One of the sweetest people I know suggested I write about cultural differences in humor. Personally I think humor is very subjective no matter where in the world you come from. Yet, of course some sayings and humoristic take on things, reactions etc. are a bit typical.
First of all let us make one thing clear. I come from a family that joke a lot about sex (yes even around the dinner table!). My family has a great dose of sarcasm and irony mixed into their humor as well, actually it is the backbone of it. The sex-jokes is not typical Norwegian as far as I have heard, it is just us being strange more than anything. I guess in that sense we like to be open-minded. Since I lived in several different places in Norway though I think I can safely say that we use a lot of self-irony and sarcasm in our jokes. For example, if it was obvious that I had a nice day with someone and they would ask me if I had a nice time with them I might tell them with sparkles in my eyes ¨No , it was horrible! I was terribly bored!¨ and often end it with a laughter and a smile. If someone would ask me if it was raining outside as I was standing outside their door soaking wet I would say ¨NO the weather has never been more lovely and dry, so please leave me out here to enjoy.....¨. I think many Norwegians reading this would recognize these kind of responses. Yet I also learned to be careful with it, the older people do not always get it (speaking from experience!).
When I moved to the UK for 3 years I soon realized they do have different humor than me. I think I met a handful of people that could appreciate my openness and well-preserved sarcasm as well as the satisfying dose of self-irony I tossed inn there. We Norwegians also joke a lot about the negative things that happen to us through life, we love using ¨galgen-humor"which can best be described as morbid humor in English. We laugh the sadness away or at least try to when things are difficult. In England they joke about many things, but I think death and sex is not one of then (generally speaking of course, since I know there are some freaks out there as well heheh!) I think young people over there are rather liberal and used to joking around a bit. Yet I remember it struck me a bit dull to joke about politics (which the English people did a lot), they like to ridicule Posh-spice and other fallen celebrities and they do love a good rant-over if someone did something stupid. I still remember being baffled by how some local boys refurnished Sams room at university after he had one of his drunk moments again, they put all his furniture in the roof! So they like to play pranks on others you could say. Hehehe! It was kind of funny sometimes, yet I would feel more comfortable with laughing of my own silliness. I did however pick up a few cultural influences from the English in these things, the joke does not always have to be on me anymore. Sometimes that is allowed right?
When moving to the Netherlands I guess I was expecting them to be very open about both sex and other types of humor and cultures. I mean they have the red-light-district so why wouldn't they be? Hahahah oh lord did I get a cultural shock. Sure the Dutch people have humor, and yes it really does differ a lot from person to person here just because you have so many different cultures in this small country. I have been so lucky to meet a lot of different people so I can say to you right now there are many many many different types of humor in this country. I have met people with veryyyyy dry humor that do not understand irony even if it sat on their face. Sex-jokes and morbid jokes as you can imagine is a no-go for these people (learned the hard way!) However, I have also met people that do not take themselves too serious and totally get the use of irony in humor. One thing the Dutch hate though is my morbid humor, it is not fun to joke about the negative apparently , ¨why would you do that?!¨ is a sentence I have heard sooooo many times. If you can not cry then laugh I always say, because people hate negative moments or anything that reminds them of it so why not make a joke of it and laugh until it passes is my philosophy (not always of course but you get my drift I think).
Living abroad sometimes brings you into places and situations that can get awkward or rewarding. Humor is certainly needed yet also one of the factors that can make an awkward silence even more awkward believe me (speaking from experience here too heheheh). It is fun to look back on those situations now where I made a bit of a fool of myself around dinner tables, though right then and there my face was red as a lobster and certainly not amused after cracking the wrong joke at the wrong time ;)
Stay safe people,
x Annie
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