Humor is lost to people studying English.  It’s too fast or it’s just a different kind of humor.  Same thing in Chinese.  I don’t think I’ll ever understand or honestly laugh at a “CROSS TALK”.  Monty Python is such an integral part of western culture and humor that many times I wanted to explain it to my students or friends in China but it proved to be difficult to explain.  That’s why when I found Monty Python and the Holy Grail (巨蟒与圣杯) at the local bootleg DVD shop, I was so happy.  The following week I found the entire Monty Python’s Flying Circus on DVD.  I was shocked.  I looked around thinking, “do these people realize what they have?  THIS IS A GOLDMINE!!!”

Soon I found that Monty Python does translate into Chinese.  Quite well in fact.  I find that Chinese enjoy slapstick humor more than anything else.  When someone falls down, gets hit in the head or performs a silly walk it’s funny in Chinese too!  So I introduced Monty Python to one of my friends who was my Chinese teacher at the time and I think his life changed.  He studied Monty Python and studied each DVD.  He started quoting parts that I didn’t know.  He memorized skits that I thought were honestly not able to be memorized.  He even changed his MSN name to reflect a name used in a skit.  I was concerned for a while but thought to myself that we did the same thing back at home and after all it’s English and he’s improving his already excellent English.

I’m sure Monty Python for him was a stage.  He’s probably moved beyond those DVDs now.  But he’s more international because of it.  When someone says, “I’m not dead” and the foreigners laugh, he will too.  Of course when someone says “We are the knights who say ‘Ni’!” he’ll just think they are speaking Chinese.

Have you ever tried to explain humorous stories to your Chinese friends?  Have they ever tried to explain something funny in China to you?  Do you have any Monty Python with Chinese subtitles?  Do you know what John Cleese is saying to the pet shop owner?

Here is the comic that inspired this post.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 4th, 2009 at 12:00 am and is filed under 2009, Posts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.