Category Archives: Humor

Vampire’s Favorite Drink – Korean Joke

Nationality: Asian American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Santa Barbara, California
Performance Date: 03/24/2021
Primary Language: English
Language: Mandarin, Korean

Context: I went over to my friend, JK’s, place in Santa Barbara, and we went out for lunch and talked about what we did over Chinese New Year. I asked him if he knew why people wear red and make so much noise over Chinese New Year, and he told me a myth explaining the reasoning behind these things. I also asked him if he knew any jokes, and he told me a joke that his Dad likes to tell people.  

Story: 

JK: “What is a vampire’s favorite drink in the morning?”

Me: “What is it?”

JK: “코피 (Kopi)” *grins*

Background: This joke is one that JK says is a dad joke and one that his own father uses frequently on people. The word for “blood” in Korean is 피 (pi), and 코 (ko) in Korean means “nose”. Since vampires drink blood, their favorite drink would be from a bloody nose. However, when you put 코 (nose) and 피 (blood) together in Korean, it sounds like kopi (coffee) in English, which is the punchline of the joke. 

Covering One’s Ears to Steal a Bell – Chinese Joke

Nationality: Asian American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Performance Date: 03/17/2021
Primary Language: English
Language: Korean, Cantonese

Context: This joke was told by one of my coworkers at a boba place. We had closed early that day and the manager had brought us pizza, so we ate and took turns telling jokes. I chimed in and asked if I could use one of them for my folklore project, to which my coworker (KC) agreed. 

Story: 

KC: “Okay so this joke is one that I found really funny, but I think I found it funny cause it just seemed really stupid. So there was this guy who wanted to steal this huge bell from a rival clan in China.  This bell was very important to the rival clan. There was a problem though because the bell was very big and lugging it around would be too obvious due to the noise it would make. So after sitting around for a while and thinking about how to steal the bell, he came up with what he thought was a brilliant idea. He used two pieces of cloth to plug his ears because he thought that this would reduce the sound that the bell made and that no one would be able to hear it. He started to carry the bell away, and people soon stormed in and caught him in the act.”

Background: My coworker learned about this joke from her father two weeks prior to telling it to us at work. She really likes the joke because she “didn’t get the punch line at first when [her] father first told her, but upon realizing what the thief actually did, [she] kept laughing for a few minutes”. According to her observation of the reaction that people have after she tells them the joke, they either “snort of the sheer stupidity of the thief if they get the joke right away or chuckle for a long time after realizing the punchline. 

Thoughts: When my coworkers and I were told the joke, a few of us got the punchline immediately and snorted at the same time, which made everything even funnier. I went home to tell the joke to my father, who laughed and said the joke was actually really popular in China and there was actually a Chinese idiom that was made because of the joke. The idiom, 掩耳盗铃, means to cover one’s ears while stealing a bell and is supposed to tell people not to deceive themselves with stupidity and to think things through before doing them. 

The Kohen Joke

Nationality: American
Age: 88
Occupation: Retired; Former Physician
Residence: Baltimore, MD
Performance Date: May 2, 2021
Primary Language: English
Language: Yiddish

Main piece: Man goes to his Rabbi and tells him there’s something he’s always wanted to be. Rabbi says, “What’s that?” He says, “I want to be a Kohen.” Rabbi says, “You want to be a Kohen? I can’t make you a Kohen. Why do you want to be a Kohen?” He says “I’ve always wanted to be a Kohen,” and he offers any kind of contribution that the Rabbi wants. He says “The shul needs a new roof. I’ll buy a new roof.” Rabbi says, “Now that’s interesting”. The Rabbi thinks about it and says, “Well let me see if I can work something out”. So Rabbi calls him a few days later, and says “I think I found a way to do it, and I think I found a way to make you a Kohen. We’ll have a ceremony in the shul, and I’ll say the bruchas, and I’ll bless you and you’ll be a Kohen.” So they go through all of this, and the man buys them a new roof for the shul. And everyone’s happy. A few months later, the Rabbi says “Tell me. Something’s been bothering me. Why all these years you wanted to be a Kohen so badly?” He says, “Well my grandfather was a Kohen, and my father was a Kohen, so I wanted to be a Kohen too!”

Background: My informant is an eighty-eight year old Jewish man from Baltimore, Maryland, and a Kohen himself. 

Context: The Kohanim are one of the twelve tribes of Israel, who historically took on the position of high priests, as they are said to be descendants of Aaron. Kohanim in modern Jewish settings today still perform blessings over the congregation. Tribal identity within the Jewish faith is established through the patrilineal line – my informant’s grandfather and father were both Kohanim, so my informant is as well. Shul is a yiddish term for synagogue, or place of worship, and bruchas are another word for blessings. 

After telling me the story about pidyon habens, my informant said “Well, I know a joke about Kohens too!” He doesn’t remember where he heard the joke the first time, but he thinks it was a friend who made him laugh.

Analysis: The joke here is that you can’t make anyone a Kohen – it’s a position only earned through birth, and the man who wanted to be a Kohen couldn’t be made one because he was a Kohen all along. It’s both silly because the man made a stupid mistake, but also it reinforces the status quo – that in terms of tribal identity within the Jewish faith, you can’t move up or down in the hierarchy, and become a high priest. Kohanim are believed to be descendants of Aaron, who was Moses’s brother, so it’s an impressive and weighty heritage and tradition. Kohen have privileges and opportunities to bless the congregation when other members do not. People could interpret the Rabbi’s willingness to make the man a Kohen for a new roof as sacrilegious or folly, and are scared because the status quo has been disrupted by a holy man who should know better. However, at the end people laugh out of relief because the man was always a Kohen, and the shul still got a new roof. 

Hudavaoff kinder

Nationality: American
Age: 56
Occupation: Retired; Former Attorney
Residence: Baltimore, MD
Performance Date: May 2, 2021
Primary Language: English

Context: This is a Jewish proverb (spoken in Yiddish). It was said to my father (a fifty-six year old man) growing up, and when he began raising children, he started saying it to us. It is used to treat an otherwise tense situation comedically, a way to blow off steam, and promise their children that one day they will be saying it to their own kids (more as a warning than as actual advice). It is almost always said to the child when they are misbehaving or generally being a nuisance. Children never use the saying, and it is not spoken by people who are not parents or guardians of those children. 

  • Hudavaoff kinder 
    • Transliterated proverb. 
      • Hudavaoff: go raise
      • Kinder: children

Full translation: Go raise children. 

Explanation: When a child is being annoying, disrespectful, or irritating their parents, the parents tell them “go raise children”. Part of the proverb works as an incredulous “Why am I raising these brats?” and the other is “Wait until you have your own children. See how much you like it.” 

Analysis: Hudavaoff kinder works to both let the parents laugh off a situation where their kids are being annoying (this proverb is never spoken in full anger, but rather have annoyance/half incredulity) and lets them tell their children it is time to stop misbehaving before they have to get truly upset with them. On occasions, the parents use the saying to acknowledge that the children are being irritating, but don’t want/need to punish them, and instead use it to laugh along with them. Hudavaoff kinder almost works as a form of delayed revenge; the threat that one day the child is going to become the parent, and they will be the one using the saying on them. As someone who has been on the receiving end of this proverb often, I know it means that I need to dial down whatever I am doing before I get myself in real trouble. However, the threat that one day I will be equally irritated by children of my own has little to no emotional impact. 

A Viola Joke

Nationality: American
Age: 15
Occupation: Student
Residence: Lancaster, CA
Performance Date: April 9, 2021
Primary Language: English

Context:

My informant, AW, is my 15-year-old brother. He has played violin since he was four, and played in many youth orchestras throughout his life. In many orchestras, the violists are considered the black sheep of the group and many jokes are made at their expense, especially by violinists, their rivals. This piece was collected during an informal interview at home when I asked my brother about rituals or practices within orchestras. I refer to myself as SW in the text.

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Main Text:

AW: “Violists are the worst, scum of the earth.”

SW: “Know any good viola jokes?”

AW: “Did you hear about the violist who played in tune? Yeah me neither.”

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Informant analysis:

SW: “Do violists participate in making viola jokes, or are they supposed to be annoyed by viola jokes?”

AW: “In general… the general consensus is that… well ok there can be both. If you’re a cool violist, you participate. If you are… a violist, you get annoyed by it… They’re kinda like the middle child of the entire orchestra. Violin section is the younger child who gets everything they want and deserve. Or not deserve – everything they want and don’t deserve, and gets away with everything. Cellists are the older brothers that have to take up the entire… like the older sibling that have to take up the entire like… weight of the orchestra. And then violists are… there, I guess.”

SW: “But how do you learn you’re supposed to make fun of violists?”

AW: “Um… by… honestly by seeing other people make fun of violists. Nobody really actually thinks that violas are bad, they just are, because everyone says they are.”

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Analysis:

Viola jokes are one of the most common types of humor to spread around orchestras, especially youth orchestras. My brother and I are both violinists, so we have a special love of viola jokes since we are the ones who are supposed to “hate” our sworn rivals, the violists. Many violists started as violinists, and they are generally seen as “less good” violinists. The joke itself works on this principle – while violinists are expected to always be in tune, no one can ever find a violist who plays in tune. The entire orchestra will recognize viola jokes as a common musician humor format, and it often turns into a round of rapid fire viola jokes to see who has the best one. As AW stated, it is less about anybody thinking people who play viola are actually bad musicians. More likely, it is because the viola is an awkward instrument that never gets the melody, and is therefore an easy target.