When I came to Japan I was prepared for some communication difficulties to occur. After all, I barely speak Japanese, so what else could I expect? But what surprised me the most was that the very first area I had really huge problem with, was sense of humor. Really. I literally can’t make jokes in here.


That’s not because Japanese people are not joking, I’m sure they do. The problem is, they do it differently. You see, people in Poland don’t smile much. We smile when we are happy, or when we are having fun with friends, but not without some reason to do so, it’s quite uncommon. Our sense of humour is quite specific, maybe a little sarcastic, maybe a little malicious. Like, when I’m joking with my friends, I often say something that sounds insulting or offensive, but they would see my smile and understand that I’m joking and don’t mean it. Because, as I said, we don’t smile without a reason. We certainty wouldn’t be smiling while angry, upset, apologising or insulting someone.
And here’s the catch: Japanese people smile all the time. They smile when they greet, they smile when they speak, they smile when they are apologising, or when there’s a problem, they even smile when saying that they are sorry! So, obviously, they don’t have this “smiling=happy and joking” recognition. They don’t think my smiling face is a clue to understanding what I mean.

And here comes the Case Study:

I realised this difference during the first week, when I tried to joke. I was in class and we were making small group discussions. A guy and girl from my group, sitting in front of, me started speaking with each other in Japanese. So I joked, with a huge smile on my face “Oh, you’re using the fact that I don’t know Japanese to talk about me behind my back.” Normal reaction in Poland would be something along the lines of “Yeah, we couldn’t stop ourselves” or “Oh please, you’re not SO important” again with a huge joking smile and maybe even a wink. That was not what happened in Japan. What happened was a terrified guy who was apologising to me and trying to explain and convince me that that’s not it for a few minutes and me trying to explain that it's all right, and apologising for scaring him like that. At some point I thought he will faint from the sheer fear of offending me. To sum up: that was the last time I tried to joke with Japanese people in Polish way. Now I'm stuck with “Oh, that’s funny because [insert joke with explanation]

It has bright side thought! I've heard our sense of humour is a little close to British. Maybe it’s true. During one of classes here our teacher (to prove some point) told us a British joke: a man wearing old clothes meets his friend, who asks him why he dressed without usual care and the response is “Because I’m not meeting anyone important today.” After he finished, all Japanese students were sitting in their seats, mouths hanging open with shocked “that’s so rude!” written all over their faces, while I couldn’t stop laughing, because, come on, it was SO funny!