is quite distinctive.
Although most of all, Filipinos love gay campy jokes. There is nothing more hilarious than a queen prancing around. Being gay and using my antics always never fail to win a friend or even a favour — with that in mind, just being flamboyant while waiting for a queue in the Philippine Embassy easily earn me direct access. Talk about personal gifts to full use indeed….. Well if I may sum it up on the whole camp hilarity — it seems the West fully love it as well. And just like what the charcaters in the movie “The Producers” were advicing on how to make a successful play — “Make it gay, make it gay, make it gay!”
# 10 AmericanLola said:
That’s true, Andiran, Filipinos do find campy, gay behavior very amusing! And I notice from your email that your last name is definitely a Cagayanon name!