Correction 17.06: Previously, the article used the word “Mondai” to refer to a certain type of Japanese humour. This was incorrect, and it has been replaced with the correct term, “Manzai”.
By Alžběta Švábová and Daisy Siumpson
AUC is known for its diverse international community, where each individual student has a unique cultural background. But with diversity comes potential communication clashes. Some AUC students note that they have experienced an awkward interaction or two while joking around with students from different backgrounds. Something that often comes up in conversations with AUC students are their varying ways of expressing humour.
The Herring interviewed AUC students about these cultural communication differences.
The first thing that Komari Machida, first year Science major, noticed when she moved to Amsterdam was the mix of international cultures, which led her to reflect on wider communication norms and how they contain differences in humour. In her view, Japan, her home country, is relatively homogeneous in terms of culture compared to the Netherlands.
Machida illustrates, “I went to an IKEA [in the Netherlands] to get furniture, like everybody else. I remember stepping into the bathroom and I saw so many different people. I saw someone, who seemed like they were from the Middle East, someone obviously European, Asian, Latin American, a lot of different people in one IKEA bathroom! And that was really shocking for me”.
Still, the Dutch, as the dominant culture amongst the mix, stood out. Reflecting on communication differences, she sees Dutch people as practical-oriented, and friendly in comparison to the Japanese in particular. Machida thinks that Dutch people seem more willing to communicate: even the older people crack some jokes from time to time, which, given their struggle to communicate in English, shows that they enjoy the little moments.
Machida also noticed that: “[The Dutch] are more sarcastic. Japanese people aren’t that sarcastic”. Overall, she believes that Japanese humour is more focused on reality and everyday things, and that a more physical humour is popular, like slapstick comedy or silent comedy. “We have something which is called Monzai, which is kind of like para-comedy”, she explains.
Within AUC, Machida feels the student humour is more influenced by American or British English humour, which she finds to be more sarcastic but also more critical than that of the Japanese. Political humour is unheard of according to Machida, compared to her experience of American and British humour. She thinks that Japanese people, for example, tend not to make fun of authority figures like people do in Amsterdam.
British exchange students at AUC, Lily Sanders and Dillon Robertson, also share their views on cultural humour clashes, reflecting on the eight months they’ve spent in Amsterdam.
In terms of general communication differences, Sanders feels that in comparison to Dutch conversation norms, the British tend to be more overtly polite, commenting that it often feels unnecessarily over the top.
Both Sanders and Robertson recount similar experiences when it came to humorous exchanges with Dutch students. They find that people often miss jokes which were intended to be sarcastic, which has led to several awkward over-explanations. Robertson also feels that while Dutch people seem to be comfortable with silence during conversation, British people like to fill the space and be more explicit with tone and facial expressions. Additionally, Sanders reflects on the harshness of jokes: “It’s not actually being rude. It’ll be like if you said, do you like my outfit? And I’m like, no, you look horrible. And you’d say, ‘Oh funny’”, she illustrates. She says that the Dutch people she’s interacted with tend not to make such sarcastic jabs; rather, the assertion “your outfit looks bad” would more likely be a serious comment. However, she notes, “it’s not necessarily rude, it’s just honest, not like sugar coating it”.
Emillie Pellet, third-year Science major, has lived abroad most of her life, but originally comes from France. Her school in Paris was located in an old, rich neighbourhood which influenced her overall cultural perceptions. However, her time spent in other countries helped her to become more aware of the cultural bubble she lived in and since then she has tried to take a step back from the cultural norms she grew up with.
Pellet thinks that English and American-influenced international humour at AUC resembles French humour, but it clashes with different topics: “French humour is very dark humour. We’re not scared to joke about taboos”, she says. In Amsterdam, with its international English-speaking community, this humour created awkward situations for her, and jokes didn’t land in the same way.
When Pellet first came to AUC, she explains she was struggling quite a lot with her English, but things improved once she settled among English-speaking AUC students. “I felt I wasn’t funny anymore. I couldn’t understand any jokes, but I really noticed right away that here, it’s very healthy. I found my friends and I got more comfortable and now I know what I can and can’t say”, she comments.
However, one thing she finds really hard when stepping outside of the AUC bubble, is communicating with the wider Dutch community. She thinks it’s difficult to have small talks with Dutch people as a non-Dutch speaker, because some people can be very closed off within their own language. Pellet says she is not happy with how her Dutch is coming along”, expressing she tried but “it’s so hard”.
Reflecting on the international AUC community, Pellet notes, “Everyone here is super nice, open, and careful not to hurt anyone” in terms of communication, which softens the harshness of jokes. She feels that, since becoming a part of this community, she tends to make less taboo-related jokes, common in France. Now, when Pellet goes back to her home country, she has to adjust back to this French-style humour.
Feline Bonnier, second year Humanities major, offers insights from a Dutch perspective, noting that her time at AUC has allowed her to reflect on her national culture’s humour in relation to others’. Bonnier comments on noticeable misunderstandings of her jokes. She feels that many non-Dutch students interpret her jokes as blunt, harsh or even outright mean.
Bonnier states, “then you see people looking at me and I’m like, fuck, I was so wrong. So then I have to fix it, and then when they realise it’s a joke it’s like, oh ok!”
However, she goes on to say that when thinking about differences in humour it can be difficult to discern whether miscommunications come from a cultural divide. “I cannot read sarcasm in other people. I do a lot of sarcasm myself, but I cannot see it in other people at all – also when they make jokes”, she explains.
When asked whether Dutch students seem segregated, or if the international community dominates more, Bonnier responds that while there are groups of Dutch friends at AUC, and that they indeed show a bit more of “traditional Dutch humour”, the international community does still dominate. She points out that despite the many differences, some students come from national backgrounds that actually complement the Dutch’s dry humour. In her experience, British people tend to come across particularly blunt in this way.
Nevertheless, if there are perceivable cultural differences, Bonnier posits that over time, within the small AUC bubble, a unique international humour emerges. In spite of small misunderstandings, students’ humour merges together, and friendships are naturally forged across nationalities.
The Herring 