Getting The Joke

"Very bad news!" Samah confides, her pretty eyes round with surprise. "Did you hear? Prince William already divorce with wife!"

"Prince William is divorced?" I've been busy, pulling my books out of my bag, getting ready to start teaching, but this stops me in my tracks. "That's impossible, he only just got married!"

She shakes her head. "I read in journal. He is divorce already, so soon."

She pulls out her mobile phone, presses a few buttons, and brings it to show me. Intrigued, I put down my books and read.

"I really don't know what I was thinking—we're a terrible match, I don't love her and never have, and, to be honest, I never really had any interest in being married in the first place," announced the now unattached Prince William to a dead-silent British press corps.

I am stunned by this. "I can't believe it!" I splutter. "This is crazy -- they've only been married a month!"

Samah nods gravely. "It is crazy."

The other students, all Chinese, are intrigued now. "What is happen?" We tell them and they crowd around my desk.

"People thought our wedding was some sort of fairy tale," we read, "but I assure you it was all just some ghastly ceremonial farce that got out of hand. I'm just relieved it's over, frankly. And I'm glad I'll never have to see that awful woman again."

"You see?" says Samah, "is true!"

I'm still shaking my head. I can't get over this! "All that fuss! All that money--" But I stop myself. "Hang on, what newspaper published this?" Because on my way to work I passed half a dozen newsstands. All the tabloids headlines were about the sort of dull things nobody wants to read: a football player's illness, city planning. There's no way they wouldn't be having a field day with a story like this.

And scrolling up Samah's mobile, I see that the article we are reading is from The Onion.

I do my best to explain, but it doesn't go down well.

"Why someone write this?" my Chinese students demand. "Why write story not true?"

"It's a joke," I tell them. "The Onion plays little jokes like that."

"Divorce not joke!"

And no, it isn't. But as my father-in-law used to say, some fall on stony ground. Humor doesn't always cross cultures; a lot of it gets lost in translation. Nothing makes a joke less funny than trying to explain it to people who cannot get it. Nothing kills humor deader than repeated attempts to interpret it.

When the class is over, I am finished for the day. I decide to pay a visit to the ladies' room before leaving the building, but the cleaning lady is in the one I normally go to, so I nip into the disabled toilet. There is a long black cord dangling from the ceiling, but I haven't lived in the U.K. all these years without learning a few tricks: generally the flush mechanism here is a lever like we use in the States, but sometimes it's a chain, so why not a cord? I pull on the cord and immediately a high-pitched shriek of an alarm shrills, causing me to jump half a foot. I look for an off-switch, but cannot find it. I open the door. With any luck, the cleaning lady will come and tell me how to turn it off.

Instead, a small, international crowd has formed. The shriek-alarm is so loud, I can barely hear their anxious Are you all rights?, but as soon as they see my able-bodied, shamefaced self, they know exactly what has happened. One of them goes into the toilet and turns off the alarm.

"Please tell me I'm not the only one who has done that," I manage to say, blushing furiously. As I scurry out, they're still laughing.

Yes, the joke is on me. But at least I don't have to explain it.