A Bad Joke

I enjoyed this piece quite a bit. It came off to me like a three stooges skit except with a much more unfortunate ending. The two peasants one tall and the other short are arrested in the beginning for making a joke about a high end official. The two dodge the police officers questioning by playing dumb. They say they dont know who chairman Deng Xiaoping is and are only aware of Chairman Mao. This makes me think this is a fiction based on real individuals. Mao being a communist leader of China. Later its not until the salesgirls who heard the joke are questioned and confirm the peasants comments.

The real comedy I saw in this piece was how the joke the tall man said, "Damn all prices go up--only our chairman never grows." Then the short man adds, "Yeah, that dwarf wont change." Later the joke spreads throughout the area and the chairman of the country's name Deng Xiaoping is added to the joke. It remains comical despite the joke being misinterpreted. It made me think, perhaps the people of this fictional or nonfictional world dont like their nations leader and thats why they like the joke. They adapted it to make fun of him. The two peasants original joke made fun of their commune chairman who actually is very short, likely an actual dwarf.

Their commune chairman Lou comes and asks the officer to jail the two for he argues if he is capable of  governing 31,000 people then he should not be the butt of a joke. The officer agrees and convinces the two peasants since they authored the joke they are to be imprisoned. I somewhat enjoyed the political element to this piece. The way it combines the censorship of speech with the hypocrisy of how the people all enjoy the joke about the short chairman.