Japan and Sarcasm
Although I sometimes wish otherwise, my personality can be a little on the sarcastic side. For example, if I saw a movie that didn't meet my expectations for some reason, I might describe it as the best movie I'd seen all year just for the sake of irony. Or if my wife praised me for helping her aunt who runs an export business and who loves having an American in the family to check her terrible English for free, I might channel Homer Simpson: "Oh, look at me! I'm making someone happy! I'm the Magical Man from Happy-Land, in a gumdrop house on Lollipop Lane!" That brand of humor doesn't exist in Japanese at all, and when I started dating my wife we actually had to go through a period of "humor training" where she learned not to take my American sarcasm at face value. My style of wry humor naturally influences my kids, since children are constantly watching their parents and subconsciously copying them. When my son was suffering through a particularly boring lesson at his school, he remarked to his friend what an "interesting" lesson it was, and how the information they were learning was something they'd all treasure throughout their lives. His friend didn't understand him at first, and it took several seconds for them to realize that he was making a joke, but one that was culturally alien to Japan.
posted by Peter in Japan at 8:24 PM
11 Comments:
It's good that you're passing down sarcasm in your family, but how would Japanese parents react to sarcasm from their children?
10:31 PM
It's not a positive thing, and I hope it didn't sound like I was saying it was. I actually talk with my son about having the proper outlook, e.g. realistic but not cynical, snarky if you want to be snarky but not so that others would feel it was rude. It was an interesting cultural little lesson though, jokes that an American would understand not being immediately intelligible to a Japanese person.
11:56 PM
Wow, I can't imagine how long it would take me to install a new mental filter to tone down my everyday level of sarcasm and snark.
3:18 AM
omg, that would be the hardest thing of living in Japan I've heard. Among my friends sarcasm is the regular way of saying things.
Simpsons is like 40% of my lifestyle while Anime is another...like 30%, I'd say. I have always wondered how their episodes are translated in Japanese, I'd like to watch an episode in Japanese when I learn the language. I've watched many seasons in English and the Latin versions are very similar except for the regional jokes, sometimes in the show mention persons or things that are not well known in Latin America and only few understand the joke, I think in Japan that would be even worse.
4:08 AM
Oh man I'm all about sarcastic humor especially since I'm such a smartass. I wonder how well a show such as "married with children" would fly in japan.
7:06 AM
Heh. We were debating how Japanese would understand the "over 9000" meme.
5:33 PM
My wife has a good grasp of sarcasm and other kinds of English humor, but there is an "appropriate time" and "inappropriate time" as to when its okay to use them, which is much different then ours. I'd say that we are much more liberal in that sense, being that almost any time is an "appropriate" time to spread the sarcasm. Not true with my wife ^_^. But its okay, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, right? ;)
9:01 AM
Humour is so radically different between American and Japanese cultures. As one friend commented recently, you're more likely to get a guy hitting another with a slipper in J-comedy. To be fair, we don't get theirs either. However, being Canadian, I can appreciate both British and American styles, which can also seem so different. One form the Japanese do well is parody. At least that bridges cultures!
2:18 PM
I can just see it too from Al Bundy from married with children, he got so obsessed with the toilet in later seasons, he would be in heaven with the "high tech" japanese toilets.
9:53 PM
I wish you had posted this last year! It was 3 months into my life in Japan before I tried a sarcastic comment. Probably another month before I realized why my comments were confusing my Japanese coworkers. :-(
3:37 PM
Sarcasm works well in any language. Of course, Japanese sarcasm has a very different CONTEXT than American sarcasm. I found out it is very typical of Americans blaming Japanese people on not having grasp on sarcasm. Truth is japanese people with no grasp of American culture wil hardly understand American jokes. It works the same the other way around as you should have found out after being related with a Japanese yourself.
8:51 AM
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