In
my first meeting with Zhaolong (who told me he went by “Jacky”), we simply met
in Union Grounds for sake of convenience and to simply get to know one another
a little bit. However, before we met, I noticed a few things about his English
that influenced the ways in which I communicated with him in conversation both
consciously and subconsciously. First, I knew through his email diction that
his vocabulary was fairly strong (he used words like “convenience” and “communicate”),
but I also noticed that he struggled with grammatical structures as he used the
noun form of a word as an adjective and made other minor errors (such as“grate”
for “grateful”). Thus, I came in with the knowledge that I was speaking with
someone who was intelligent but also with the assumption that I needed to be
clear in my speech.
The
beginning of our conversation was quite formal. Jacky, reading the context of a
random person emailing him several times to try to meet him, knew that I had a
reason for meeting with him aside from simply wanting to get to know him. Thus,
he opened by asking me, “So, you have an interest in Chinese culture?” While a
start that counteracted the type of relationship I wanted to have with him, I allowed
myself to seize the opportunity to ask specifically about Chinese humor—letting
him know that I was particularly interested in him as a person as well. He
responded by saying that the most popular form of humor in the region of China
from which he hails (Southern China where both Mandarin and Cantonese are
spoken) contains a lot of political satire. Due to the preconceived notions of
Chinese government I had from my United States background, I found this piece
of information fascinating. Believing that the Chinese government held onto
many of the Communist ideas and structures of its past, I had assumed that
making jabs at the government would be met with heavy punitive measures and,
thus, be avoided. When Jacky revealed this form of humor to me, it opened my
mind to the notion that perhaps China is further removed from its stricter
regimes of the past than I previously thought, but I did not have the courage
to inquire further on this subject so as not to insult Jacky with the stereotypes
I intended to rid myself of.
On
another note, the revelation that political satire held popularity in China
gave the two of us great common ground since such humor imbeds itself within
the American culture as well, perhaps as one of the most popular forms of
comedy in the country. So I asked if he had seen Saturday Night Live and if
similar shows existed in China. He informed me that he had not seen the show
but that shows of the sort held popularity in China; he mentioned one in
particular, but its name I cannot recall. Jacky also mentioned that the largest
source of jokes in China is internet memes. Once again, I found that our two
cultures were on much closer fields of thought and interests than I had
previously thought.
While
the conversation went on to cover a much greater array of topics, I found this
to be the most relevant portion and a part that opened my mind to see Chinese
culture in a much different light. I had always thought of Chinese culture as
reserved in many different aspects (perhaps closer to the culture of Japan with
which I have had more contact). I was surprised to learn that our cultures were
much closer in thought process and, especially, in humor than I had previously
thought.
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