Tag Archives: Joke

Timur and the Swimming Challenge — Turkish Joke

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Bay Area, California
Performance Date: April 30th, 2021
Primary Language: English
Language: Turkish

Main Piece:

But just there’s a guy [Timur], he’s another hero or something. And so this guy is again, think of it as a city— a modern city— and they live next to the beach. And so this guy is like, talking about how good he is at swimming and he’s like, “I’m such a good swimmer, I know so much about it.”

And then his friend next to him is like, “Alright, then go swim.” 

And they’re like okay, so they both go to the sea, and he starts swimming, and then his friend is like: 

“Hmm okay this guy can swim. Well, obviously I’m better than this guy.” So he’s like, “I can jump from a diving board into the pool. I know we’re at the sea but not only I can swim in a pool, but I can jump into it from a diving board.”

And so Timur is like, “Okay, let’s see you do it.” 

So [the friend] goes and jumps from a diving board, and [Timur’s] like:

“Well I can jump from a ten foot diving board.”

And he’s like alright— well his friend— is like, “Well go do it.” 

So [Timur] goes up ten feet, goes to the board, he jumps and he successfully lands! 

And [his friend] like, “What the fuck, what’s going on? How?!” And then he’s like: “Okay well guess what, Timur? I can jump from a two story building, and I’ll be just fine!” 

And Timur looks at him and he’s like, “Go do it, dude.” 

And [his friend]’s like, “Alright.”

So he goes up and he goes to the two story building. He’s looking down, and he’s like, “Alright, I’m gonna do this.” And he jumps… and he makes it! He’s perfectly fine. 

And Timur’s like “Huh? That’s B.S! I don’t know what happened there!” 

And he goes to his friend and he’s like, all mad and he’s like, “I don’t understand this. I can jump into a freaking wine bottle from twenty feet high!”

And his friend’s like, he just stands there for a second, and he’s like, “Do it.” 

And [Timur’s] like “Fine!” So he goes up twenty feet and getting ready and into position, and he jumps! And his friend is furiously looking at him, and as he’s jumping down, he looks at the bottle and he says, “I hope you freaking die!” And he kicks the bottle!

Background: 

My informant is one of my friends from high school, and is of Turkish heritage. Growing up, he often remembered hearing various Turkish sayings and narrative stories from his parents and extended family. This is another popular character he heard about, a guy named Timur, although my informant notes that Timur isn’t actually Turkish, yet he still appears in the stories and jokes. This was another of my informant’s favorite Turkish joke stories, and when I asked him what the lesson was, he said the point is to not be gullible like Timur, and not to be arrogant, or it’ll have negative consequences. 

Context: 

This came after my informant gave me another piece of folklore for the archive, and I asked if he had any other jokes, because I really enjoyed the first one he gave me, to which he then provided the above piece.

Thoughts: 

What I liked about this piece is that we once again see the way that humor is being used as a way to teach lessons to anyone listening to the story. The increasing absurdity of the challenges between Timur and his friend serve as a way to exaggerate the way that people in real life tend to try and make themselves seem bigger than they are, all out of arrogance and a need to be the best at everything. At the same time, it’s a lesson in learning how to be modest; if Timur hadn’t bragged about his swimming skills, he wouldn’t have met his unfortunate end, and his friend wouldn’t have turned on him. I think it was clever to see that these lessons were taught by heightening the comedic scenarios, because it makes us reflect on what we know is real and what’s not.  Additionally, the telling of this story— or at least the way my informant told me— shows that this joke can be rephrased in order to appeal to different kinds of audiences without losing the meaning of the lesson.

The Three Brothers and the Pear Tree

Nationality: Mexican-American
Age: 53
Occupation: Administrative Assistant
Residence: Bay Area, California
Performance Date: May 3rd, 2021
Primary Language: Spanish
Language: English

Main Piece:

Tres hermanos que iban caminando por un campo llevaban ya varías horas de camino y traían mucha hambre, y mucha sed. Y todavía les faltaba para llegar a su casa. Entonces a lo lejo vieron un arbol de peras, con muchas peras. Entonces dice uno de los hermanos, “Ay vamos,” dice, “Ya veo un arbol de peras. Vamos a comerlas.” Y ya se fueron caminando. Entonces dijeron, “Vamos a acostarnos un rato.” Y entonces se acostaron y se empezaron a relajar, y los tres estaban mirando hacía arriba a esas peras tan grandes y tan jugosas. Y el hermano numero uno dijo, “Ay que bonitas peras.” Y el hermano numero dos dijo “Uy, quién las pudiera bajar?” Y el hermano numero tres dijo “Uy, quién las pudiera comer?” 

Full Translation: 

There are three brothers that were walking in a field, and had been walking for several hours and were very hungry and very thirsty, and they still had a ways to go before going home. So far off, they see a pear tree with lots of pears. One brother says, he says, “Ay, it’s a pear tree. Let’s go eat them.” And so they go walking to it. And then they said, “Well, let’s lie down for a little.” So they lie down and start relaxing, and they’re looking up at the pears, the very big pears, very juicy. And so the first brother says, “Ay what pretty pears,” and the second brother says, “Ooh, who could get them down?” And the third brother says, “Ooh, who could eat them?”

Background: 

My informant is my mother, who grew up in Mexico. This was a joke that she often heard from her father, who heard it from his father (my mother’s grandfather). When I asked her what the message behind the joke was, she said “the joke here is that all three are very very lazy. The first [brother] just admired them. The second asked who could get them down, and the third is so lazy he couldn’t even chew, that’s why he asked who could eat them.” My mother said that the moral lesson is that if you want something, you have to pursue it, and you can’t just let an opportunity sit in front of you without doing anything, which is what my grandfather always emphasized whenever he told her the joke.

Context: 

This came up when I was asking my mother what kinds of jokes she used to hear when she was growing up in Mexico, and this was one that was told frequently in her household. 

Thoughts: 

This is a joke that my mother occasionally told me when I was growing up, and I thought it was interesting to see how it’s been passed down through the generations in my family, although I’m not sure where it was first heard. I think this joke is a good way to teach the notion that laziness isn’t going to get you anywhere, and I liked that it set up three different levels of laziness. First there’s the brother that only admired the pears without, which could be seen as fantasizing over something you want. The second brother, instead of trying to pick the pear himself, wanted someone else to do the work for him, but still reap the reward, and the third brother was so lazy that he couldn’t even gather the motivation to pick the pears, much less eat them. This joke pokes fun at the characters’ foolishness, and each one could easily be compared to someone in real life who is exhibiting the same behavior as the brothers.

Joke: Saving it for Later

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: The Woodlands, TX
Performance Date: April 22nd, 2021
Primary Language: English

Main Piece: 

Informant: “My grandpa, he had this big bushy moustache and so he would always get food stuck in it. And people would like point it out, like if my mom was like ‘Hey, you have something in your moustache’ he’d be like ‘Hm. Saving it for later.’”

Background:

My informant acknowledged that he had heard this as a running joke from other people with thick facial hair. His grandfather was the person that he heard it most consistently from. We agreed that this was predominantly a running joke for older men- a “dad joke” that carried over into grandfatherhood and older. My informant interpreted the joke as a stock response to disarm and make light of the potential embarrassment.

Thoughts:

The prevalence of this joke is what piqued my interest with this entry. It’s not an overly clever joke, a story that you can teach another to tell, or overtly based in identity like many widely proliferated jokes are. The greatest potential for meaning came from its folk group, older men with thick facial hair. This is a group united by its masculinity. This joke could be interpreted as a shrugging off of embarrassment, as my informant and I initially thought, that also celebrates the speaker’s masculinity, messiness, and lack of care. 

Chinese Food & Jewish Christmas + a Joke

Nationality: United States of America
Age: 56
Occupation: Microbiologist
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 04/25/2020
Primary Language: English

Main Piece:

How would you describe this tradition?

“For American Jewry, frequently if they don’t have friends or family to spend Christmas with, they needed somewhere to go on Christmas when everything was closed, and one thing that seemed to be open was Chinese food restaurants, which were not closed on Christmas. And there’s a joke that goes along with this: If it’s the Jewish year 5749 and the Chinese year 4257, what did the Jews do for 1276 years? All my numbers are wrong, but it works because the Jewish calendar is older than the Chinese calendar. And this tradition is national.”

Context/Background:

The informant is my father. He was raised culturally Jewish, and his career is within the science field. This information was collected during a family zoom call where we were checking in with each other. Jewish people tend to not celebrate Christmas because anything related to the figure of Jesus isn’t a part of Jewish scripture. 

Analysis:

I have consumed Dim Sum (a category of Chinese food) every Christmas day for as long as I can remember. A tradition that emerged out of convenience became something to look forward to every year. If my family sees other non-Chinese people at the Dim Sum restaurant on Christmas, we probably know them because they’re members of our synagogue. The joke emphasizes how widespread this tradition is, and how reliant Jews have become on Chinese food to feed themselves every Christmas. Getting Chinese food on Christmas has become a stereotype, so much so that even some Jewish Channukah merchandise includes images of Chinese takeout. 

Proverb Puns

Nationality: United States of America
Age: 56
Occupation: Microbiologist
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 04/25/2021
Primary Language: English

Main Piece

“My grandpa would tell us the following: ‘You can lead a horse to water, but a pencil must be lead.’ (laughs) The companion one was ‘A bird in the hand makes blowing your nose very difficult.’” 

What did they mean to you?

“The first thing they meant was that they were funny. Clearly it was about poking fun at old and real proverbs. But also to emphasize that you should be happy with what you’ve got. But mostly it was about being funny (laughs).”

Context: 

The informant is my father. He was raised Jewish and grew up on the East Coast of the United States. This information was collected during a family zoom call where we were checking in with each other.

Analysis:

These punny proverbs subvert the “original” ones and give them new meaning. If you don’t know the original proverbs (“you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink” and “a bird in the hand is better than two in the bush”), these jokes wouldn’t be funny to you. If you are familiar with these proverbs, the unexpected punchline will elicit a giggle. This remix of original proverbs is a microcosm of how people manipulate and change “canonical” content, make it their own, and share it with others.