Joke

If you are unfortunate enough to keep stumbling on your journey to find happiness, please accept the advice of an inexperienced person like me to move to Vinh Hoang village, Vinh Tu commune, Vinh Linh district, Quang Tri province to live.

Surely you will be curious to ask again, why do you have to go to a poor village in the Central region full of sand and wind? Very simple, because that is the village that has had a tradition of… joking for hundreds of years!

Funny enough, under the crowded sky, surrounded by the hustle and bustle of making a living, it is hard to imagine that there exists a community that uses laughter as a space for communication. And it is not only Vinh Hoang, there is also the Van Lang joking village in Van Luong commune, Tam Nong district, Phu Tho province. Even in Kinh Bac, almost every district has a “laughing village”. That is the Central and the North, and in the South, everyone has heard of the legendary character Ba Phi. That shows how lovely life is!

Jokes are of course not true, but unlike lies, jokes add spice to life. Wherever there are people, there is a need for joy, and wherever there is a need for joy, jokes appear. Jokes are intentional human activities through actions or words to bring joy to the community. "A smile is worth ten tonics." I used to think that was just an exaggeration to encourage laughter. But no, a recent study shows that the stress hormone cortisol damages nerve cells as well as a series of other health problems, including high blood pressure, diabetes and heart disease. Experts from Loma Linda University (USA) conducted an experiment showing a funny video. The result was that volunteers significantly reduced their stress hormone levels, and people with diabetes significantly reduced their cortisol levels. "It's simple: when you're less stressed, you have better memory," explains Dr. Lee Berk, a member of the research team. "Humor reduces harmful stress hormones like cortisol, lowers blood pressure, increases blood flow, and improves mood. Laughing or simply enjoying something funny increases the release of endorphins and dopamine, which are associated with feelings of pleasure and satisfaction, in the brain." See, joking is therapeutic. Don't joke!

Perhaps “jokes” were born with the origin of mankind. Laughter is indispensable in life and should not be absent. It is sad, if not hellish, when our lives are deprived of laughter. It is no coincidence that the film industry has a whole genre of comedy films and the stage is full of comedy. Comedians are especially loved by fans. It is indeed lucky if we live next to people who like to joke and know how to joke. However, joking also requires culture, intelligence and sophistication. How to joke, who to joke with, when to joke, where to joke are questions that need to be constantly in mind whether you have a sense of humor or not. Jokes do not always bring joy, they can even hurt others. I have a very funny friend, it seems that everything on him carries the message of laughter, most notably the funny phone ringtone. Every time his phone suddenly rang, everyone was in a panic. One time, he went to a colleague’s funeral. When he and everyone started to burn incense on the altar, the phone suddenly rang, “The hand, the hand, the hand, grab the hand, grab the leg and the head…”. Needless to say, he was confused, fumbling to find the off button, while the damn phone stubbornly kept on firing “The head is very big, the legs are very long, fly high, jump high, fly high, jump high…”. Everyone at the funeral looked at him in dismay as if he were a strange object. Yes, he didn’t do it on purpose, it was just an accident, a “half-crying, half-laughing” accident!

Here is another story. When I was young, a man in my village used to play a prank by tying a piece of money to a string and dropping it on the ground to tease passersby. One time, a woman saw the money and ran after it. The more she ran, the shorter the string became, until, “bang!” a tractor ran over her. Not long ago, a heartbreaking incident also happened from a disastrous prank in village 8, Huong Ngai commune, Thach That district, Hanoi. The victim was a 12th grade female student at T school who passed away, leaving behind a letter telling a tearful story: “The day I went to extra math class, H. took my photo, and when he came back he edited it randomly. I told him but he didn’t take it away, he said he would post it on Facebook. Then he posted it on the boys’ Facebook in the class. D. saw it and downloaded it and posted it on the whole class’ Facebook. The whole class saw it. I was so angry that I started a fight, so the whole class was so happy that they teased me even more. I threatened that I would die because of that photo. He told me to die, so they could celebrate, so I did it.” Oh my, it’s so heartbreaking, just because of a useless joke, a life was taken. Joking becomes a crime.

In life, there is no shortage of people who use jokes as a shelter for their lies. It is indeed interesting to live with people who know how to joke, but it is also a disaster to live with people who do not know how to joke but still like to joke. I once witnessed a boss of an agency who was very fond of jokes. It seemed that whenever three or more people gathered, he would enthusiastically start telling and retelling old jokes. Boring stories combined with a writing style as bland as snail washing water, he would rudely stuff them into the ears of his employees every day. When the boss told a story, they had to rest their chins on their hands and listen, when they listened, they had to laugh, when they laughed, they had to grin. In short, every day the boss forced everyone to grin until their mouths were tired. The trouble was that the boss did not know, and the trouble was that no one dared to tell the boss. So after each story the boss told, everyone had to grin according to... the plan! Yet among them there was still one person who laughed out loud every time he heard his boss tell a joke. After investigating, he found out that this person was laughing not because his boss told a good joke, but because his boss was a joke of nature!

There are also real stories that sound like jokes. The news just came out, each bunch of Japanese grapes costs up to 11 million VND, but as soon as they arrived in Saigon, they were all sold out! Really, no joke! Also official news, a locality is planning a theater worth 1,500 billion VND. It was born when a clip of a teacher and student somewhere skillfully crawling into a plastic bag to cross a river was spreading on the internet. They explained that they had to carry the letters and crawl into a plastic bag to cross the river because the locality could not afford 500 million VND to build a bridge. Yeah, crawling into a plastic bag to cross the river to school is one thing, but culture and arts are another. Symphony music will play and make everyone feel refreshed and enthusiastic about working, when they are enthusiastic about working, material wealth will be abundant, when material wealth is abundant, they will have plenty of money to... buy plastic bags. The only thing is, it's no joke, that theater is worth the same as the 3,000 bridges needed to cross the stream where the teacher and students are crawling in plastic bags...

Jokes are a spice, jokes are essential but don't let them be too much! Just one thing, joke with whoever you want, joke with whatever you want, please don't be foolish enough to joke with the law!