A Bad Joke is story talking about when China was communist, and ultimately corrupt. The story starts with two main characters, walking into a hardware shop, and unsuspectingly being arrested by police. The two were then dragged to the police station and interrogated for days, being accused of speaking poorly against the new leader, Deng Xiaoping.
We learn that the two originally had told a joke about a certain chairman’s height and that it had then spread throughout the entire city. The police finally bring in the people who had heard the 2 joke about the chairman’s height, and had them repeat the joke that was told. Eventually, the pair had to admit they were talking about “Chairman Lou”, who’s a dwarf and the chairman of the city.
Once confessed, Chairman Lou was brought to the station to ultimately decide their fate. Chairman Lou went on to say that the police chief should teach them a lesson and that it’d be impossible for 1 to lead 30,000 being the “butt of ridicule.” The two are then sentenced to a unknown period of time, or as long as the “…Provincial Administration was interested in this case.” The two are finally escorted to prison, with one begging Chairman Lou for his life while the other cusses him out.
This story by Ha Jin gives insight into how difficult it was living in China during this time period, not having the ability to speak out against higher powers or even misspeak. Often people were imprisoned or executed for having counterrevolutionary thoughts or different political beliefs. In this story, the two were sent to prison as “political criminals”. To able to be imprisoned for something as simple as joke is unimaginable in the US today, but if we look back through history, in the 50’s with McCarthyism and or in the 60’s with the Black panthers we see that we have imprisoned and killed people for speaking out or having different views. After reading A Bad Joke, it made me reflect on China as well as the US, and how they differ and compare throughout history and what’s helped shaped them.