Chinese Jokes

A man once wanted to borrow a cow from a wealthy man, so he had his servant send a note to the wealthy man. The rich man, who was entertaining some guests, took the note and ashamed to be taken as an illiterate, pretended to be able to read it. When reading it he nodded his head repeatedly.

"I know," the rich man said to the messenger, "I'll go myself in a moment."

There was an engagement between a poor man and a rich girl. The man's family was afraid that the bride's family would not let her go through with the marriage. Spurred on by his family, one day the man kidnapped his bride-to-be. But, in a rush, he grabbed his fianc?e's younger sister by mistake.

The girl's family rushed out of the house and shouted, "You got the wrong one!"

However, the younger sister said," Don't listen to them. You got the right one. Run quickly!"

There lived in the State of Qi a man who had a very bad memory. While walking, he would forget to stop; while sleeping, he would forget to rise. His wife was very much worried about this and said to him one day: "I've heard that Master Ai is a very learned man with a glib tongue. He can even bring the dying back to life. Why don't you go and consult him?"

"Good idea!" the man agreed.

So he set out on horseback, bow and arrow in hand. Before he had covered a distance of 30 li he felt a call of nature. He dismounted and, after sticking the arrow into the ground and tying the horse to a tree, crouched down to relieve himself. This done, he stood up and looking to the left caught sight of the arrow.

"Wow!" he cried. " What a narrow escape! I wonder where that stray arrow came from. It nearly hit me."
Then, looking to the right, he saw the horse.

"Well, well!" he said with joy. " Though I've been badly frightened, I'm now rewarded with this windfall of a horse."

Seizing the bridle of the horse, he was about to turn round when he inadvertently stepped on his own excrement. Stamping his foot, he cried: " Damn! This pile of dog's dung has soiled my shoe. What a pity!"

Whipping his horse, he galloped off in the wrong direction. Not long afterwards, he arrived home. Pacing up and down in front of his own house, he muttered to himself: "Whose house is this? Can this be the residence of Master Ai?"

At this moment, his wife saw him. Guessing that his memory must have taken leave of him again, she let loose a torrent of abuse. Very much upset, the man complained: "I've never seen you before in my life. Why hurl insults at me like that, lady?"

In 1908, shortly before the death of the formidable Empress Dowager, Tzu Hsi, Ferdinand Feghoot sentimentally tried to save her doomed Chinese Empire. (He had ruled as the Emperor Fei Hu, 357-329 B.C.) Though she paid no heed to his counsels, his mission was by no means an absolute failure. He did save the life of her Master Chef, venerable Mao Shih-pen.

A young lion had escaped from the zoo, and the Empress decreed that when it was cornered and shot it would be the piece de resistance at a most splendid banquet. The top mandarins were invited, and the whole diplomatic corps. After any number of delicate dishes were served, finally in came Mao's masterpiece.

Everyone set to eagerly, and there was a sudden dead silence. The dish tasted awful. The French ambassador actually spat his first bite into his napkin.

The furious Empress had Mao dragged before her. "Such insulting incompetence," she screamed, "must be punished!" And she sentenced him to suffer the death of a thousand cuts.

Instantly, Feghoot threw himself at her feet. Be merciful, Heavenborn!" he cried out. "Master Mao wasn't responsible. Your political enemies have been spiking his tea with straight alcohol! He was drunk without knowing it!"

"How do you know this?" she demanded.

"It was obvious," replied Ferdinand Feghoot. "The poor old man couldn't even wok a strayed lion."

The guest was a bit surprised when his host served him a dinner of nothing but a dish of bean curd The host praised the virtues of bean curd, saying, "Bean curd is my life; it's the most delicious food in the world."

One day, he had the chance to visit his friend, who remembered that the man loved bean curd and so he served fish and meat with bean curd However, the man devoured only the fish and meat, and didn't touch the bean curd His friend asked, "You say bean curd is your life, but why don't you eat it today?"

The man answered, "I guess when I see fish and meat on my plate, I don't want my life anymore."

China - Ah... Capitalism is alive and well in China as a southern Chinese hospital sells livers from executed prisoners to wealthy Asian transplant patients.

A Hong Kong newspaper reported on Sunday that undercover reporters were urged to book a liver from a good young prisoner during the current spate of mass executions that precedes the Chinese New Year.

Our experience tells us that there are many organs before the Lunar New Year, a doctor from the Sun Yat Sen University Hospital in Guangzhou told the South China Sunday Morning Post. If you miss this chance, you may have to wait until Labor Day. China has always insisted that donations are voluntary. But doctors from the hospital told the Post that consent was not required for criminals and most organs came from executed prisoners.

The hospital, which subsequently denied the doctors? comments, charges about 20,000 pounds for a liver transplant.

A scholar was preparing to take the civil examinations. His wife was very puzzled by his constant worrying.

"Look at you, you worthless wretch," she said. "Your probably think that it's more difficult for a man to write an essay than for a woman to give birth to a child."

"How's that?", she asked.

"You women can bear children easily because you carry the child in your stomach", the scholar said. "But I have nothing in my head, so how do you expect me to think of something to write?"

In a poor, rural farming province of China, a gas station sold its gas for 150 yen per liter. Those few who had cars often would barter their produce for the gas, instead of paying in cash. This worked, provided the gas station manager allowed it, since, he couldn't always use the motley collection of foodstuffs that would come in. A local cook, Chef Po, was renowned for a special heavy cream sauce, which he sold for one yen per serving. The manager loved the stuff, and always took Po's goods in exchange for the fuel.

In time, the manager had to raise the price of gasoline to two hundred yen. Chef Po, who could ill afford the increase, angrily stormed up to the manager's office door and protested the price by flinging two hundred spoonfuls of sauce against the door and walls. When the manager came in later, he saw the mess, and cried, "Who did this?"

The attendant said," It was Po! He was very angry at the price increase. What shall we do if he comes back?"

The manager looked at him and growled, "Do not gas Po! Do not collect two hundred dollops!"

Prime Minister Zhang was fond of handwriting, but he didn't put in a lot of effort to do his exercises. Everybody sneered at his bad handwriting, and the Prime Minister himself really didn't care.

One day he happened to draft a beautiful sentence and at once wielded his writing brush to write it down, indeed, there were dragons flying and snakes dancing all over the paper. Then he ordered his nephew to copy it.

When beginning to copy, his nephew stared tongue-tied and did not know where to start. The young man had to take the manuscript back to the Prime Minister.

"Uncle, I can't read your handwriting, please tell me what words they are."

The Prime Minister read his cursive hand a long time, and did not know what Chinese characters they were, either. He then turned to blame his nephew. "Why didn't you come earlier to ask me? I myself have forgotten the words which I've written."

This is a radio conversation of a US naval ship with Chinese authorities off the coast of Vietnam in South China Sea in October 1980.

CHINESE: Please divert your course 15 degrees to the south to avoid a collision.

AMERICANS: Recommend you divert your course 15 degrees to the north to avoid a collision.

CHINESE: Negative. You will have to divert your course 15 degrees to the south to avoid a collision.

AMERICANS: This is the captain of a US Navy ship. I say again, divert YOUR course.

CHINESE: No, I say again, you divert YOUR course.

AMERICANS: This is the Aircraft Carrier USS MIDWAY, the second largest ship in the United States Pacific Fleet.

We are accompanied with three Destroyers, three Cruisers and numerous support vessels. I DEMAND that you change your course 15 degrees north. I say again, that's one-five degrees north, or counter-measures will be undertaken to ensure the safety of this ship.

CHINESE: This is a lighthouse. You are on the course to collide with a Vietnamese fishing boat filled with hundreds refugees!

A Chinese lady married a pilot and they had a baby. One day he had to fly to another state with a couple of other pilots. His wife was going to China so he had to take the baby with him. On the plane the baby was getting really annoying. The pilot said, "We have to jump or we will have no chance to make it." They decided to leave the baby on the plane. One guy jumps out then the next one then the Dad. The 1st guy got to the bottom and he sees the baby. The man said, "How did you get down her so fast. We left you up there." The baby replied, "Me Chinese me not dumb me hold on to daddy's bumb he goes tooot I go zoom that's how I got down so soon."

I have always been a critic of Seattle driving, but recently I had a chance to see how others drive in far away countries, such as China. Since then, I have developed a profound respect for how we drive here in the Northwest. Why? What could be so bad about the driving in China? Here is a collection of short observations I have made riding in the Great Country of China.

While Driving in China...........................

Traffic signals are (how should I put it...) optional.

Right of way is determined by vehicle weight.

On any given street every car is driving parallel, but none will be driving co-linear.

In taking any 3 consecutive Chinese drivers, 1 will be driving over the median.

In merging lanes, Chinese drivers feel the need to drive neck and neck until the last moment when one finally chickens out.

Whenever a Chinese person crosses the street by foot, he will not consider such meaningless factors as how many cars are on the road, or how fast they are going.

If while crossing the street, a Chinese bicyclist gets 4 beeps from a Bus, 3 beeps from your taxi, and 5 loud horns from a speeding truck, all while going against traffic, he will not so much as turn his head to acknowledge.

Take ever gas you find in the Periodic table, Mix this with every gas you would find at a Nuclear power plant, add mustard gas, SMOG, Agent Orange, MACE, and sulfuric acid, this is was comes out of the average cars tail pipe. A one time drive while riding behind a bus, had identical health effects as 12 years of smoking.

What do Chinese people drive? Hard to answer that, but try to imagine this... Gather the 100 most brilliant and renowned German Auto Engineers, get them really drunk, and give them 24 hours to build a car while wearing mittens.

I was staying in a large apartment park, where half the population of Seattle can be found in 5 square block. For the Chinese New Year, it is traditional for every family to light fireworks, All the people were on one side of the street and all the fireworks were done on the other side. Many images came to mind...

a. Take the most powerful fireworks mankind has ever made, give them to a bunch of 10 year old kids, and confine them to a space of 15 square feet.
b. About 1 in 10 fireworks would drift over into the crowd and blowup.
c. The Noise...roughly 1000 firecrackers going off per second, and 10x that going off from other places around the city. Imagine having a truck 2 feet behind you, beeping like crazy, and you not realize it until the driver gets out and tells you to move.
d. Crossing the Street, from the Crowd side to the Fireworks side is a once in a life time experience. You not only have to worry about 200 kids Fire-grenades coming your way, you also have to dodge traffic, which seams to be unaffected by the fireworks. The casualty rate for those who tried to cross this divide, were slightly better than storming the beaches at Normandy.

A man went to the wine seller's at midnight to buy wine. The wine seller, hearing several knocks at the door, said without opening it: "Just throw in your coppers through the crack in the door."

"But," inquired the man, "how are you going to get the wine out?"

"Through the crack," was the reply.

At that the man laughed.

"I'm not joking," said the wine seller," you see, my wine here is quite thin. "

A man was very hungry, and went to buy cakes at a snack bar. When he finished a cake, he found he hadn't had enough, and so ate a second one. He felt so hungry that after eating six cakes in succession, he still hadn't satisfied his hunger. Not till the seventh cake was eaten up, did he feel satisfied. Then, suddenly, he had a feeling of regret.

"Ah, if I had known this before, I would have eaten the seventh cake first and that would have been enough and there would not have been any need to eat those six others."