Adult humour has its place among mature
Raymond zhou China Daily  Updated: 2006-02-25 07:33

Let's face it: The popularity of short messaging in China has a dirty little secret. It's called "adult humour," more plainly known as sex jokes.

It is almost stereotype-busting that Chinese, who are portrayed in the West as either spouting Confucian epithets or burying heads in books, could have fun with these kind of jokes. But in the past decade it has been an undercurrent of urban culture.

Of course, not everyone enjoys it. Some are appalled. I was one of them when I first came back from years of work and study overseas as a "sea turtle." A friend of mine was putting out naughty dispatches that were more explicit than funny, and he did not seem to care who was in the audience, kids or colleagues.

I agree that, after decades of moral whipping, we Chinese need to loosen up a little, and some verbal horseplay is harmless.

However, everything depends on the occasion. I don't see anything wrong with sharing dirty jokes within an intimate circle of friends. It's human nature.

On other occasions, it could be definitely inappropriate. For example, you won't banter in sexual puns with your parents or your children.

In simple words, one should not share adult humour with anyone who, for whatever reason, is uncomfortable with it. That sounds like common sense.

The new public security law, to be enacted in March, is necessary. It stipulates that anyone who repeatedly sends words of a sexual, insulting or threatening nature to harass others could be arrested. The maximum penalty for the offence is five to 10 days in jail and up to a 500-yuan fine.

I hope it deters those few sick minds who use adult humour to exert psychological coercion on others.

But for most people who use this kind of witticism to create a congenial and close-knit atmosphere, the new law hopefully should not become a wet blanket. Law enforcement officials should not act as moral arbiters and mistake those with occasional improper remarks for those with ulterior motives.

It reminds me of the mid-1990s during the immediate aftermath of the Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill scandal. Many US companies, fearful of sexual harassment lawsuits, hired outside consultants to lecture employees about what's proper and what's not in an office environment.

The one I sat through basically concluded that anything a male employee might say to a female employee could be interpreted as sexual harassment, even if it's just a compliment on her new dress.

After several tedious sessions of such "political indoctrination," I heard some of the Silicon Valley geeks whispering "Nazis" to the brain-washers' backs.

It was a classic case of good intention gone wrong. And that was in a nation where adult jokes - the mild kind - are frequently employed in films and television shows.

In China, adult humour is confined to its grassroots where mobile phones, instant messaging and word of mouth are the main platforms. The boundaries of propriety are observed by individual intuition rather than a collective consciousness.

But we are honing our skills. Even the recent CCTV Spring Festival Gala included a sexual one-liner, when the Chinese word for "specialty" (te chang) was uttered in such an ambiguous way that adults caught on, children were oblivious and those it embarrassed could choose to ignore it.

It is a sign of maturity that humour and witticism of any kind are customized for their target audiences, rather than used indiscriminately or banned.

E-mail: raymondzhou@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 02/25/2006 page4)