Unit 8
Chapter 2
III. Reading
Funny or Not
People everywhere enjoy hearing a good joke. What people laugh at, however, depends on such things as age, personality, mood, and culture.
One kind of humor is called "sick humor." While some people enjoy it, others wonder how anyone could laugh at it. The following example is here for you to judge.
Two weeks before Christmas a man who had broken his leg lay suffering in a hospital. He was not looking forward to spending Christmas in the hospital, but the break was too serious for him to be released.
The Christmas holidays passed, but on New Year's Eve the patient wanted to go to his friend's house where there was a party going on. After he convinced the doctor to let him go, he caught a cab and took off. He got out of the cab in front of his friend's house and tried to get to the door as fast as he could. In the process, however, he slipped on a piece of ice and broke his other leg.
IV. Activity
The above reading might lead to the discussion of questions like the following:
1) What is sick humor?
2) Is some of Korean humor sick?
3) What kinds of topics or people do Koreans joke about?
4) Why do people enjoy funny stories?
5) How is humor useful?
V. Quotation
No mind is thoroughly well organized that is deficient in a sense of humor.
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