I read two jokes from my social group on WeChat this morning and I thought they reveal the typical mindset of Chinese. This drives me to translate them into English.
So this daughter-in-law of a 90 year old bedbound gentleman has been a model of filial piety. She has been taking care of her father-in-law for more than 30 years, doing everything needed for him. Lately the Chinese government has been upholding the Chinese traditional values so the county government officers invited the daughter-in-law to speak at a public gathering. “Just tell people what’s on your mind when you were doing the wonderful works for your father-in-law,” the officer told her before she got on the stage.
Fully encouraged, here are the words from the model daughter-in-law to a whole roomful of attentive audience:
“I was raised in the countryside, and my mom always kept several pigs to sell for cash. How much can you sell for a pig? 500 to 1,000 RMB if you are lucky. Guess how much I make from taking care of my father-in-law? He has his pension and each month receives at least 2,000 RMB, much better than raising a pig! I must treat him nice so he can live longer and I get paid more.”
Here is another joke along the same line:
An old gentleman in his 80s recently lost his beloved wife of 40 years, so he hired a widower in her 40s from the country to take care of him. The lady had done such a good job and the two developed feelings toward each other. Finally after 2 years they decided to tie the knot.
Unfortunately things quickly started to turn sour after the wedding. The lady started feeling sick and tired of taking care of her newly wedded husband day in and day out, and wanted a divorce.
Hearing the bad news, several friends of the gentleman quickly visited the couple in their home and tried to talk the new wife out of divorcing. One guy told her that her husband was in the military and his platoon defeated a company of the American soldiers in the Korea war. “It really is a honor to live with such a hero,” the friend told her.
That did not work, as the lady simply said she did not mind to give that “honor” to someone else.
Another friend jumped in by saying that her husband still has gunshot wound in his body, and deserves good cares. The wife won’t budge: “I did not shot him, why should I be responsible for his wound?”
At this point people seemed to be out of things to say, and the room became awkwardly quiet.
The husband decided to call a friend of his wife for help. After he explained the situation to her. This lady simply asked him to give the phone to his wife:
“Are you crazy? Did you raise the pigs before? How much can you make from a pig? Your husband receives 12,000 RMB a month from the government. Do you know how much that means each day? I will do the math for you: 400 RMB a day! That is like selling one pig each day. You are lucky to have such a husband!”
Everything changed since that phone call and the couple lived happily ever after.
The Takeaways From The Jokes
First of all, do not believe for a minute that China is a country full of filial piety. Chinese will avoid taking care of their parents unless they have to, but will be more than happy to take good care of their offspring. The degree of generational disparity is huge between the attention given to parents and attention given to their own kids. The situation is much worse if the same parents have several adult children, then we can expect a tug of war for parental responsibilities among the adult children regarding who should do what or give how much.
Secondly, Chinese people are very pragmatic and take everything from an economic or accounting perspective: Cost versus benefits. The goal is always to minimize cost and maximize benefits.