中国人真的不懂讽刺或者在他们的文化中使用讽刺吗？

Feifei Wang 
No. It is not true. There has been quite a few satire novels published since classical times. For example, 儒林外史 The Scholars (novel) was written in mid 18th century that was widely considered to be one of the most successful satire novels. More recent work include Lu Xun's many novels such as 阿Q正传The True Story of Ah Q and most of the novellas collected in "The Scream" are satires.

不，这不是真的。自古典时代以来，中国出版了不少讽刺小说。例如，《儒林外史》写于18世纪中叶，被广泛认为是最成功的讽刺小说之一。最近的作品包括鲁迅的许多小说，如《阿Q正传》和《呐喊》中收集的大部分中篇小说都是讽刺作品。

However, sarcasm and satires are very much like humor, they're extremely culture based. You'll have to immerse in the culture to understand their humor, sarcasm and satires. An American will not be able to understand Chinese humor, similarly a Chinese will not understand American humor. It's not to say Chinese (or Americans) are humorless or don't understand sarcasm, they just don't understand YOUR type of sarcasm without culture context.

然而，讽刺和幽默一样，它们和文化背景非常相关。你必须沉浸在他们的文化中去理解他们的幽默和讽刺。一个美国人不会理解中国人的幽默，同样一个中国人也不会理解美国人的幽默。这并不是说中国人(或者美国人)没有幽默感或者不理解讽刺，他们只是在没有文化背景的情况下不理解你的讽刺类型。

For example, Donald Trump has been the butt of the joke in western liberal media, but for someone who don't know who Donald Trump is, who don't know what's the big deal with his hair, who don't watch the Apprentice, or aren't familiar with republicans and democrats, the joke would be very confusing for them.

例如，唐纳德 · 特朗普一直是西方自由媒体的笑柄，但对于一个不知道唐纳德 · 特朗普是谁、不知道他的头发有什么大不了、不看《学徒》、不熟悉共和党和民主党的人来说，这个笑话会让他们非常困惑。



(Try explain this to someone who never heard of Donald Trump).

(试着向一个从未听说过唐纳德 · 特朗普的人解释一下以上图片)。

A Chinese example would be:

再举一个中国的:





Liang Mountain was having year end review meeting, Song Jiang was hosting. Lin Chong said, my grocery store didn't make any money. Lu Zhi Shen said, my diner suffered 100K lost in profit this year. Mr. Sun said, Brother, you need to give me 500K investment or all my brothels will go broke. Song Jiang wasn't happy. And then Li Kui rushed in and said: Boss, I suffered...

梁山举行年终总结会，宋江主持。林冲说，今年咋家粮店一分钱都没赚到。鲁智深说，我的酒店今年亏损了10万两银子。孙二娘站起来哭到: “大哥，你再不给我拨五十万两银子，我的五家妓院都要破产了。”。宋江黑着脸一言不发。然后李逵冲进来说: 大哥，我也赔... ..。

Song Jiang stood up and said: they suffer lost was understandable, you're a fucking highwayman, how could you suffered lost?!

宋江蹭的一下站起来说: 他们说赔我还信，你一个拦路抢劫的也要赔？ ！

We'll use this story to memorize Chinese toll road suffered over 1 trillion RMB lost in 2014. The little cat said: I have nothing to say...

谨以此纪念中国收费公路2014年损失了超过1万亿人民币。图片小猫说: 我竟无言以对... ..。

Now to understand the joke, you need to know the story of Water Margin, you need to know who those people are (they're Robin Hood like vigilantes), you need to know the corruption of Chinese toll road system, and high way set up booth to charge people. 

现在要理解这个笑话，你需要知道《水浒传》的故事，你需要知道这些人是谁(他们是罗宾汉式的义务警员) ，你需要知道中国收费公路系统...，以及高速公路设置收费亭来收费。

And if you need people to explain this, it's not funny anymore.

如果你需要别人来解释这个，那就不好笑了。

So NO. it's not that Chinese don't have sarcasm, it's YOU don't understand them.

所以并不是说中国人不懂得讽刺，而是你不理解他们的讽刺类型。

Michael Chan 
When I was working in China back in 2004 to 2012, my colleagues and many of the service staff I interacted with seriously do not know how to react to my sarcasm.

2004年到2012年我在中国工作的时候，我的同事和我接触的许多服务人员都不知道如何回应我的讽刺。

And I was using Chinese, not English.

我用的是中文，不是英文。

Feifei Wang 
Probably because you're not that close to them. My experiences with Chinese people is that jokes are for friends. The closer you are, the more outrageous the jokes are. If they don't react to your jokes, probably because they don't think it is appropriate for them to react. And probably because they think your sarcasm is offensive.

可能是因为你和他们没那么亲近。从我和中国人打交道的经验来看，笑话只在朋友之间讲。你们的关系越亲密，讲的笑话就越离谱。如果他们对你的笑话没有反应，可能是因为他们认为他们做出反应会不合适。也许是因为他们觉得你的讽刺很无礼。

Michael Chan
Good point there!

说得好！

Zhang Zhiheng 
although you can speak Chinese, doesn't mean you share the same culture background with your colleagues, so ....

虽然你会说中文，但并不意味着你和你的同事有相同的文化背景，所以... ..。

Michael Chan 
Yup, the fact that they looked confused rather than smile or get angry told me they simply did not quite get the sarcasm.

是的，事实上他们看起来很困惑而不是微笑或者生气，这告诉我他们只是没有完全理解我的讽刺。

Zhang Zhiheng 
Yes, there are two sources of jokes: Sex and politics; normally only the first one works well inter-culturally..

是的，说笑话的两个主题一般是性和政治。通常只有在讲有关性的笑话时才不受文化背景的影响。

Michael Chan 
Time to learn some sex jokes!

是时候学一些性爱笑话了！

Xiaoliang Qi
It’s really a matter of culture rather than language. I can easily imagine a joke i founf funny will also make my other friends from mainland china laugh, but a Taiwanese friend may just smile politely…

这实际上是文化的问题，而不是语言的问题。我可以很容易地想象一个有趣的笑话,这个笑话也会让其他大陆朋友笑，但是一个台湾朋友听完之后可能只是礼貌地微笑..。

Joseph Wong 
To say you are wrong would be an understatement. I think sarcasm is a universal language.Chinese were known to speak multiple dialects and 拐彎子駡人 cussing in circles.Chinese even turned it into an art using 偈後語 unfinished sentences. One has to know the following sentences.瞎子拿報紙 - 你看 the blind holding the newspaper. For you to see 問和尚借梳子-明知故犯 borrowing a comb from a monk. Asking for trouble.脫衭子放屁-多此一舉 take off your pants to fart- wasted motion.

你的观点真是大错特错。我认为讽刺是一种通用的语言。众所周知，中国人讲多种方言，拐着弯骂人都是常见的做法。中国人也经常使用歇后语。如瞎子拿報紙 - 你看，問和尚借梳子-明知故犯，脫衭子放屁-多此一舉。
3
Like Feifei said, many sarcasm are so imbedded in the Chinese language that one must be proficient to understand. If you ask me, majority of American preferred the slap stick humor by the Three Stooges but few appreciate sacrasms presented by Dave Miller.

就像Feifei说的，许多讽刺与中国语言完美融合在一起，一个人必须精通中国语言才能理解其中隐藏的讽刺含义。如果你问我的话，大多数美国人都喜欢三个臭皮匠式的幽默，但是很少有人喜欢 Dave Miller 式的幽默。

Brandon Wen 
The reason why you think Chinese people don't "understand" sarcasm is because you're making sarcastic remarks to them in a language (English, if I may guess) that they're not as famaliar with. We detect someone's sarcasm through many secondary cues, like the tone of their voice, their specific word choice, and cultural context of the conversation. These are things that are second nature for native speakers, but are difficult to grasp for non-native speakers.

你之所以认为中国人不能“理解”讽刺，是因为你用他们不熟悉的语言来(我猜应该是英语)讽刺他们。我们通过许多微小的线索来察觉某人是否在讽刺，比如他们的语气，他们特定的用词，以及谈话的文化背景。这些对以英语为母语的人来说很容易掌握，但是对于那些母语不是英语的人来说却很难掌握

This concept should be much easier to understand if you try studying a foreign language. You'll realize that it's quite difficult, and that even if you know the words you might still not fully comprehend the multitude of linguistic elements that go beyond grammar and vocabulary. In reality, Chinese people make sarcastic jokes or write satirical articles just as much as everyone else.

如果你尝试学习一门外语，这个概念应该更容易理解。你会意识到掌握一门语言是相当困难的，即使你知道单词，你可能仍然不能完全理解超越语法和词汇的语言学要素。事实上，中国人和其他国家的人一样，喜欢开冷嘲热讽的玩笑，写讽刺性的文章。

Annelise Lim Jya Yi 
Exactly, even if we're fluent in english. Sarcasm is definitely not taught in education. We can hold conversation but sometimes english speakers especially people with accents like British and Irish make sarcastic remarks, it's even harder to understand. The only way I familiarise with english sarcasm is by watching TV and social media.

没错，即使我们讲一口流利的英语也很难理解西方式的讽刺。我们可以进行交谈，但有时说英语的人，尤其是带有英国和爱尔兰口音的人，会说一些讽刺性的话，这就更难理解了。我熟悉英语讽刺的唯一方式就是看电视和社交媒体。

Anonymous 
Clearly not true. Just read, listen, or watch Chinese comedy, or drama. There's plenty of sarcasm in all forms.

显然不是这样的。读读书，听听音乐，或者看看中国的喜剧或戏剧。里面有各种形式的讽刺。

Botao Jiang 
One time I went to China to my once hometown, I was pretty much lost because of all the urban developments and was talking to the taxi driver in chinese. I had a long conversation and told him I just came back into the country and he asked "do you know the difference between the emperors of the past and the politicians today?" I said I don't. He said unlike the mayors here, the emperor actually cares about his kids (ie: his kid will become the next emperor so he has to hand off something positive), but the current mayors don't. Just look at all the nice walkways and streets, every mayor here will try to redecorate it to make more money and any deficit will not affect him after he leaves office. I told him that's wrong he is insulting the government and he will be arrested.

有一次我回到中国老家，由于城市的发展，我几乎迷路了，我用中文和出租车司机交谈。我和他进行了一次长谈，告诉他我刚刚回到这个国家，他问我: “你知道过去的皇帝和现在的政客有什么不同吗?”我说我不知道。他说，不像这里的市长，皇帝实际上关心他的孩子(即: 他的孩子将成为下一个皇帝，所以他必须做出一些积极的东西) ，但现任市长不这样做。看看那些漂亮的人行道和街道，这里的每一位市长都会努力重新装修，以赚更多的钱，任何赤字都不会影响他离任后的生活。我告诉他这是错误的，他是在侮辱政府，他将被逮捕。

Jeffrey Liang
No. Chinese use sarcasm. But Chinese sarcasm has a different flavor, so Chinese people and Western people are difficult to understand each other's sarcasm from plain translation. Similar situation also for humor. Both find other's humor too dry.

没有。中国人喜欢讽刺别人。但是中国人的讽刺有不同的味道，所以中国人和西方人很难理解对方的讽刺。类似的情况也适用于幽默。他们都觉得对方的幽默太枯燥了。

Annie Turner 
I have some friends from China and I found that a when they came they didn't understand my sarcasm at all. I use sarcasm a lot and I mean a lot. My friend Hao hao or Maggie for example would be confused every time I used sarcasm. It took her months to really get it. I can't say this is every Chinese persons experience but most of my friends were like that.

我有一些来自中国的朋友，我发现当他们刚来的时候，他们根本不理解我的讽刺。我经常讽刺别人。比如我的朋友Hao hao或者Maggie，每次我说一些讽刺的话，他们都会感到困惑。他们花了好几个月才真正明白我的讽刺。我不能说这是每个中国人的经历，但是我的大多数朋友都是这样的。

Austin Cain
No, I don't think so. Just because you're Chinese or from a different culture or country still doesn't mean anything. We're all human. Yes of course there are different languages but if they spoke English well enough and understood English well enough they could understand and detect sarcasm.

不，我不这么认为。仅仅因为你是中国人或者来自不同的文化或不同的国家并不意味着什么。我们都是人。是的，我们讲不同的语言，但是如果他们的英语说得足够好，并且能够很好地理解语义，他们就能够理解并察觉到你是否在讽刺。

Jinx Li
Of couse not. The four famous novels in China's history are full of satires. 

当然不是。中国历史上的四部名著都充满了讽刺

Democracy Mr 
Of course no! In the internet, the chinese government, the tfboy, the kobe, the lebron, with all other ones , have almost got ten tons of sarcasms for each of them. And We chinese do use sarcasm a lot in our daily life. We like to make fun of others as well as ourself. 

当然不是！在互联网上，中国政府，TFboy，科比，勒布朗，还有其他所有人，几乎每个人每天都会收到网友大量的讽刺。而且我们中国人在日常生活中也经常说一些讽刺的话。我们喜欢取笑别人，也喜欢取笑自己…

Tom Xu 
Of course not. It’s just because they don’t understand your language very well. And in China, usually people don’t joke or use sarcasm when they speak to an unfimilar 

当然不是。只是因为他们不太懂你的语言。在中国，人们和陌生人说话时，通常不开玩笑或说一些讽刺的话。