Japanese Humor

[Yair Lahav]

I tried to see if there has been any prior thread on Japanese humor on the Forum but my search came up empty-handed. It is a topic that very much interests me and I wonder if the members have any Japanese jokes they could share here.

[thomas]

I have to ask Nahoko if she has any classic Japanese jokes at hand. There are two Usenet groups dedicated to Japanese humour:

fj.jokes (Joke and humour from Japan)
fj.jokes.d (Discussion about jokes from Japan)

[Yair Lahav]

Thanks for the Usenet addresses!

[deborah gormley]

some excellent jokes there hehehe:clap:



definately worth the read lolol

[Yair Lahav]

Which one was your favorite?:)

[deborah gormley]

ahhh! yair it had to be "johny and the little boy" I laughted for 10 mins
:emblaugh:

the other one I enjoyed was "your gona die":clap:

I'm just sorry I cant read the rest, maybe someone will translate and e-mail them to me lolol

[Yair Lahav]

I missed both. Where did you find them?

[deborah gormley]

@ yair, got them on the 1st site of thomas's fj.jokes (jokes and humour from japan), theres not many in english and thoses where my fav 2. It came up as outlook express,

[thomas]

"Imperial jokes"

=> http://www.japantoday.com/e/?content=kuchikomi&id=184

[Yair Lahav]

Deb,

For some reason, my Outlook and Explorer (Mac editions) refuse to handle any newsgroups in Japanese and I haven't had the time to look into this misbehavior. I had to use Mozilla and for some reason I did not see the English postings. If you happened to save them, could you share it with us?

BTW, most of the Japanese postings there are personal bantering, humorous remarks and puns; not a lot of jokes per se...

[Yair Lahav]

Thomas,

Prince Takamado probably cries back the bad old times under the Tokugawa Shogunate. It is true that the Imperial household was practically under house arrest but at least they were not exposed to journalists, not mentioning other manifestations of today's relaxed attitudes... :)

[thomas]

...other manifestations of today's relaxed attitudes...I love your choice of words, Yair.
:)

I'm just happening to read Princess Chichibu's memoirs "The Silver Drum". Although she wasn't as restricted as other members of the imperial family, her book affords an interesting insight into the tenno's household. I'll post more about it.

[Yair Lahav]

I haven't read the memoirs you mentioned. I have to go to Kinokuniya today anyhow, and I'll see if they have it.

Something else:
Have you read the Tarepanda books? They are Japanese humor at its best; one cannot decide whether they are more charming or more hilarious.

Other:
Have anybody around likes rakugo? I was surprised to see how many good rakugo videos are available.

Sometimes I wish the price of the Japanese videos or CDs would be a bit less...

[thomas]

Originally posted by Yair Lahav
I haven't read the memoirs you mentioned. I have to go to Kinokuniya today anyhow, and I'll see if they have it.

Something else:
Have you read the Tarepanda books? They are Japanese humor at its best; one cannot decide whether they are more charming or more hilarious.I just noticed that Kinokuniya maintains a store in your area. You are blessed having them in close vicinity.

I just knew these tarepanda stickers, I wasn't aware of their books. I have to admit they're really cute.
:)

[deborah gormley]

@ Yair ;Little Johnny was walking down the road one day and an
old man was sitting on his front porch rocking back and
forth in his rocking chair.

The old man said, 'Whatcha got there, son?'

Johnny said, 'Got me some chicken wire.'

'Whatcha gonna do with that chicken wire, son?' asked
the old man.

'Gonna catch me some chickens,' said Johnny.

'You can't catch chickens with chicken wire,' said the
oldster.

Johnny just shrugged his shoulders and walked on down
the street.

About half an hour later, Johnny came back passing the
old man's front porch with three chickens entangled in
the chicken wire. The old man was shocked and couldn't
believe his eyes.

A little later Johnny passed the old man's porch. 'Whatcha
got now, son?'

'Got me some duct tape.'

'And whatcha gonna do with that duct tape?' the old
man asked.

'Gonna catch me some ducks.'

'You can't catch ducks with duct tape,' said the old
man. Johnny just shrugged his shoulders and kept on walking.


About half an hour later, back comes Johnny with three
ducks tangled in the duct tape. Again, the old man rubbed
his eyes in disbelief.

Half an hour later, Johnny was again passing the old
man's porch.

'Whatcha got now, son?' asked the old codger.

'Got me some pussy willow.'

The old man said, 'Wait right there while I get my shoes!'


Yair this is the one I found most amuseing and Thomas is going to kill me,lolol

:bow:

[thomas]

:D :D

[deborah gormley]

@ Yair I'm trying to locate the other one and as yet no luck in finding it,lolol


:D

@ thomas I really hope you didnt mind me posting the joke, I just wanted Yair to see it:bow:

[Yair Lahav]

Deb,

:D :D

[Yair Lahav]

Thomas,

Sure I am truly blessed: Kinokuniya actually has two stores within a two hours' driving distance. The one in Edgewater, NJ, is smaller but it has a huge Japanese supermarket next door (plus a few really good restaurants). Their Manhattan store is very big and has an enormous selection. One of the very few advantages of living in this area...

On the other hand, you cannot get normal bread or pastry on the entire East Coast...

[moyashi]

translate this:

this morning, every morning

this time into Japanese::

Don't touch my moustache



sushi-bar jokes.

[moyashi]

ooops forgot.

Japanese gags.

take peanuts stick them in your nose and then blow them out at people.
stick chopsticks in your nose
take a slipper and whack everyone with it, especially on the forehead
take a cheap tin ashtray and hit yourself in the forhead with it
run around in new white briefs with an elephant drawn on front
make kanji with your body
make funny gestures and laugh hilariously

hmmm those seem to be the standard routines

[Yair Lahav]

>>take a cheap tin ashtray and hit yourself in the forhead with it <<

Well, it is pretty close to dancing around with a lamp shade on the head at our office parties. In regard to the other ways to gross out your audience, your guys over there and our fraternity guys over here could make a rather fruitful conference of idea exchange. Just don't count on my attendance...

[Yair Lahav]

translate this:

this morning, every morning

this time into Japanese::

Don't touch my moustache



A lot of possible translations are possible, but let's assume very direct, informal male speech, like at an izagaya:

"Kesa, maiasa, kondo boku no kuchihige wo suwaru na!"

It doesn't make a lot of sense (and much less humor). Neither does "suwaranaide kudasai" or similar polite forms. What is the actual wording your guys use?

[Yair Lahav]

Or is it "suwaru kurenai"? :) :blush:

[Yair Lahav]

"sawatte kurenai". (Could not edit out the misprint 'cause the program timed out on me).

BTW, is there any way to use normal JIS characters for Japanese text on the forum? I use a Mac G4 with Kotoeri input, but my IE Explorer is unwilling to take kana... It does display it from Japanese sites, but it does not accept my kana input. Writing in Romaji is a pain in the behind, because I always tend to make phonetic mistakes like this. Especially when words end in "renai":)

[thomas]

Yair, I really haven't thought about that before, but I've just added SHIFT_JIS metatags to the forum templates. Tell me if you continue to experience problems with Japanese text input.

EDIT: I had to remove these metatags as they were messing up other special characters (French accents etc). I will think of another solution, at least for the Nihongo Forum.

[Yair Lahav]

Thanks, Thomas!

I still have problems and it is increasingly apparent that they are between my IE and Kotoeri. I have to fix that before I can use kana here...

[thomas]

I've found a way of using SHIF_JIS metatags in specific fora. Later today we'll set up a nihongo-only subforum in the Nihongo Lounge. Hopefully, there won't be any problems in writing/displaying/reading kanji and kana.

[Yair Lahav]

Thanks again - very good idea.
Meantime I try to resolve my own problem with Kotoeri in IE. Judging from some posts on the Net, other Mac users seem to have similar problems.

[moyashi]

@yair
You on a PCI or AGP G4? I'm on a pci 400 G4 ... I use OSX and installing other languages is a snap. Would make a lot of users like thomas jealous since I think it does Arabic no problem.

@frat guys.
that was too funny. I should put something together with my buddies. All hell would break loose.

@jokes
come on guys, they're jokes and you're taking them too seriously.
hint:
kesa maiasa .... so far so good. Now repeat this over and over quickly.

the other one:
Don't touch my moustache.
hint ::: think in katakana. Not very funny though actually.

[Yair Lahav]

Moyashi,

"PCI or AGP G4"?

I've got both. However, both use OS9.1 because a bunch of applications I need for my work don't run under OSX...

Re kesa maiasa - hey, those guys over there seem to know English too well!

Re the other one: Katakana, eh? :)

Actually I was trying to read something much more funny in it. I shouldn't have put my dirty mind in full gear...

[moyashi]

@katakana one.
it's a pretty standard Japanese reply.

@applications?
like what are you using? Office? entourage?
Office ... you should checkout www.openoffice.org
entoruage is M$ last bit of strangle hold on PC users.

@dirty mind.
a true american eh!

[Yair Lahav]

>>it's a pretty standard Japanese reply.<<

Those folks in Hokkaido sound to be quite rugged :)

Re applications: the standard commercial stuff, like Office, is OK; the OSX compatibility problems start with the custom-made business software we use.
BTW: I liked very much what I saw on the OpenOffice site. It also shows what a smart step was from Apple to migrate to UNIX. There will be a bunch of developers jumping on this bandwagon.

Re dirty mind - my experience is that nothing is more international than that! Just look at the exploding world population...