How can you define a family? What holds certain people together - the blood they share, the genes, the history, the love? The blood and the genes we’ll pass on to the next generation, we’ll take our turn to become part of the family history and the love for our parents will turn to our children. There’s one thing we cannot really pass along - the jokes in our family of origin. My children will never understand the jokes that made us laugh when I was a kid. We may try to share the sort of humor we grew up with, but they won’t really get it. On the other hand, no one will really understand the jokes me and my children share. They belong to us, to a certain period of our existence and they will fade once my children start their own families. They'll have their own jokes.
One can say the same about the jokes only members of a certain community or people will understand. Over the past 30 years, many Romanians immigrated in search of a better life. They took with them customs, religion, traditional food recipes … and jokes. Jokes they cannot really share with their new neighbors as they wouldn’t get the humor.
Or how about jokes that belong to a certain time? Twenty years from now no one would get a joke about Trump...
There was a moment of confusion this morning when my son and I made for the phone lying on the table, which turned out to be his. I laughed saying that one would think we’re crazy. In my mind I instantly knew I was referencing a funny story my mother used to tell, a story about a visit to someone in a mental institution. No point in explaining this to my son. He wasn’t there when that story became a family joke so he wouldn’t find it funny.
At present, possibly the funniest joke in my family was born out of my son’s shocked reaction upon learning of my brother-in-law’s death. An uncle he’d never met as he lived halfway across the world. His surprise was so genuine that we couldn’t help laughing. One might argue that it’s not nice to laugh about someone’s death, but after a bit of soul-searching I decided it’s a most befitting tribute. After all, he was a very funny man, the one who’d have us cracking at long-forgotten family dinners. True to his Romanian origins, after moving to California he continued to gather old jokes that he’d share via email. I’d forward his emails to other friends living abroad so they, too, could have a laugh at those good old jokes only we can understand. If you google the funniest people in the world you’ll find out that every nation thinks of themselves as particularly funny. The general consensus seems to be that the Germans aren’t funny, but maybe it’s just that we don’t get their sense of humor. (Obviously, invading neighboring countries must have raised more than a few laughs in Berlin, but the joke was lost on those being invaded.)
We, Romanians, attribute our survival under various types of occupation to our sense of humor. Making light of a bad situation is considered a fundamental trait of our people, though it is not. Humor has been used since times immemorial to cope with stressful situations. A good laugh increases positive feelings, keeping the negative ones at bay. Legend has it that back in the Communist regime, it was the secret service that concocted and circulated the best political jokes to provide an outlet for the people’s very negative feelings. Could be…
Like each family, each community has its own jokes. I could try to explain how people in Bucharest make fun of the heating problems we’ve been having the past few winters, courtesy of the years of neglect of the old central heating system in our city. Last night, I had a good laugh with my daughter who has recently moved out. The system was working so well it was too hot, we texted each other. Maybe we should lodge a complaint, we said. Turns out others had the same feeling, judging by the jokes I saw on social media this morning. It’s too good to be true, pipes will start bursting any time now. A foreigner visiting Bucharest would not get the point as they wouldn’t have any idea what it’s like when the radiators are cold and there’s no hot water. Totally not funny when it’s freezing outside, I can tell you.
A while ago, a friend of mine used a weird phrase in a text message. I understood what she meant, but I knew it must have been a saying that was particular to her family. Her folks are gone now so there’s no one she can share old family jokes with. Just as I cannot explain to my kids some of the jokes that come to my mind.
Do you have family jokes outsiders wouldn’t get? Do you still remember funny stories from your childhood no one would understand? Old family sayings that went extinct with those that used to say them?
