Even the Chinese Tell Jokes About North Korea

It’s a little old, but if I hadn’t seen it before, I figured not all of you had, either.  You’d think that the humor wouldn’t translate, but actually, it does, though grimly:

一个英国人，一个法国人，一个朝鲜人在一起聊天。英国人：最幸福的事情就是冬天晚上回家，穿着羊毛裤坐在壁 炉前面。法国人：你们英国人就是古板，最幸福的事情是和一个金发女郎一起去地中海度假，然后我们好和好散。朝鲜人：最幸福的事情就是半夜有人敲门，开门 后：” 康成美，你被捕了。””你弄错了，康成美在隔壁。”

A Briton, a Frenchman, and a North Korean are having a conversation.

The Briton: “I feel happiest when relaxing before the fireplace on a winter night.

Frenchman: “You guys are too old fashioned. I feel happiest when I go on vacation with a beautiful blonde and then beak up with her up on my way home.

North Korean: “One night, somebody knocked my door. When I opened the door, he said “˜Kang Sung Mi, You are under arrest!’ I felt happiest because Kang was actually my neighbor.   [Daily NK]

Maybe Sonagi and Spelunker will tell us if it’s funnier in the original Chinese.

It’s both ironic and inevitable that the Chinese would make fun of North Korea for being tyrannical, backward, and poor — perhaps without knowing how much China has done to keep North Korea tyrannical, backward, and poor, to serve its most conniving interests.  Even in South Dakota, after all, we used to tell North Dakota jokes, which tended to pick at North Dakota being marginally colder and less urbane than my home state, still one of the most rural, geographically isolated, and socially conservative in the country.  And our climate?  The Lakota took note of how our wrench-cracking winters made the very limbs on the trees shatter spontaneously.  The kettle shouldn’t assume that the pot takes itself seriously; in a way, knowing that made the jokes funnier.  So did the fact that we didn’t sell women from North Dakota into sexual slavery or truss them up like hogs and sell them for bounties.

On reflection, I think Kris Kristofferson put it best.