Informant Data:

The informant is an American who was born in Riverside, California in 1956. He owns a construction company and currently resides in Los Angeles, California.

Contextual Data:

My informant heard four jokes from a friend of his and he wanted to share the jokes with me. The following is one of these jokes. It’s worthy of noting that my informant chuckled after telling the joke. When asked why he found the joke funny, my informant said that he didn’t know why the joke appealed to him, but said it was just “stupid humor.”

Item:

“How do you blindfold a Chinese person? Put floss over their eyes.”

Analysis:

This seems to speak to a stigma against Chinese people prevalent in present-day American society. The joke seems to be a negative, condescending remark on the tendency for some people in some East Asian cultures to have smaller eyes. This is a good example of Blason populaire, or folklore items that play off of stereotypes.