What do Taiwanese find funny?

My MIL asked me today what the Taiwanese sense of humor was like, and I couldn’t come up with a good basic summary other than to comment that many comedy shows seem to feature adults dressed up in school uniforms acting out skits.

So…in three sentences or less (no run-ons, please!), what is the Taiwanese sense of humor?

From my experience in movie theaters, just about everything, including most ordinarily sad things.

Foreigners? Maybe it’s just me, but they seem to like to point and laugh…

Ok, on a more serious note. I asked my wife-to-be and she said, “不知道.”
But from casual observation: Adults making idiots of themselves (but that’s universal, innit?), not Jacky Chan, the sort of skits you see on Japanese TV (basically anything where someone is sabotaged without knowing it and made a fool of) and candid camera sort of skits seem to go down well. English language comedy doesn’t seem to go down well, but that could be because of the language barrier and alot being lost in translation and cultural difference.

For example, my SO didn’t find that movie with Matthew McConaughy still living with his parents at 35 funny at all. Guess because that’s normal here, and so she couldn’t relate to why an adult guy living with his parents is laughable. And like myself (and this is in no way taking a shot at Americans) she seems to relate to British comedy more than American comedy. She enjoyed “Snatch” about as much as I did.

SlapStick.
Highly overacted anything.
People being stupid. (or at least pretending to be stupid)

Nothing - unless there are zany sound effects to indicate that something is funny. Boing, boing. Wazza wazza wazza.

Smutty, earthy, scatological, and non-PC.

Me, when I’m drunk …

Taiwanese enjoy self deprecating humor: “I’m too fat to care about what I eat.”

Taiwanese enjoy sexually explicit jokes that they would never repeat in mixed company.

While they laugh easily, they do so as a defense mechanism IMHO most of the time in situations of conflict; however they are also able to laugh at their own shortcomings in a way I don’t truly understand.

I love my in-laws; they crack me up, especially when my MIL speaks English to me. “Shit down, jd.” :smiley:

judging by the pet forums…animal abuse?

Right on with the sound effects. Don’t forget the laugh tracks.

On a related note, I loved the musical background (probably just someone playing with an electronic keyboard) during the mayoral campaign speeches. When one candidate talked about the other party, the background music would switch all of a sudden to the scary kind. Gotta love it!

One thing I’ve never heard in Taiwan is someone telling a joke. I don’t mean humorous observations, they have those. And they have obviously skits, and teasing, and all sorts of other things.

But prepared jokes? Like, “Why did the chicken cross the road”? None, ever.

Is there no concept of that here?

Is there a difference between ‘amusing’ and funny?

[quote=“Brendon”]One thing I’ve never heard in Taiwan is someone telling a joke.[/quote]Really? People do tell actual jokes, I assure you.

Some of my students are starting to understand my British sense of humour, which is quite gratifying. Unless they’re just laughing to get in teacher’s good books.

I heard several today.
What I love is when someone tells a joke in English that makes absolutely no sense until they tell it in Chinese.

Are dumplings male or female? How can you tell?
Dumplings are male. They come in a wrapper.

Wrapper/ Pi.

other peoples pain

No, that’s an Australian trait…

Humor is the same everywhere - bent logic. I used to catch this long-run bus from the front of NCCU to Academia Sinica, and became close friends with one of the regular drivers, Mr Pan. Pan gege is deep green and the two of us used to spend hours discussing local politics. Anyway, one night while we’re travelling back from Nangang, just after the 2004 presidential election, he turns on the radio to one of those shock jock stations the conservatives run, and out of the speaker comes this atavistic blast from the past: “Fan gong, fan gong, fan gong da lu qu…” The two of us burst into laughter. After that, he taught me the whole fucking song, which he’d had drilled into him as a kid in rural Taiwan. The two of us were nearly in tears by the end of the trip. Meanwhile the handfull of other passengers thought it was just to weird to engage with…

df

The two pees. Puns and poohs. I had a bright student do the grammar/grandma switch.

Some Taiwanese laugh at the ‘cold’ jokes.

Laugh tracks aren’t exclusively Taiwanese. No one would know some Western comedies were intended to be funny if it weren’t for the laugh tracks.

Last night we opened Christmas gifts. There are several adults in the family, so we did a gift exchange. One of my wife’s sisters, the most elegant of all of us, opened a small gift from her big brother. She looked as if she was expecting something really fancy, as everyone else had gotten a really nice gift. After the paper was off, she saw what she thought was new cell phone. Opening the box, big bro had filled it with cookies and candy. It took her about thirty seconds to get over her shock, then dig around and find the red envelope with cash in it. Sort of one of those “you had to be there” moments, but we were laughing our asses off at the look on her face when she opened that box. That big bro is always pulling stuff like that, calling to impersonate someone from the tax office, or telling people who ring the buzzer that we didn’t call for a plumber, etc.

Many of the people I’ve done business with here, and a number of friends and relatives, are great joke tellers. I often end up interpreting joke (often dirty) after joke in mixed foreign/Taiwanese groups. Both sides laugh at the jokes of the other side.

Sure, irony is a bit lost on Taiwanese people, but overall, I find humor to be alive and well here.

Morning
Nine Nine
How How
One

(Have a Taiwanese friend read this out loud a few times)

This one was taught to me by a kiddie class student - used to make my adult Taiwanese friends piss themselves. A very good example of “dee-gee” humor, so popular in Taiwan.