The American Sense Of Humour
The Belgian Sense Of Humour
The Chinese Sense Of Humour
The Dutch Sense Of Humour
The English Sense Of Humour
The French Sense Of Humour
The German Sense Of Humour
The Greek Sense Of Humour
The Japanese Sense Of Humour
The Scottish Sense Of Humour
The Spanish Sense Of Humour
The Welsh Sense Of Humour
Americans have a strong taste for slapstick in various forms, and substitute riposte and banter for irony or whimsy, which they tend not to understand.
Because everyone has ancestors, family and friends of every possible race, colour, creed and national origin, and because sensitivity to such differences has reached unprecedented tenderness in recent years, it is considered rude to tell a joke that perpetuates an ethnic, social, religious, sexual, or racial stereotype. Pat and Mike, Rastus and Festus, the drunk priest, the Polish bridegroom, the silly blonde - all are now off-limits, at least in public. That still leaves plenty of material for humour, such as occupation, political persuasion, or region of origin. For example:
A Texan was boasting to an Arkansan about his ranch. "Why, my ranch is so big," he said, "that if I start out in my truck in the morning to drive around it, it's night by the time I get home." The Arkansan knodded understandingly and said, "Yep, I had a truck like that once."
The only group to be detested enough to be a suitable butt for barbed humour is lawyers. Lawyers are unpopular because they're only consulted in times of distress, such as during divorce, negligence suits, and second-degree murder defences. Any lawyer joke is sure to draw a laugh. Some lawyer jokes are specific:
Q: Why don't sharks bite lawyers?
A: Professional courtesy.
Q: Why does Arizona have lots of vultures and Washington, D.C.
have lots of lawyers?
A: Arizona got first choice.
Did you hear that medical laboratories have started using lawyers instead of white rats? There are more of them, researchers don't get as attached to them, and there are some things even a laboratory rat just won't do.
Others are merely old ethnic jokes adapted to the needs of the target:
Q: What do you have when you have two lawyers buried up to their necks in sand?
A: Not enough sand.
Politicians are also fair game, but since approximately two-thirds of the nation's congressional representatives are law school graduates, such jokes are really just a subset of the 'lawyer' canon.
Perhaps the most characteristic expression of American humour is the snappy retort. A classic example comes from comedian Jack Benny, famous for his parsimony.
A criminal pointed a gun at Benny and said, "Your money or your life." Benny hesitated a few moments and answered, "I'm thinking, I'm thinking."
Xenophobes Guide To The Americans, Stephanie Faul, Oval Books, ISBN 1-902825-18-0
The Belgians like a good laugh. Professional comedians tend to play on puns and quick-fire repartee: "Tongue? Yuck! The idea of eating something that has been in a cow's mouth disgusts me." "Do you eat eggs then?"
The commonly peddled set-piece jokes are often somewhat leaden, and are usually met with a patient smile and a polite chuckle. What really gets Belgians laughing around the table in a bar or restaurant is the real-life tale of some incident that happened at work, in the train, in the supermarket, at the hospital - stories of confusion, mistaken identity, tales of the antics of well known 'characters'. Here is an example:
One day in a commuter train, where everyone knows just about everyone else, the people chatter or play cards, a prim, elderly lady took out her handkerchief to blow her nose. She waved the handkerchief to unfold it, but it slipped from her clasp and floated to rest on the lap of an old man slumbering on the seat opposite. Unfortunately, as everyone was aware, his flies were undone. Fellow passengers spotted the elderly lady's predicament, and watched eagerly to see her next move. She hesitated, then leant forward to retrieve her handkerchief. As she did so, the old man woke up, and saw all faces turned towards him. Looking about him in sleep befuddled panic, he realised that his flies were undone. Hastily he pulled the zip up, stuffing the handkerchief into the opening as it closed. The elderly lady was caught in mid-movement...
It would be unfair to say that the Belgians cannot laugh at themselves, but they do not make a babit of telling jokes about themselves either. Why make yourself the butt of a good joke when you can tell it about the Flemish/Walloons instead?
Xenophobes Guide To The Belgians, Antony Mason, Oval Books, ISBN 1-902825-19-5
The Chinese like puns, wordplay, tricky variations on well-known phrases which tickle their immagination. They like gently making others feel uncomfortable with innuendo, so that the shy and inexperienced blush and giggle. They like slapstick, they like banana-skin jokes, and they love to see the proud humbled in anecdote. They like long stories which end without punchlines, they feel somehow that inconsequence must at least be vaguely amusing.
At a live performance Chinese audiences do not usually react or clap, except in the case of a particularly famous performer or much-loved piece. But if an actor makes a mistake or something goes wrong with the scenery, everyone laughs uproariously.
One of their much-loved comic characters is Afanti, a man of the minority Uighur people.
One day Afanti goes to his landlord and asks to borrow a wok as he has guests coming and his own one is not big enough to cook all the food in. The landlord says yes, and a few days later Afanti returns bringing two woks, the original and a tiny one. "While I had it in my care your wok gave birth to this little one, so I am returning that as well", he says. The landlord gleefully accepts the simpleton's offering. Some time later Afanti again comes and asks if he can borrow the landlord's biggest wok and of course is told yes. Many days go by and eventually Afanti returns empty handed and sad of face. "Alas, your poor wok!" he laments, "It died." "What nonesense, everyone knows that woks can't die." "If they can give birth they can surely die," says Afanti, and calmly walks away.
Xenophobes Guide To The Chinese, J.C. Yang, Oval Books, ISBN 1-902825-22-5
The Dutch sense of humour relishes mishap and mayhem, rather than verbal acrobatics. Someone falling through his chair on to the floor will get a bigger laugh than the bravest pun. Uncle Theo disappearing and coming back in Aunt Miep's frock goes down a great deal better than attempts at witty banter around the dinner table. Running through all this knockabout jollity is a tough, cruel streak. A good dollop of suffering and humiliation will have a Dutch audience on its knees with mirth. Despite their disdain for most things German, the Dutch revel in Schadenfreude.
A whiff of naughtiness and the violation of the odd taboo are also common ingredients for a good laugh. If they weren't so wary of being politically incorrect, the Dutch would adore Benny Hill. Many secretly do.
The Dutch are too frank to dabble in irony. They will take what you say at face value and interpret your carefully honed ironies as error, insult or sarcasm. But they do share with the English an ability to laugh at themselves -
"How was copper wire invented?" "By two Dutchmen fighting over a stuiver (a copper 5c piece)".
The more refined brands of Dutch humour are dry, and delight in absurdity and in turning social values topsy turvy. At times this becomes a gentle national whimsy, of the sort that results in city councils having trams covered in cartoons and bright designs, but there are strains of this humour that can leave the foreigner nonplussed:
"Good God!" cries a nouveau riche, eyeing his hostess's cocktail frock and bringing party conversation to a halt: "What a fine fabric. It would make a wonderful dress!"
The most gezellig (cosy togetherness) of all forms of humour is the good story, especially if it knocks about a little with traditional Dutch values:
On the occassion of their first-born son's first birthday, the proud parents asked him what he would like. "A pink ping-pong ball" was the answer. Respecting his decision, the father scoured Holland for a pink ping-pong ball, and finally found one. For his second birthday, the parents asked again. The two year old asked for a basket of pink ping-pong balls. Mummy and Daddy duly obliged - though with some difficulty. For his third birthday the boy asked for a truck load of pink ping-pong balls. Still his parents respected his decision, though fulfilling the request was almost impossible. When he asked for a roomfull of pink ping-pong balls for his fourth birthday, his father decided to open a pink ping-pong ball factory. He found a niche in the market, and his business met with some success. With each birthday the young lad increased his demand for pink ping-pong balls. Just before his twelfth birthday he was run down by a truck. He lay in hospital, seriously ill, but managed to respond to the question about what he wanted for his birthday in the usual way. Pink ping-pong balls had by now made his parents wealthy, and they decided it would not be an invasion of their son's privacy to ask him why he had such a passion for pink ping-pong balls. Leaning over his bed, they whispered the question in his ear. "Because...", said the boy, "Because...", and died.
Xenophobes Guide To The Dutch, Rodney Bolt, Oval Books, ISBN 1-902825-25-X
The English have an island culture - quirky and self-contained. Much of their humour is highly sophisticated and elusively subtle. Like the will-o'-the-wisp, it often refuses to be caught and examined and just when you think you have cracked it, you realise that you have been been duped once again. For example:
Two men are reading their newspapers when one says: 'It says here there's a fellow in Devon who plays his cello to the seals'. 'Oh really', says the other. 'Yes', says the first, 'Of course, they don't take a blind bit of notice.'
Since the English rarely say what they mean and tend towards reticence and understatement, their humour is partly based on an exaggeration of this facet of their own character. So, while in conversation they avoid truths which might lead to confrontation, in their humour they mock that avoidance. For instance:
At dinner in a great country house, one of the guests drinks too much wine, and slumps across the table. The host rings for the butler and says: 'Smithers, could you please prepare a room. This gentleman has kindly consented to stay the night.'
Tact and diplomacy are held up to ridicule in a way which would appear to give the lie to all that the English actually seem to hold dear. Thus in a popular television situation comedy, Yes Minister, you are encouraged to laugh at the elaborate verbal subterfuge of the civil servant who can turn black into white and convince everyone that they are one and the same thing.
Comedy also celebrates weakness and vulnerability with self-deprecation as a way of establishing superiority. Many of their successful sitcoms are about people who are failures in society's eyes. It is not the failure that makes the comedy. It's the heroic struggle for success.
For instance, in the sitcom Dad's Army, the bumbling amateurism of a group of elderly men formed as a Home Guard unit to protect their country in World War II is amusing not only because they believe themselves to be invincible and more than a match for the ruthless professionalism of the Germans, but because the audience believes the same.
The English are so secure in their self-regard that they can happily poke fun at themselves. Complain about some aspect of English life that is quite awful and they will gleefully tell stories of trains that never arrive, of bureaucratic bungling that has driven honest citizens to suicide, or of food so disgusting even a dog wouldn't eat it (well, not an English dog).
English humour is as much about recognition as it is about their ability to laugh at themselves - 'I thought my mother was a rotten cook, but at least her gravy used to move about a bit.'
The wry smile that greets the well-judged understatement is a characteristic English expression. They love irony and expect others to appreciate it too, for example:
One hill walker to another: 'It's only six miles by the map, yet your navigation made it ten.' 'Yes, but doing it in ten gives one a much greater feeling of accomplishment.'
A thick strand of ribaldry runs through much English comedy, as exemplified by the saucy smuttiness of Benny Hill and the 'Carry On...' films, and the mimed humour of Mr Bean, while the richness of the English language lends itself to innuendo, and produces a characteristic English humorous device, the pun - as in:
'The pollution round here is terrible. You used to be able to swim in this bay - now you can only go through the motions.'
Xenophobes Guide To The English, Antony Miall & David Milsted, Oval Books, ISBN 1-902825-26-8
The French have always admired physical humour and clowning, having virtually adopted both Buster Keaton and Jerry Lewis, and they admire the droll comedy of Americans like Jack Benny and George Burns.
French humour relies as much on what you don't say as what you do say. They approach a piece of verbal humour from an oblique angle, with the same subtlety that they still bring to love-making, but with a bigger laugh at the end.
They are much taken with the art of mime made famous by Marcel Marceau, and on any warm day many young men and women are to be seen in pedestrian precincts pretending to erect deck chairs, to be stuck in revolving doors, to be carrying huge panes of glass on a windy day.
No-one has yet discovered why.
Xenophobes Guide To The French, Nick Yapp & Michel Syrett, Oval Books, ISBN 1-902825-28-4
The Germans take their humour very seriously. It is not a joking matter.
Harsh, astringent and satirical is their style. The cabarets of pre-war Berlin are famous. Their bite was ferocious: the nearest modern equivalent is the British Spitting Image, but this is playful by comparison. Classic German satire put the boot in and twisted the knife.
Humour is used by the Germans to come to terms with life's reverses and hardships. Most of them know that the best laid plans will probably collapse into ruin. This is all quite natural for, if a German maps out his morning or a weekend trip away and it all goes wrong, he will meet the disappointment with fortitude, a wry joke and the quiet satisfaction that he knows how this wicked old world works.
The Germans don't view Sod's Law as the occasional irritant in the way the British do. Rather, it is seen as an Iron Fact of Life to which all must yield. If more than three things go right consecutively in a German's day it will occasion incredulous stares, astonished disbelief and fearful speculations about uncanny forces at work in the world.
The Germans' humour does not translate very well. Most German jokes when translated into English are no funnier than the average till receipt. Learn a bit of German, and you'll soon come to realize that there is a rich seam of humour running through German life. But their humour is largely a matter of context. There is a time and a place for being funny and for laughing. Ordnung decrees that humour is not the oil that makes the days run smoothly. You do not tell jokes to your boss (although levity with other colleagues may be all right at times), nor do you lard your sales pitch or lecture with witticisms. Irony is not a strong German suit and may easily be misunderstood as sarcasm and mockery.
German humour tends to have a target. After all, you don't throw a custard pie into your own face. While they are happy to laugh at others, and especially the misfortunes of others (other Germans, that is), their faltering self-confidence doesn't allow for self-ridicule. They do not joke about foreigners; jokes about East Germans only began after reunification. The butt end of German humour centres on regional characteristics: the stiffness of the Prussians, the brash, easy-going nature of the Bavarians; the bovine East Friesians, the quickness of Berliners, the slyness of the Saxons.
The Bavarians see jokes as a convenient way of taking revenge on their old archenemies, the Prussians. The Swabians don't mind jokes about their thriftiness, but prefer to be economical with them. Hence:
A Prussian, a Bavarian and a Swabian are sitting together drinking a beer. A fly falls into each one's mug. The Prussian pours away his beer with the fly and orders a new beer. The Bavarian picks the fly out of his mug with his fingers and continues drinking. The Swabian picks out the fly and then forces it to spit out the beer it has drunk.
To help you get a joke, Germans will gladly explain it to you. If they are of an academic bent - or from Stuttgart - the finer points of the explanation will be repeated so you cannot fail to appreciate it. For some Germans, humour is like a great painting, it must be planned, prepared for and built up in layers over a long period of time. For others, it is like the battered body of the Six Million Dollar Man; they have the technology and they will rebuild it so that it is better than nature made it. Either way, a joke or a shaggy dog story will be polished and honed, refined, revised, improved, re-worked and bettered in every possible way - until it is absolutely perfect and quite incapable of raising a titter.
Part of the problem is that most Germans apply the rule that more equals better. If a passing quip makes you smile, then surely by making it longer the pleasure will be drawn out and increased. As a rule, if you are cornered by someone keen to give you a laugh, you must expect to miss lunch and most of that afternoon's appointments. If you're lucky you may get home in time for Nachbarn (Neighbours).
Humour in Germany is also subject to an official timetable. A good example is the custom of the Karneval celebration which is particularly popular in the Rhineland. It starts officially at 11 minutes past 11 o'clock on November 11th (no insult to Remembrance Day is intended, it just happens that 11.11 is a very orderly numerical combination to the Germans, and order is also pivotal to emotional enjoyment).
Pageants, parties and performances continue for some months, all with the official obligation to be funny. To avoid disorder, strict rules have been set up to organise the merriment as efficiently as possible. During congregational speeches, which are endless concoction of jokes, every joke is marked by an orchestral signal so that nobody will laugh at the wrong moment. Disorderly humour is not only nothing to laugh about, it is often not even recognized.
Xenophobes Guide To The Germans, Benjamin Barkow & Stefan Zeidenitz, Oval Books, ISBN 1-902825-29-2
Although many Greeks are equipped with a tremendous sense of humour and razor-sharp wit, what hoi polloi enjoy (and understand) most is coarse farce, couched in vulgar sexual terms. The new bourgeoisie behave as if they have just discovered the existence of their genitals and talk (or rather, giggle) about little else.
Every season there are at least half a dozen revues playing to packed houses, in which political satire (the staple of any Greek show) is interwoven with blatant sexual innuendo - often in verse, to the tune of some popular song. For example, an important politician can be described as having balls so large they plough the ground when he walks; another may be deemed so weak that he cannot get it up; and all economic measures (regardless of who is in power) are described as a cucumber up the arse of the workers.
Since post-war Greek society is going through a phase of protracted adolescence, such a phenomenon was to be expected. Happily, true wit has survived the onslaught of vulgarity and, more happily still, it is not the exclusive privilege of the educated. If anything, one appreciates its spontaneity and originality more when one least expects to encounter it.
An almost illiterate Cretan peasant who had the job of caretaker at the German War Cemetary in Maleme (site of the Battle of Crete) was reprimanded - through an interpreter - by a visiting German general. He wanted to know why an employee of the German government was not able to converse in the language of Goethe. With Aristophanean aplomb, the Cretan offered the reason: "My friend, tell the good general that my Germans do not talk".
Word-play and puns are so much part of everyday speech and take such unexpected twists and turns (since the Greeks will appropriate any foreign word and decline it according to Greek grammar) , that colloquial language is indeed 'Greek' to anyone not bred to it.
The Greeks are very fond of jokes and always find the time to tell their friends the latest they've heard of the particular batch currently in fashion. 'Bobos', a foul-mouthed, over-sexed brat, is an all-time favourite:
The teacher is explaining to a class the facts of life, concluding that after puberty little girls can have babies, if they are not careful. "Then I could have a baby, Ma'am?" asks nine-year-old Maria. "It would be difficult, but yes, there have been cases -" answers the teacher. "And I?" pipes up five-year-old Helen. "You? Certainly not!" From the back of the class, Bobos' voice is heard full of confidence: "I told you, Helen, that you needn't have worried."
Xenophobes Guide To The Greeks, Alexandra Fiada, Oval Books, ISBN 1-902825-30-6
The Japanese are said not to have a sense of humour. Yet humour of the most delightful and artistic kind is to be found in the traditional world of the rakugo. Tellers of rakugo tales are the apotheosis of stand-up comedians, or rather sit-down comedians - for they do their story-telling while seated, kimono-clad, on Japanese-style cushions. Without the aid of anything more than a fan, they transport the audience into a timeless world of strutting samurai, sharp-tongued townsfolk, village idiots and nagging wives. This is a one-man act of remarkable accomplishment. The fan serves now as a pair of chopsticks, now as a decanter of sake, now as a lance, now a pen, now a pole from which dangle a street vendor's wares.
The Japanese laugh at this because the performance is real and funny, and because they can associate with the underlying theme of human frailty - the character who is slow on the uptake and ends up being tricked by others, or one who tries to be good but fails, gets into trouble and has to be rescued with the help of a wiser fellow. Their laughter comes from compassion and empathy.
Only by making fools of themselves can the Japanese feel truly comfortable with each-other and able to laugh. They expect their fellow insiders to do and feel the same. Hence the television game shows in which ordinary people willingly participate in what seems like self-torture.
Another source of mirth is word-play. For example:
The Japanese word for divorce is rikon. Divorce has become a trend among young couples returning from honeymoon abroad, caused, they say, by disillusionment on the part of the young bride. Until the couple's departure her husband seemed to be in control, full of confidence and able to protect her. Once outside Japan, however, the bride suddenly sees him as timid, lost and unable even to communicate the most basic needs to a waiter. This is not what she expected. What should she do? Get a rikon. So they arive back at Tokyo Narita airport, and get a Narikon.
[Note: No I didn't understand that either! I looked up Narikon in a dictionary, and the best it could offer was a 'sexual attraction to young children', which is rather unsavoury. I guess if we can infer a meaning of 'a sense of broodiness, or desire to have a child', then we can see the irony in the joke. - MH ]
On the whole, however, the Japanese prefer to leave humour to the professionals. They will only rarely tell a joke. If they do, they will begin with the words, "This is a joke", so you know to laugh when they stop speaking. Their risk aversion tends to hold them back from irony, leg-pulling or practical jokes in their personal dealings. Sarcasm simply mortifies them. But catch them at their most relaxed, most secretive, most unceremonious, most tipsy, or most beyond caring, and they can be very funny indeed. Closet humorists, all.
Xenophobes Guide To The Japanese, Sahoko Kaji & Noriko Hama & Jonathan Rice, Oval Books, ISBN 1-902825-36-5
It is easy to know when a Scot is telling you something funny. The face assumes an extra solemnity; the voice becomes drier; the tone more sepulchral. It's as if, in Scotland, they think that God doesn't have a sense of humour, and they must not be seen to make a joke. Or to laugh in response to one. A quick grimace is safest. Like other emotional signals, humour is kept under tight covers.
There is no nonesense or fantasy in Scottish humour. There is always a point, and frequently a moral one. It has an earthy streak, like:
the tale of the country tramp who specialised in begging from farmhouses. Picking up a dried-up cow-turd, he would knock at the door and request some dry bread to make a 'piece', or sandwich, of it. The farmers' wives would always tell him to throw it away and give him a decent one. On day, however, he encountered the farmer at home. The farmer was just as horrified as his wife would have been: "Man, you can't eat that," he said. "Throw it away. Come round to the cow-shed wi' me and I'll find you a nice, fresh, hot one."
There is often more than a hint of salt-over-the-shoulder superstition involved. The Scots make jokes of the things they fear, like old age or death, as in the tale of Old MacPherson.
To celebrate his 95th birthday, his cronies sent round an attactive young 'masseuse'. When he opened the door, she said brightly, "I'm here to give you super sex." He ruminated on this for a while, then finally said, "I'll ha'e the soup."
Though the Scots like a joke to have a point, the point should ideally not be too obvious. They relish above all the moment between the end of the joke and the laugh, (or at any rate the grimace), of the person to whom it is told, when the humour finally sinks in.
Their own idiosynchrasies can be targets for mockery. It was a Scottish playwright who made one of his characters say:
"Son, Ive been round the world, and Scotland is the only country where six and half a dozen are never the same thing."
But no single place in Scotland is a butt for the humour of everyone else. The closest to an exception is Aberdeen, which has somehow acquired a reputation for excessive Scottish thriftiness: for example,
"If a Scotsman opens his purse, the moths fly out. If an Aberdonian opens his purse, the moths are all dead."
Whilst the wits of Glasgow may sometimes mock the slow-thinking countryman, Scottish jokes are mainly at the expense of non-Scottish strangers, especially strangers who are too pleased with themselves.
When an Australian came into an Edinburgh bar, he stood happily chatting for a time, then one of the regulars asked him, "Where are you from, pal?" "I'm from the finest country in the whole wide world," said the Aussie. "Is that so?" said the local. "You have a damn funny accent for a Scotsman."
From the hard edge of Scotland's urban culture comes a distinctive form of humour, personified in the life of 'Rab C. Nesbitt', an archetypal Glaswegian layabout with a paunch protruding from his string vest, unemployed, boozy, work-shy, male chauvinist to the nth degree, but always ready with a wisecrack. Other Scottish comedians, like Robbie Coltrane and Billy Connolly, have tapped this fruitful vein, as in Connolly's
tale of the man who killed his wife and buried her in the back yard. He showed his friend, who said, "What did you leave her bum sticking out for?" And the man said, "I need somewhere to park my bike."
Xenophobes Guide To The Scottish, David Sutherland Ross, Oval Books, ISBN 1-902825-42-X
The main thrust of Spanish humour comes from their attitude to danger.
People getting themselves in a tight spot and suffering the consequences, sometimes fatally, is found terifically amusing. Hence the success of the annual fiesta when bulls are let loose in the streets of Pamplona to toss any individual with illusions of becoming a torero who mis-judges the distance, a suicidal revelry repeated in many other towns for the sheer fun of the risk of being gored.
Similarly, a display of fireworks which goes wrong is invariably looked upon with some hilarity.
The Spanish love the English sense of humour and their ability to laugh at themselves without losing face. They appreciate sarcasm though seldom practise it.
Sex is considered the funniest human endeavour, and raunchy jokes will be told in front of anyone and on family television shows, children all ears, the adults accepting the fact that the exchange of such humour is rife at school anyway. Black humour about the less fortunate is equally popular.
Not much interested in other nations, the Spanish do not go outside their own country to hurl insults. Jokes about mean people equivalent to English standard Scots jokes are invariably told about the Catalans who are supposedly meaner. The Catalans, of course, say that the Aragonese are far worse. But the main recipients of the butt are usually a small number of people from a village called Lepe in the south-west of Andalucia. Thus the riddle:
How many Irish, Belgians, Californiansor whomever, does it take to
unscrew a lightbulb?
Answer: Four. One to hold the lightbulb, and three to turn the chair.
will be asked as
How many people from Lepe ..... ?
Their reputation for being dim was supposedly aquired when a school inspector from Madrid asked the brightest student of the brightest class in the only school 'Who stole the Rock of Gibraltar from the Spanish?' and got the answer 'Not I, Sir'. Repeating this poor example of learning to the headmaster, he was assured that if the boy had said he had not stolen the Rock, then it was certain he had not, since he was a very honest individual.
The Lepes, however, are not that stupid. Their mayor has cashed in on their reputation by inviting tourists to visit the town to experience Lepe oafishness for themselves.
Xenophobes Guide To The Spanish, Drew Launay, Oval Books, ISBN 1-902825-43-8
Welsh pride is real pride - the sort of mindless, instinctive, animal pride that requires no justification or excuse. It is simply pride for the sake of pride. Such pride is the only thing one has left when one has been stripped of everything else.
It is no doubt significant that this sort of pride is common to a number of impoverished and embattled hill peoples in different parts of the world - the Corsicans, the Afghans, and the Apache to name a few - and it is surely not coincidental that all of them have reputations for clannishness, deviousness, love of violence and vendetta.
The Welsh feel sorry for the English in the same way that a social worker would make excuses for a criminal from a broken home: "True, they did break into our country and steal everything they could get their hands on, but the poor things are English, after all." No doubt the English would be upset to find out how much the Welsh look down on them - which wouldn't worry the Welsh at all.
If the butt of a Welsh joke has to be effete, callow, pompous, ignorant, or generally substandard in any way, nine times out of ten he will be an Englishman. For example:
First Welshman: "Excuse me, but you look like an Englishman."
Second Welshman: "No, Im not English - I only look like this because
I've just been sick."
In general, left to themselves, the Welsh have always been fairly free and easy on the subject of sex.
First Welshman: I hear farmer Jones has been arrested for making love to a sheep.
Second Welshman: Really? Male or Female?
First Welshman: Female, of course. There is nothing wrong with old Jones!
Young Dai came home one day and announced to his Dad that he was going to marry Megan Jones. His Dad looked embarrassed. "Sorry son, you can't marry her. You see, a few years back, young Megan's mother and I were, well, very friendly, and, not to put too fine a point on it, Megan is your sister." Dai was extremely upset by this news. Later that day, his Mam saw him looking unhappy and asked him what the problem was. "I want to marry Megan Jones," he blurted out, "But Dad says he's her father." His Mam replied, "So what if he is her father? He's not yours."
The chapels didn't make the Welsh any less indulgent, but they did impose a thin varnish of 'respectability' on them. What people did was considered less important than what they were seen to do.
First Welshwoman: Mary Pugh is getting married.
Second Welshwoman: Is she pregnant then?
First Welshwoman: No.
Second Welshwoman: There's posh!
The chapels were the most powerful force for cohesion in Wales, but, typically, even they became an excuse for argument and division.
A Welshman was wrecked on a desert island. By the time he was rescued,
he had built out of driftwood not only a house for himself, but a
small town with a pub, a rugby club, and two small chapels.
"But why two chapels?" asked his rescuers.
"You see that one," he replied. "Well that's the one I don't go to."
Xenophobes Guide To The Welsh, John Winterson Richards, Oval Books, ISBN 1-902825-46-2