Sangmin: Third Meeting

“I have some Korean jokes,” Sangmin said at our third meeting.

“Okay, let’s hear ‘em!” I replied.

At our previous meeting, I had asked Sangmin what Korean jokes he knew. He couldn’t think of any right off the bat, but he told me he would have some for our next meeting. I was excited to hear them but was curious as to how well I would understand them.

The first joke Sangmin told me was about a guy who was about to go on his first blind date. The guy had all kinds of plans for the date and was excited to meet the girl for the first time. Having all his plans set, he went off to meet the girl.

Then, he saw her, and suddenly felt surprised.

He asked her, “What do you want to do for the date?”

She replied, “Why are you asking me? I thought you had plans!”

He said, “Well, I wasn’t planning on your appearance.”

Funny? Maybe a little. I certainly laughed at the cognitive shift, considering the guy was planning the date only to be disappointed by how the girl looked. The guy probably wasn’t making the smoothest move by saying what he said, but nonetheless, it was funny.

The second Korean joke that Sangmin told me evoked a little less laughter. He looked up the joke on his phone to remind himself of how it went. The joke was originally in Korean, so he had to translate the joke in English for me.

The joke was about a certain character (I couldn’t remember the exact name) who was King of the Land and wanted to become King of the Sea. In order to fight for kingship over the sea, the King of the Land went under the sea and encountered a giant creature.

The creature said, “I will fight you if you take off your backpack and follow me!”

The King of the Land responded, “I will follow you, if you take off your scarf.”

Ba-dum tss. Get it? No? I didn’t quite understand the joke either.

“Okay, it’s not funny,” Sangmin said, laughing.

He then explained to me that in Korean culture, middle and high school kids would tell each other to “take off [something] and follow me” before going out to fight. I then asked if Korean students got into a lot of fights in middle and high school. Sangmin told me that Korean kids got into a lot of fights in the past, but now, they have gotten “smarter.”

“Now, they sue!” he said.

At this thought, I laughed. Perhaps it is smarter to sue than to get into a physical fight.

Talking with Sangmin today helped me realize how culture plays an integral part in humor. Because I was not familiar with Korean customs or the Korean language, I did not laugh as readily. Our conversation also made me think of our “Humor Around the World Projects” and how different countries have their own specific types of humor.

Despite our different forms of humor, there is one thing that connects them all—humor. Yes, I repeated the word, and it sounds silly. But here’s the deal—all cultures love to laugh. It doesn’t matter if they laugh at culture, language, satire, situational humor, or slapstick humor. Everyone loves to laugh in one way or another. We all create our own humor. We all need humor.

Stay tuned for Meeting #4.