Second Juha Readings

         I really enjoyed the next to readings in the Tales of Juha, as I expected after the first 40 pages. Juha is a very versatile character, and he really can be whatever the storyteller wants him to be; this is really evident in today's reading. The first section was titled "Social Satire." Juha was his usually witty self in this chapter, using his clever wording to poke fun on a lot of social issues and common issues. I really liked this chapter because, as many people mentioned in class, it's easy to relate to. For example, Juha's story about how there are a total of four people in bed at night with his wife. Past relationships often come back and affect current relationships. Most people have had this type of experience. Another story that I found amusing was the story of Juha and his son at the funeral procession. The mourning widow told the deceased husband that the funeral procession was taking him somewhere with no bed, cover, carpet, food or water. Juha's son then exclaims that they're taking him to Juha's house. This short story wasn't the most satirical or clever of the chapter, but it definitely provided a good laugh.
         My favorite story from this chapter was the one with Juha, his son, and the donkey. In this story, Juha and his son can't decide whether to ride the donkey together or have one of them walking. No matter what they're doing, people passing by comment on how they're doing something wrong. Eventually, Juha and his son start carrying the donkey and then just walking aside the donkey. They continue to get upsetting comments from people passing by. At the end or the story, Juha comments that it's impossible to please everyone. This situation is easy to relate to for almost everyone. People in society often judge people no matter what they do. I think society in general is the target of the satire here.
         The next chapter is titled "Cunning and Resource." Juha is quite the trickster in this section. My favorite story would have to be the story about Juha and the 1000 dinars. Juha tricks his neighbor into giving him 999 dinars, a new donkey, and new clothes. Juha's clever trick in court was very amusing, and definitely fits the cunning trickster role he often plays. These first two sections of the reading were very similar to what we've seen of Juha so far. He's clever and smart, but in the next chapter he is much of the opposite.
          The last chapter was titled Naivete and Stupidity. Juha seems to be a totally different character from previous stories. Here he is a lot less clever, often at a loss for words, and is at the butt end of most jokes. However, I still found these stories entertaining. My favorite story from this section was when Juha sat at the preacher chair in the mosque. He was going to deliver a sermon, but he couldn't find anything to say. Usually I would expect Juha to think of something clever to say on the spot, but instead he just admits that his mind is blank. This kind of cognitive shift made this short story pretty amusing. This chapter definitely shows how versatile a character Juha. It reinforces the idea that Juha can be any type of character the story teller wants him to be.

1st Meeting with Thania (4th Meeting Overall)

               My former conversation partner was Ricardo, a 23 year old Brazilian businessman. Ricardo recently made an impromptu trip to Vegas and then headed back to Brazil. Since we only got to meet three times, I needed a new partner. Thanks to Zhenya, I now have Thania as a new conversation partner. Thania and I met at Market Square last Thursday. Thania is a middle aged woman from Guatemala. She actually moved to the United States over 16 years ago. Her time in the US has taken her many places across the country. She originally moved to Reno, Nevada, with her husband 16 years ago because her  father lived there. She then moved around California, and now Fort Worth, TX.
          Here in Fort Worth, Thania, her husband, and her two children reside. She has a busy schedule, waking up every week day at 630 to drive her son to school over a half hour away. Classes from 9-1 keep her busy, and then she usually has to pick her son up from school around 215. With her busy schedule, Thania still managed to find time to meet with me from 1-2. What I really enjoyed about meeting with Thania was her enthusiasm about the ESL program. Previously, she was not assigned a conversation partner because she has lived in America for 16 years. The teachers believed her English was proficient enough that other students needed the conversation partners more. This surprised me, considering Thania's English was often mispronounced and very hard to comprehend. She knows that she needs help with her English, and she really wants me to help her whenever she makes a mistake. Several times I helped her pronounce a word or let her know that she should slow down when speaking.
          Having an enthusiastic conversation partner really has its advantages. Thania would always want to discuss what was going on in school and especially this specific class. I explained that the class' main theme was humor. She instantly took that explanation as me assigning her homework. For next time we meet, she plans on bringing a collection of Latin American jokes.
           After talking about her history, Guatemala, and my classes, it was time for us to part. For our next lunch, we plan on talking about Guatemalan culture, and specifically the humor.

Hokum Readings 11/5

           I enjoyed today's readings from Hokum a little more than the previous stories. The first reading was "Adventure" by Langston Hughes. This short passage had similar content compared to most of the stories in Hokum. They all seem to focus on the oppression against African Americans in the United States. Most of this oppression comes from white people. In this reading, I found the sarcastic tone throughout interesting. The ideas of a sight seeing tour with whites and blacks in Alabama was fairly amusing. However, this reading didn't make me laugh, as with most of the Hokum readings. I don't think most of these stories are aiming to provide a belly aching laugh. Instead, they poke fun at all the injustices African Americans faced at the time by trying to show how outrageous those injustices were.
           The next reading was "The Lesson" by Toni Cade Bambara. I was actually able to relate to this story a little because of the toy store. When the kids started looking at the unbelievably priced things in New York, I immediately knew where they were because of my job this past summer. I worked for West Corporation as a customer service specialist for their client, Toys R Us.com. During my training process, I learned that Toys R Us actually owns FAO Schwarz. Whenever I would get an FAO Schwarz call my eyes would light up hoping for a celebrity or some CEO to call in and order the 16 foot tall giraffe we sold for $7,999. This never happened, but I do remember one guy called in and had me order three toy trucks for him, with overnight shipping for a final bill around $300.00. For his billing address, he told me the 47th floor of a building on Madison Avenue; and for the shipping address, his summer home in Nantucket. I'm definitely not in the same situation as the kids in the story, but it's crazy to think about how much money some people have earned. Now, back to the story. The Lesson seems to be another amusing story that has a certain message but no major laughs. The lesson Miss Moore is trying to teach is kind of telling wit this quote: "Imagine for a minute what kind of society it is in which some people can spend on a toy what it would cost to feed a family of six or seven (197)." On the surface, it appears Miss Moore is showing the kids major differences between people in America. Along with this message, I thought "The Lesson" was pretty amusing. The narrator is a young girl who tells the story in a humorous tone. The way she describes all the mischief with vulgar language is entertaining. It never really made me laugh, but it made this story easy to read.
           The last reading was "Dark Prophecy: I sing of Shine." I'm just a biology major so I wasn't exactly sure the specific type of style, but I'll call this reading a poem. This poem uses a lot more vulgar language. It tells the story of an African American, referred to as "Shine," fleeing the titanic when it was sinking. Several white people offer "Shine" different things if he would save them. Shine just swims on to Harlem while all the white people sink and die. To me, this poem sends the attitude "why should African Americans help white people after all the years of injustices." Following the apparent theme of Hokum, this poem definitely wasn't funny. I probably wouldn't even call it amusing because it felt morbid.
           

Hokum Readings (10/29)

In my opinion, Hokum is the most difficult thing we've read this year. Yes Morreal was a little dry and somewhat organized, but it was fairly easy to understand. Hokum is written in a way that I often have to read    over and over again until I understand anything. However, once I finally understand fully what's going on, I find myself intrigued in the stories.

The story that I want to discuss is "The City of Refuge" by Rudolph Fisher. I often feel confused about why these stories are considered African-American humor. "The City of Refuge" never really made me laugh, or amused. I would say that it made me kind of angry the way that Mouse Uggam took advantage of Gillis. He had Gillis run his drug business by convincing him he was just selling French medicine. Gillis is ignorant of everything going on, and ends up taking the fall for the drugs at the end. I'm not really sure if the story is supposed to be amusing or humorous because I found it more sad. However, there is a lot of incongruity in the story. Almost all the incongruity is based off of the King Solomon Gillis' lack of intelligence. One would expect him to easily figure out he's being set up, but he has no idea. Another example of incongruity is Gillis' amazement with Harlem. He feels it's the best place on Earth, the 'city of refuge', but really it is not a place to live. 

Though I felt like there are incongruous parts in this reading and in other Hokum readings, I definitely don't consider it 'funny.' This is probably due to a few reasons. First is that most of these stories are from the early to mid 1900's. The dated time period makes it very hard to relate to any of these stories. Another reason is that I am a 19 year old white male. I've gone through over 13 years of schooling teaching me about the horrors of slavery and injustices against African-Americans. When reading many of these stories that appear to encourage certain stereotypes about African-Americans, I don't chuckle or smile. Usually I just find it pretty racist because of today's culture. 

3rd Meeting with Ricardo

           Ricardo and I met for the third time the other day, for a short lunch at Market Square. It was a short lunch because Ricardo needed to head over to the airport for his trip to Vegas. At this point, he let me know that once he returned from Vegas in a week or so, he would go directly to the airport and back to Brazil. I had no idea Ricardo was to return to Brazil so soon. This was definitely a big communication error on my part. Once I realized I wouldn't be able to meet with Ricardo again, I asked him a few questions about his thoughts on humor.
             Ricardo said Brazilian humor, in his opinion, consists of a lot sarcasm. He finds short, clever jokes and sayings in the middle of a conversation the funniest. I told him we usually call that a dry sense of humor. He didn't elaborate much more on the sarcasm, so I asked him what he thought of American humor. He says he finds some TV shows funny like The Office. Ricardo doesn't like the physical humor in America. When a guy goes up to another guy and hits him, he doesn't laugh. I told Ricardo this often called slapstick humor. That was really the extent of our humor conversation because he needed to catch a plane to Vegas. I wished him good luck on his gambling and to have a safe return to Brazil. Though we only conversed three times, I always enjoyed the conversations.
               Now, hopefully I'll get a new conversation partner to meet with for the rest of the semester...

Another meeting with Ricardo

                 Ricardo and I met again at Market Square this past Thursday. It had been a while since we last met, so we caught up for a bit. Ricardo had been busy the past few weeks with classes, and then he traveled to Austin with his brother. His brother traveled to Austin from Brazil for business, and decided to stay in Texas until Ricardo returns to Brazil in November.

                While his brother is here, Ricardo has some big plans. In a few weeks, they’re going to Vegas for the national rodeo. Ricardo has traveled all across the United States for rodeos. He actually listed off about 15 or more major cities in the country that he has visited. Ricardo’s cousin is a professional calf roper, so he often travels with him to the major rodeos around the country. It surprised me that he’s been to more exciting cities in the United States than me, and I’ve lived here all my life. He’s definitely not a stranger to the culture.

                The conversation about all the places Ricardo has visited brought up the topic about major cultural differences between Brazil and the United States. Ricardo said that the most confusing thing in the US is the federalist government. The different between state and national government definitely confused him because he’s traveled to so many different states in the country. To him, it’s so odd that specific laws vary in different parts of the country. In Brazil, no matter where he is, there is only one set of laws. This intrigued me a lot because I never had really thought about laws changing across state borders.

                Ricardo brought up some other big cultural differences between Brazil and the United States. In Brazil, soccer is the only really popular sport that everything else takes a back seat to. This is obviously different compared to all the variety we have here. Law wise, Ricardo liked that most people can get a driver’s license at age 16 here. In Brazil, one must be 18 to drive. Another major difference exists between laws regarding alcohol. Ricardo told me how he could go to a night club in Brazil and see tiny 14 and 15 year old boys and girls intoxicated, but here it is a lot stricter. Before speaking to Ricardo, I never realized how many small laws and things could make a country seem so foreign. 

Family Vacations

            John Hughes' "Vacation 58" was one of the funnier stories I've read so far this year. What I liked most about it was the nonchalant manor that the young narrator talked about a chaotic event. Throughout the story, crazy, over the top events happen to the narrator and his family, and the fact that the narrator is a young boy makes the events seem like no big deal. For example, when Clarke (the father) is driving through Illinois late at night, the narrator states, "Dad drove up on the side-walk and ran over a bike and some toys. Mom accused him of being asleep at the wheel, but he said he was just unfamiliar with traffic signs (263). The somewhat flattened voice that the narrator states the chaotic events makes it very humorous. It is a form of incongruity because one would expect the narrator to freak out when his dad recklessly drive, but he just casually tells the story and moves on.
           This same exact patterns happens again and again in the story, except the car ride keeps on getting more chaotic. Highway patrol pulls over the station wagon, and it turns out that they were dragging the dog at 60+ miles per hour for half a mile. They drove the station wagon off a four foot cliff. They get robbed by the gas station attendant that towed their car. The dad robbed the hotel, runs from the police, get attacked by Indians, and eventually the events climaxed with Clarke shooting Walt Disney. Every single one of these chaotic events is told in a flat tone from the young narrator who doesn't really understand the severity of the situation. The difference between the chaos of the events, and the nonchalant way the events are told is an example of incongruity in this story.
          Another thing I liked about this story was the underlying suburban, Midwest stereotype. I'm from Omaha, Nebraska, which is essentially in the center of the continental US. To drive anywhere fairly exciting, it's either an expensive flight or a long road trip. With a family of six, flying was rarely an option so for almost all vacations we would pack up the suburban and try to stand each other for usually over eight hours. The beginning of "Vacation 58" is pretty much an exaggerated version of what happens before each of my family vacations. My dad will be super meticulous about packing the car just right, making sure to include his golf clubs. We always plan at leaving around 8:00 or so in the morning, but rarely make it out before 9:30. For my family at least, vacations always seem like a great idea but always result in tears, blood, and a lot of stress. I feel like Hughes captured this situation perfectly. The family was so excited to go on a great vacation to Disney Land, but it turns out to be fairly destructive. Granted the family in the story went through a little more chaos, I was still able to relate to the fundamental situation.