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Humour
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===China=== [[Confucianism|Confucianist]] & Neo-Confucian orthodoxy, with its emphasis on ritual and propriety, have traditionally looked down upon humour as [[subversive]] or unseemly. Humour was perceived as [[irony]] and sarcasm.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Xiao|first=Dong Yue|title=Exploration of Chinese humor: Historical review, empirical findings, and critical reflections |journal=Humor|volume=23|issue=3|doi=10.1515/HUMR.2010.018|year=2010|s2cid=201056950 }}</ref> The Confucian ''[[Analects]]'' itself, however, depicts the Master as fond of humorous self-deprecation, once comparing his wanderings to the existence of a homeless dog.<ref>C. Harbsmeier, "Confucius-Ridens, Humor in the Analects." Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 50. 1: 131–61.</ref> Early [[Daoism|Daoist]] philosophical texts such as ''[[Zhuangzi (book)|Zhuangzi]]'' pointedly make fun of Confucian seriousness and make Confucius himself a slow-witted figure of fun.<ref>Jocelyn Chey and Jessica Milner Davis, eds. "Humour in Chinese Life and Letters: Classical and Traditional Approaches" (HKUP, 2011)</ref> Joke books containing a mix of wordplay, puns, situational humour, and play with taboo subjects like sex and scatology, remained popular over the centuries. Local performing arts, storytelling, vernacular fiction, and poetry offer a wide variety of humorous styles and sensibilities. Famous Chinese humourists include the ancient jesters [[Chunyu Kun]] and [[Dongfang Shuo]]; writers of the Ming and Qing dynasties such as [[Feng Menglong]], Li Yu,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=978-0674332270|title=The Invention of Li Yu – Patrick Hanan – Harvard University Press|website=www.hup.harvard.edu|access-date=26 August 2018}}</ref> and [[Wu Jingzi]]; and modern comic writers such as [[Lu Xun]], [[Lin Yutang]], [[Lao She]], [[Qian Zhongshu]], [[Wang Xiaobo]], and [[Wang Shuo]], and performers such as [[Ge You]], [[Guo Degang]], and [[Zhou Libo (comedian)|Zhou Libo]]. Modern Chinese humour has been heavily influenced not only by indigenous traditions, but also by foreign humour, circulated via [[print media|print]] culture, cinema, television, and the internet.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://u.osu.edu/mclc/files/2014/09/intro20.2-158jzq5.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151026075533/http://u.osu.edu/mclc/files/2014/09/intro20.2-158jzq5.pdf |archive-date=26 October 2015 |url-status=live |title=Comic Visions of Modern China|website=u.osu.edu}}</ref> During the 1930s, [[Lin Yutang]]'s [[phono-semantic matching|phono-semantic transliteration]] ''yōumò'' ({{lang|zh|[[wikt:|幽默]]}}; humour) caught on as a new term for humour, sparking a fad for humour literature, as well as impassioned debate about what type of humorous sensibility best suited China, a poor, weak country under partial foreign occupation.<ref>Christopher Rea, "[http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520283848 The Age of Irreverence]: A New History of Laughter in China" (University of California Press, 2015)</ref><ref>{{cite book|chapter-url=https://eprint.ncl.ac.uk/195282 |title=Humour in Chinese Life and Letters: Classical and Traditional Approaches|chapter = Discovering Humour in Modern China: The Launching of the Analects Fortnightly Journal and the 'Year of Humour' (1933)|first = Qian |last = Suoqiao|editor1-last = Chey|editor1-first= J.|editor2-last= Milner Davis|editor2-first= J.|year = 2011|pages = 191–218, 251–254|publisher = Hong Kong University Press|isbn = 978-9888083527 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.ncl.ac.uk/sml/research/publication/195315 |title=Research - School of Modern Languages – Newcastle University |access-date=30 September 2016 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161002100338/http://www.ncl.ac.uk/sml/research/publication/195315 |archive-date=2 October 2016 }}</ref> While some types of comedy were officially sanctioned during the rule of Mao Zedong, the Party-state's approach towards humour was generally repressive.<ref>{{cite web|author=David Moser|title=Stifled Laughter|url=http://www.danwei.org/tv/stifled_laughter_how_the_commu.php|website=www.danwei.org}}</ref> Social liberalisation in the 1980s, commercialisation of the cultural market in the 1990s, and the advent of the internet have each—despite an invasive state-sponsored censorship apparatus—enabled new forms of humour to flourish in China in recent decades.<ref>{{cite news|author1=Jessica Milner Davis |author2= Jocelyn Chey<!-- , eds. --> |title=Humour in Chinese Life and Culture: Resistance and Control in Modern Times|website= www.hkupress.org|year= 2013|url= http://www.hkupress.org/Common/Reader/Products/ShowProduct.jsp?Pid=1&Version=0&Cid=16&Charset=iso-8859-1&page=-1&key=9789888139248}}</ref>
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