The Curious Diary of Mr Jam

by Nury Vittachi

  Ha ha. I remind her that I am supposed to be the funny one.

  In the event, the animal takes one look around the interior of my apartment and energetically throws up on the carpet. I take this as a sign of excitement, rather than a criticism of my interior design skills, since a visiting French designer once described my apartment as a “perfect hideaway,” a phrase which sounds even more impressive in the original French: “parfaitement hideoueux”.

  * * *

  Not only am I posting writings regularly on the internet now, but I have made a good friend in cyberspace: PartyQueen_99. Her real name is Luo Jinglei, and she is a female geek in Beijing. She sends me funny items from the government news service in China, which I quote regularly.

  A good one arrives today. Police in southeast China ordered workers to cover a bridge in butter to stop citizens using it to commit suicide. The buttered individuals simply slide to the ground where guards wait to arrest them.

  I write about the technique on my website. Half an hour later, someone uses the comments box to ask questions: “How do the police grab a guy covered in butter? And how do they get it off?” The article didn’t cover those issues, so I just ad-lib an answer: “They roll them around on giant slices of white bread.”

  Saturday, May 3

  Still working on developing my dog-parenting skills. I go to the computer and ask my readers/ spambots to comment on the subject. Sonia sends me several links and I start reading. There’s a great deal written about dogs, much of it rather thought-provoking. Clearly it is right and good that a professional philosopher should have a dog. I soon learn that British men with hangovers consume the fur of dogs which bite them. Clearly, this is a homeopathic remedy. (And westerners think Asian medicine is weird!) I also find numerous references in US writings to people having to spend time “in the dog house,” a punishment intriguingly limited to married men.

  A new commenter, from London, reveals that newspapers in his country define three official levels of illness: “critical,” “intensive care” and “sick as a dog”.

  Just before I go to bed, the phone rings. It is Fanny Sun with another job for me. That woman is always full of surprises. “We have a gig for you. No particular focus. No censorship. The gig is in Australia. You leave in two weeks.”

  “Am I allowed to mention Communists, Islam, world leaders and so on?”

  “Anything you like.”

  “Am I allowed to be funny?”

  “You can try.”

  Sunday, May 4

  Being a new parent is exhausting. I am walking the dog three times a day. It’s an educational experience. A headhunter named Ranjan Marwah once described my career as “a dog’s breakfast”. I had never understood this idiom until now. Dogs eat or attempt to eat everything in creation, including bugs, nails, stones, shoes, toddlers and sofas.

  This morning I watch in astonishment as the new mutt instantly inhales a large breakfast of pellets made of dried something (cat, I assume), plus canned food and pills of various colors. After 15 minutes, she energetically vomits up the lot, taking care to discharge the load onto my wife’s best Persian rug. Then she eats it all up again. I have never seen her so happy. She has discovered a way to enjoy each meal twice.

  Monday, May 5

  “The reason why you are scared of Facebook and struggling to launch a blog is simple: you are a guy,” says Sheila, reading over my shoulder as I sit at the Quite Good writing my diary/column. “These systems are tailored for socializing and for swapping self-analysis pop quizzes, which are distinctly female skills. The Facebook company never trumpets this fact, but the truth is known in the industry that two out of three Facebook users are women.” I add her words and similar assertions to my blog and ask for other thoughts on the difference between male and female thinking.

  A woman named Rika Nauck from UK soon writes to say she was worried to read that map-reading skills are a sign of masculinity, it being one of her own talents. “But I must be female,” she adds proudly. “I can’t count.”

  A new discovery: you are allowed to be sexist on the internet. That’s definitely not allowed in live shows or printed columns any more.

  Tuesday, May 6

  Luo Jinglei is upset. The government in Beijing has launched a tough set of new rules forbidding anonymous comments on internet forums. (Somehow they guessed that PartyQueen_99 was not her real name.) Officials explained that strict rules were needed because internet users pushed their views anonymously, refused to provide their real names or any form of identification, and upset huge numbers of people. “How did the officials announce this new policy?” she asks, rhetorically. “They issued the rules anonymously, they refused to provide their real names or any form of identification, and they upset huge numbers of people.”

  Wednesday, May 7

  Ms. Luo has gone quiet, so I send her a message to cheer her up, making witty and caustic remarks about the Beijing government and communist party leaders.

  She replies immediately, informing me that she works for the government and is a Communist Party of China member herself. “People on the inside are the ones most annoyed at what the bosses do,” she says. “We are always painted as repressed people who are kept in the dark, but actually we are pretty sophisticated and know what’s going on.”

  I tell her that my father was both an enthusiastic communist in his younger days, AND a devout Muslim until the end of his life. Double membership of communities believed to be repressed. “And he knew what was going on.”

  “Was he funny?” she replies.

  “Hilarious,” I tell her.

  Thursday, May 8

  This morning I write a philosophical essay about Asian internet politics and post a chunk of it on my website: “In Asia, authoritarian governments go to great lengths to stop members of the public sharing their political views, their exposes of official corruption, and blurry pictures of themselves in their underpants. But now people can do all three important activities on the internet thanks to websites, blogs, Twitter, Facebook and so on. Realizing this, government specialists are trying to explain what these services are to our Dear Leaders, many of whom believe that ‘the Evil Hand of the Great Satan’ can be seen in new-fangled inventions such as the computer, the mobile phone, the wheel, fire, opposable thumbs, etc.”

  Half an hour later, Ms. Luo writes to tell me that the Chinese government has set up a secret army of paid internet surfers who log on to websites to leave postings pushing the government line. “It’s no sweat,” she writes. “Just hang out in a chatroom for a while and you can easily tell the difference between real netizens and official opinion-pushers. Try it.”

  She sends me a link to the Beijing Free Speech Internet Forum.

  Friday, May 9

  It’s fascinating. I have been reading Chinese mainland chatrooms for hours. You can easily spot the fakes.

  Real posting: “Anyone know where I can get a pirate download of the Transformers movie?”

  Paid pro-govt posting: “I find western movies filled with undesirable qualities, such as fun, watchability and insufficiently clothed persons, things of no interest to right-thinking citizens.”

  Real posting: “I heard Transformers rocks and Megan Fox is totally HOT.”

  Paid pro-govt posting: “Maybe so, yet it cannot be of as much interest as the 23-volume DVD series called Ideologically Sound Speeches. I will buy a dozen copies, as should we all.”

  Real posting: “Anyone got a password for the members’ area of the Megaboobs website?”

  Paid pro-govt posting: “I visited and found it to be of no interest. Surfers’ time would be much better spent viewing the gallery of congress members. How inspiring to gaze on such wise faces!”

  Real posting: “So, are you a paid pro-govt poster?”

  Paid pro-govt poster: “Of course not. What makes you think that?”

  Real posting: “You don’t talk about Megan Fox and other babes.”

  Paid pro-govt posting: “I am
extremely interested in babies. The children of the proletariat are our future leaders.”

  At this point, I log off from Beijing Free Speech Forum permanently.

  Monday, May 12

  Today starts with my brain stuck in aphorism mode again. Does this happen to everyone or just me? Clearly I was born to be a philosopher. At the crack of mid-morning, I go to Central for a meeting with several people including my on-and-off event organizer and my book distributor. My bus gets stuck in a jam. A truism strikes me: “Traffic density correlates with the urgency of your need to get somewhere.”

  When I finally reach my destination, I find I am the only one present. This is despite the fact that everyone else has an office right there in Central. Another aphorism strikes me: “The closest are latest.”

  When Ms. Sun (whom I am now allowed to address as Fanny), Eddie and a few others eventually arrive, the meeting opens. I tell Fanny that I have changed my shtick. “I am going to be the Repressive Regimes In-House Humorist,” I say.

  “But aren’t you that already?” Fanny asks.

  “No. I used to be a humorist working under repressive regimes.”

  “Oh. How is that different?”

  “Up to now, I’ve been doing the same sort of thing that comedians in the west do: satirizing leaders, telling man-goes-into-a-bar jokes, light-bulb jokes, mocking celebrities, and so on. I’ve been working from the outside, and in Asia, that just gets people annoyed. From now on, I am going to work from the inside. I’m going to talk about Asian domestic life and things that are important to people on this side of the world. My own family background includes communism, Islam, Buddhism, politics, the Asian business scene and so on.”

  Fanny looks at Eddie. Then she looks back at me. “So you are going to deliberately make jokes about communists and Muslims and local business people, about the politburo, about the religious police and so on, in the hopes that you will make them laugh?”

  “Correct.”

  Shortly afterwards, she shows me the door. I don’t think I explained myself well.

  Tuesday, May 13

  In an email from Beijing, Ms. Luo tells me that living in repressed communities can actually be a positive force on the generation of cheekiness. She says there is even a list of communist jokes which are swapped between party leaders. Wow. I HAVE to see that. I tell her to try and get me a copy and send it via the internet.

  “Tricky,” she says. “The ISPs will detect it and delete it automatically.”

  Despite what people believe, the proof that Asians are funny is all around us. I think about my kids, three adopted Chinese children. Youngsters are natural entertainers, even before they can talk. My youngest told her first joke at a family party in a restaurant. She was hampered by the fact that she was a baby who only knew two English words at the time. One was “knock”. So was the other.

  But she could make a wide range of incomprehensible, spluttering, burbling noises, a bit like Mel Gibson driving home on a Friday night. For several weeks, her older brother and sister had been swapping knock-knock jokes, so baby picked up the general format.

  Halfway through dinner, the one-year-old comic launched her comedy career.

  BABY: “KNOCK KNOCK!”

  The rest of the family responded as one: “WHO’S THERE?”

  BABY: “Shlurble burble goo.”

  FAMILY: “Shlurble burble goo WHO?”

  BABY: “Glubble flubble blim blom ga.”

  This actually succeeded in getting a biggish laugh from the assembled crowd. One of the older kids summed it up very well. “It’s SO RANDOM,” he said. Random is THE hot adjective among children today. A typical conversation between my older kids goes like this.

  “What are you eating?”

  “Some kind of random thing Dad cooked.”

  “What’s it like?”

  “The outside’s a bit random but the inside is TOTALLY random.”

  I can remember a time when I could hold my son in one hand, he was so tiny. I had just been sacked (again) from a newspaper so I spent a lot of time with him. I was soon pretty much fluent in Babyspeak, a language that more moms speak than dads. He was a pretty sharp kid. Whenever there was the slightest shortfall in the level of service I gave him (he saw me as a kind of butler) he would burble in a long-suffering way and shoot out a devastating look of contempt. Here are five of his lines, made abundantly clear by his moans, eyebrow-movements and eye-rolls.

  This pacifier needs reloading. I’ve been sucking it for hours but not one drop of #$%^ing milk has come out.

  The cute mobile decoration hanging over my cot is mildly entertaining, but you better start saving NOW for the motorbike, Dad.

  Make airplane noises as much as you want, but you don’t fool me: that’s a spoon.

  My bathwater got cold so I peed in it to warm it up. Good thing one of us has brains.

  If you think baby bottles are a good substitute for mothers’ breasts, you must have very odd-shaped women on your home planet.

  At home that evening, I show my son the list above and ask if he can remember when those were his main concerns.

  “Your list is a bit random,” he says.

  “So, is that good or bad?”

  He rolls his eyes and shakes his head at my astonishing stupidity. “It’s not good or bad,” he says. “It’s RANDOM. That’s the whole point. Like, d’oh?” This kid is born and bred in Asia but he sounds American, like his sisters. Disney Channel Asia has a lot to answer for.

  Wednesday, May 14

  At 9 pm that night I get up on stage in front of a mixed audience and face the Asians-are-not-funny prejudice squarely. “They say that Asians are great at math but terrible at jokes. Not true! I can prove it conclusively… with this two-page algebraic formula.” I get a BIG laugh and a round of applause.

  Thursday, May 15

  Dear Diary, so there I am, walking through Hong Kong International Airport, telling Eddie about my new schtick as we travel to Australia. He is on his way to ink some sort of distribution deal with a Sydney publisher. I’ve long harbored suspicions that deep down he does not really like me. When I embarrass him in public, he will often say things like: “I hate you I hate you I hate you, you @#$% liability-on-legs.” See the trace of negativity there?

  Anyway, he is listening patiently as I relate a particularly bad experience: “Everyone sat there grim-faced. I’d never bombed so badly.” He leaps away from me as if I had given him an electric shock. At first I think maybe he doesn’t like being seen with failed comedians. But after furtive glances to the right and the left, he re-joins me and explains.

  “You cannot use THAT WORD anywhere in an airport these days,” he says. “It’s illegal. You could get us locked up. Lots of people already have been.”

  I nod. “Of course. How stupid of me. I promise not to use the word ‘comedian’ again.”

  He shakes his head. “Not comedian. The other word you used. The one beginning with B.”

  “Banana? Bimbo? Bottom?” Of course I know exactly what he is talking about, but who can resist making squirmy people squirm?

  As we leave the duty free shops and head to the gate, he tells me about a woman at an airport in the US who last week decided to try out the new paperless boarding pass service. “The woman approached the boarding gate and showed the attendant the ticket image on her iPhone,” he says in a whisper. “The staffer looked around for his laser gun. It was missing. He shouted something like, ‘Hey, hand me the gun.’ He froze, realizing what he had just done. People in uniforms rushed over and brought the boarding operation to a halt.”

  The story intrigued me. Airport rules are clearly designed to help airport workers fulfill the pledge they make when they get their jobs: “I promise to do all that is within my power to make passengers’ lives as miserable as possible, so help me God.” But in this case, a rule had tripped up an airport worker.

  Eddie said that the miserable staffer explained to the guards that he merely requested “the
laser thing,” but accidentally chose an illegal word. “Uniform-wearers hate to arrest each other,” Eddie said. “So, after making him promise to use the word ‘portable scanning device’ in future, officers walked away.”

  I tell him: “Don’t worry, I won’t use illegal words near the boarding gate.”

  “Thank God.”

  “ I’m not a BOMBastic guy GUNning for trouble.”

  He tells me to shut up.

  “I’ve only just beGUN.”

  “Shh.”

  “Did you know the three-letter airport code for the airport in Mumbai is BOM?”

  A passing security guard turns to stare at us. Eddie runs for cover.

  Friday, May 16

  At the gig in Sydney I speak about a report I saw in an Australian newspaper on the aircraft. “The bad idea award goes to a pair of girls aged 10 and 12 who got lost in a sewer in Adelaide. Instead of calling the police, they used their mobile phone’s 3G function to update their Facebook status line. A rescue coordinator said the girls’ belief that updating their webpage was the correct response to danger did not augur well for further rescues of young people. Commentators were wondering what to call this phenomenon. ‘Stupidity’ works for me.”

  The Australian audience turns out to be super-sharp, trained in thinking ahead. They anticipate the endings of jokes, just like Brits and Americans, and start roaring just as the punchline hoves into view. Asians take a more structured approach, preferring to wait for the Official Ending of each joke before bursting into Asian guffaws, which are sometimes completely silent.