Homonyms & jokes

Homonyms are words that sound the same, but mean different things, so in the joke (adapted for the Japanese listener)
`Two Sumo Wrestlers in an Izakaya, one says "you`re round", the other says "so are you, you fat bastard"`
the words "your/you`re" and "round" are homonyms. I thrive on that sort of thing. During the week of training in Asakusa I probably took too much pleasure in asking the Americans present if they wanted to bum a fag.

My private student told me a joke (that is quite old, and doesn`t really make anyone laugh) that requires a bit of folkloric delving...

...the story goes that one day a poor man rescued a crane from a trap. Whe he got home, he discovered a beautiful woman waiting for him. Eventually they got married and one day she said to him
"I`m going into the other room to make some clothes. Don`t come in whilst I`m there."
"OK dear" he said, but of course he went in, and he saw the crane (his wife) that he rescued from the trap. The crane flew away, but left him the means (and this probably varies from teller to teller) to become extremely rich.

I`ve heard variations of this story in the west. Here, the Christian sense of immorality being punished is, to an extent, absent except in the joke form (I find that pretty interesting).

In the joke version, he rescues a heron from a trap. On the story goes, and when he finally opens up THAT room, he discovers that the heron has stolen his few possessions. The word in Japanese for "heron" can mean "cheat" - he cheated his wife, she cheated him. Not exactly funny, but there`s a certain poetry to it.

I`ve been trying to collect Japanese jokes. This one comes from Hashirayama sensei at Rinko.

`Once upon a time, there was an old man and his wife. One day, the old man died, so his wife had him put in a coffin which she kept in the house. After a few months, she decided she wanted to see her husband again, so she opened the coffin lid, but discovered that he wasn`t there.`

More? No, that`s it. The "humour" comes from a way of serving takoyaki (octopus in balls of batter. They sometimes come in a little box, and occasionally when you remove the lid, you find takoyaki stuck to it...now, I have no room to criticise on this particular area, but that`s just not funny.

I had a lovely sunday at another ALT`S house (Matt from New Mexico - obsessed with Chilli & fantasy fiction. I like him), where we watched "Not the Nine o`clock News" on my laptop as it can play British DVD`S. Humour depends on culture, so I had a great time explaining to his Japanese wife, Tomoko, what Mel Smith meant by "we should cut off their goolies" (now there`s a word I`ve not heard for a few years). This went the other way after we watched a Japanese comedy show that has been running since the sixties and Tomoko had to explain most of the jokes.

Sho-ten is a variation of Rakugo theatre. Rakugo is traditional Japanese sit-down comedy that involves storytelling. The narrator plays all the characters with a variety of voices and facial expressions. He`s given a towel and a fan which serve as props with which to tell the story - the fan can be a pair of chopsticks, or the towel a manuscript...anyway, Sho-ten has seven constant contestants, the heads of the big Rakugo schools. The Grand Master (who looked too much like BingCrosby than is comfortable) sits in the middle, and it`s the job of the the chap on his left to take him down a peg or two. Everybody made fun of the guy on the far left as he was the mere head student of one teacher who couldn`t represent his school due to a long illness. They all sit on cushions and there`s a cushion dispenser who gives them more if they really make him laugh. The Grand Master was sitting on about six of the things. Sho-ten is improvised, so there`s a Games Master who gives them a base to start from. here it turns into "Have I got News for you" - one such base was a speech from the Minister of Ecology, who remarked that "something" was a waste of time. This led the contestants to say things like
"It`s a waste of time to say "It`s a waste of time"in English"
or
"It`s a waste of time, it`s a waste of time, it`s a waste of time, it`s a waste of time..."

Those were the only two jokes I spotted. I was pleased with myself after I ventured into my local Izakaya to celebrate getting paid (woo-hoo!) and I caught a joke. I got chatting to a man (he couldn`t have been much more than fifty) and I was trying to wax lyrical about how I think kanji are really beautiful. I asked him to draw his kanji for me, and he wrote "Ojisan" which means "grandad".

I`ve wittered enough. In closing, here`s a Rakugo story.

`One day, an antiquarian was out looking for a bargain. He saw an old man in a market stall, feeding a cat from a priceless Korean plum bowl.
"He can`t appreciate the value of that bowl if he`s feeding a cat from it!" thought the antiquarian spotting his chance. "Excuse me" he said to the old man "I am utterly captivated by your cat, and I would like to buy it."
"I don`t know about that" said the old man "you see, my wife died some months ago, and she left me in charge of this cat. It reminds me of her. I couldn`t possibly part with it."
"I`m prepared to pay three gold pieces for it." continued the antiquarian.
Three gold pieces?!" gasped the old man. "That`s a princely sum for a cat...OK, you can have it for three gold pieces."
Going in for the kill, the antiquarian said
"Since I`m taking the cat, why don`t you give me the bowl as well so it can have something familiar to eat out of?"
"I don`t know about that" said the old man. "You see, with this bowl, I get to sell a cat for three gold pieces."

Maybe I was looking too hard for a funny Japanese joke, but that made me laugh out loud.