Saturday, 10:00-16:30 Sala Rossa
Session: National Forms of Humour (Don & Alleen Nilsen)
THE STUDIES OF TRADITIONAL JOKES AND HUMOR IN THE 20TH-CENTURY
CHINA
Ching-sheng Huang, Department of Chinese Literature, National Chengchi University, Taipei, Taiwan
hcs@nccu.edu.tw
This essay is intended to explore the meaning and significance of humor research in the 20th-century China.
In the 2oth century, as well as having gone through the republican revolution, China had experienced a profound intellectual revolution, in which Chinese scholars and literati had embarked on the reevaluation of China’s past, and the studies of traditional Chinese jest books and humor had been a crucial part of this reevaluation.
The approach to the humor research during this period of time has more ways than one. There were scholars following the tradition of philology and bibliography and paying very much attention to the research, redaction, compilation, and publication in jest books of traditional China. On the other hand, Chou Tso-jen, inspired by anthropology, ethnography, and the studies of popular culture in Japan, also promulgated the heterodox tradition of late Ming literati who treated popular literature no less important than classics. A few pioneers educated in the West introduced the Western theories of humor to the Chinese community. Chu Kuang-ch’ien took a philosophical approach to the issue of humor; but Lin Yu-tang was more ambitious in that he tried to blend the Western ideas of humor into Chinese thought, and therefore a new way of life might change the Chinese national character.
Current research of the Chinese joke books and theories of humor is more thorough and systematic. The collection and dissemination of source material are mainly conducted by Taiwanese and Chinese scholars. As for the studies of theory, however, Taiwanese scholars seem to have more advances in this respect.
