The Final Day of Juha

          Alas, the third section of Tales of Juha more resembled the first section as opposed to the second. That means that this section was not very funny in my humble opinion. I felt that there were also fewer lessons or “truths” to be gained from this section of the reading. For example, while in the Juha the Butt did not entertain me in the least bit, there was a single anecdote that at least elicited a feeble chuckle as I sat in the study room in our fraternity house. The subject of the story was Juha entering a village full of misers, wanting to test the claim that they were as people described them. Upon entering this village he was given a bowl of milk, and Juha was under the impression that the people had been judged wrongly. However, the man only gave Juha the bowl of milk because a mouse had fallen into it. At the very end, when Juha throws the bowl down in anger, the “chuckle moment” arises when the man yells at him “Careful! Don’t break that bowl! It’s the one my daughter uses to piddle in!”

          I found this funny because not only was there a cognitive shift (for the reader as well as Juha) upon discovering WHY the man gave Juha a bowl of milk in a very un-miserly manner, but the reason for giving him the bowl was quite disgusting. But the real kicker was the man’s reaction to the bowl being tossed in anger and disgust. “Hey, my daughter piddles in that bowl!” was the last thing I expected to read. And, while perhaps immature, I find the word “piddle” hilarious, especially when combined with the shock of realizing Juha just drank out of toilet. The fact that this man is so miserly as to use a bowl as a cup and as a toilet is quite off-putting. While this anecdote is relatively funny, however, I fail to see a concrete purpose or lesson to be learned from it. I suppose all I can deduce is that those who are miserly offend people, so refrain from being a miserly person?

            

          One of my favorite types of myth or story is when justice is served. Superheroes always win, the bad guy loses, and hope is not lost completely. Call it cliché, but I like it when the good guy wins. Justice is one of those things that I think everyone wants to believe in and hopes for, but in real life justice is not always given out to those who deserve it: innocent people die, bad things happen to good people, and tragedies always seem to fall hardest on those least able to bear the burden. Because of this we look to stories that, when we control them, end up in a way that we wish our own lives would go. We want to be the hero. We want a healthy portion of lex talionis. So, after that introductory spiel, without further ado I reveal that the Justice and Generosity section of our assignment was probably my favorite section.

          

          The second story (the one about the cook demanding repayment for the use of steam coming off his food) was one of my favorites of this section because of Juha’s succinct, sharp come-back. He made a bag of coins jingle, and said, “You can take the jingling of coins as the price for the flavorsome steam of your cooking.” The next story had a similar purpose and punch-line, as well as the next one after. This last one was probably my favorite of all the passages I read in this assignment. The trickery employed by Juha to teach the claimant’s nonsensical dispute I found hilarious. This story, about the man claiming that he was to be paid for his “nothing,” was brilliantly ended. What was found under the book the claimant lifted?

          “Nothing.”

            

          “Very well. Now, take it and be off with you.”

           

          This clever play on words and mode of revealing justice to someone just making trouble to make trouble made me laugh aloud in triumph.

Juha-Inspired, Childhood Reminiscence

            As a child learning to read I was always drawn to fables, myths, and legends: Aesop’s Fables, Greek mythology, Nordic mythology, the legend of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. These stories always taught lessons and imparted general knowledge that perhaps other kids didn’t absorb by just going through the day to day life, and these lessons were always something I was seeking. Sometimes they were obvious to interpret: don’t steal, don’t ask stupid questions, respect your elders, etc. Others were more challenging to divulge and more complicated to understand, but I was always one to enjoy a logical puzzle or mind game. These stories fueled my desire to read, and as a child I really was a voracious reader. For example the most trouble I was ever involved in in middle school was getting caught reading during class lectures (ironically it was in my English class), and all the way up until high school I would read at least two books a week and be in the library every day scouring for new options.

But I digress a bit. In short, myths and stories with a lesson involved have played a pivotal role in my reading career. So, Tales of Juha seemed very interesting looking it over since it appeared to fit this bill. Also, I’m not very familiar with Middle-Eastern/Arab folklore at all which added an incentive to delve into this book. 

As a book with many short tales of wit and wisdom I find it at least semi-interesting. I enjoyed the story (one of the longer ones) of Juha outwitting the two thieves by playing on their strong greed. I feel like this is a common tale showing the fallibility of the “deadly sin,” as well as the stupidity of many criminals. Similarly, the next tale was about Juha hearing a thief on the roof and purposefully giving him false information in order to outwit the thief showing that wisdom often (and always should) outdoes the stupid.

While some paragraphs have an intentional moral of the story or lesson to teach, some are just plain goofy or contain clever wordplay, for example, the story about age. Someone asks Juha how old he is and he replies forty. Ten years later he asks him how old he is and he replies forty. When the guy calls Juha out on this Juha replies, “I’m not the kind of man who changes his word, or takes it back. Isn’t that the way a proper man should behave?” This is just a trick on words, because yes a proper man should stick to his word, but the joke is obviously that things change and this can’t be taken literally. The story is amusing but not much of an axiom. Which brings me to my next observation…

Not many of these stories are funny. At least, in my humble opinion, they are not funny in the laugh out loud way that some of our readings have been.  I do believe I chuckled at one short tale between pages one and forty-one. And it was about facial hair. Maybe this is because it was late and I was tired, but I really just don’t think many of these translate well into humor when there’s a legitimate lesson to learn, or perhaps I just don’t have a good grasp on Arab humor (which I admit could definitely be the case). Hopefully the next part of the reading assignment will have a few more laughable moments!

Just Joking > Morreall

First, I must say FINALLY. Just Joking was everything I thought Morreall’s snore-inducing explanations of humor and humor theories was going to be and should have been. I found this article very entertaining to read, because the authors themselves actually used their senses of humor in order to write through the lens of humor. This tone and input of funny blurbs was enough to keep at least a half-interest in what was being said. It’s as if they read Morreall and went “yikes…poor bloke. We should probably avoid that,” and used it as a springboard to actually BE funny in book about humor! Perhaps one of my favorite parts of the reading were the jokes and one-liners at the bottom of each page, just motivating you to finish reading the page so you could look down and receive a chuckle as a reward. My favorites included:

            “Imagine if there were no hypothetical situations?”

            “People often say to me, ‘What are you doing in my garden?’”

            “I ordered a wake-up call the other day. The phone rang and a woman’s voice said,

“What the hell are you doing with your life?

I am a fan of witty, clever one-liners that either set you up for one thing and then completely and instantly turn you around, as well as short one-liners that take a second to think about. But that’s just me. Now back to the actual reading assignment.

I think one of the best things the authors did was to give such a strong introduction about how what they were about to do could often make jokes not funny and then linking it to the “dissecting a frog” metaphor. They made this intro amusing and conversational, as well as faux-apologetic, making sure we understood that even after all the fun and games we might not get any more fun text to read. But all this does is prepare us to expect nothing so that when they do write entertaining explanations and examples of the Superiority, Incongruity, Ambivalence, and Release Theories of humor we still think, “Oh, well that’s still WAY better than how Morreall put it!”

Notably, my favorite section of this assignment versus the way Morreal put it was the Relief Theory. The authors’ use of Freud was much more interesting and permeated the theory more, showing how scientists really used to mix the mental and physical aspects of humor in completely unproven ways and ideas. The belief that everything humorous stems from a sexual desire or fetish is a very interesting concept, but come on…really? At least we could laugh at Freud in the context of this paper!

Lurk Left, Lurk Right...

Walking down the hall in the fraternity house I heard shouts and raucous laughter from behind a closed door. While I always have the innate urge to either pop in and see what the hubbub is about or stand with my face pressed up to the door, I finally had the excuse to do so! I slowly put my ear up to the door to determine what was transpiring across the wood.

"You ******* cheater! That was CLEARLY a tackle in the box, that's a RED CARD!" Voice 1 yelled.

Uncontrollable laughter from Voice 2 was interrupted with an "Ow, don't hit me, man!"

Clearly, a heated game of of FIFA was in its final minutes with a close score. I stood with my ear to the door to continue to listen when one of my other brothers walked past me giving me a very quizzical look and shaking his head.

"What are you doing?"

"Class project..." I replied. He walked on without another word. At that moment there was another scream of frustration followed by a maniacal laugh, though the voices were switched it seemed.

"Ahhhhh I can't believe it!" Voice 2 exclaimed in disbelief.

"IT'S ALL TIED UP NOW! GOLDEN GOAL! Muahahahaha" Voice 1 yelled triumphantly and rather nefariously.

I've been in the position of both Voice 1 and 2. FIFA is a very intense and adrenaline/testosterone-packed video game that makes the players sweat and act in ridiculously childish ways. Many times it leads to brutal taunting and humorous situations, though I have yet to lose a friend because of it. While listening in on this game, however, I did not get the opportunity to hear who won and who lost, because the game was paused and the door opened, quickly peeling away from my face and leaving me in a pretty awkward position. Yeah... The inevitable happened. A look of confusion and betrayal was upon the face of Voice 2 as he saw me stumble forward and nearly into his chest. Guess that's the end of my spying days.

Meeting with Meshal: Med School and Futbol

My last meeting with Meshal proved that not only was I interested in what he had to say, but also that he is interested in learning about me as well. The majority of our conversations have been about him and his transition from living in Saudi Arabia, but our last meeting focused mainly on me and what I do here at TCU. I was stressing pretty hardcore about an upcoming organic chemistry test, so that launched us into talking about my classes and how I am a pre-med. We chatted about how I want to be a doctor one day – hopefully working in pediatrics somewhere, maybe specializing or maybe not. He wanted to know what kind of classes I have to take, so I told him about all my biology classes and chemistry classes, how my schedule next year will consist of genetics and biochemistry, and how hard it is to get into medical school. Then he wondered, “how long is medical school?”

 I then let him know that in addition to my four years at TCU I will be attending medical school for another four years. After that will come my residency, which is about two years long and is essentially like a paid internship that provides specific training in your chosen field, whether it be pediatrics or orthopedics or oncology or family medicine, etc. And THEN, if the goal is some sort of specialization (for example: choosing to be a pediatric neurologist or pediatric cardiologist as opposed to a pediatrician) there will be another several years of training involved for that.

        

    “That sounds terrible,” he replied. “As soon as school is over, *boop* no more for me, I’m outta there! I want to do something and get working as soon as possible.”

          

     Ahhhh to be a non-science major…

           

In addition to our meeting, we also were jointly surprised to discover that we would be playing on opposite teams in an intramural soccer game last Wednesday. Jogging around the field to warm up it was impossible for me to not spot him and his giant ‘fro. We said best of luck to one another and began the game. Turns out he is very good at soccer and very fast… I played defense for twelve or so years of my life (though I stopped playing four years ago), and he was on offense for most of the game. He was very hard to cover, and I definitely got burned a few times, clearly out of shape and out of practice in comparison. My team ended up losing 4-2, but they also had five substitute players while we had zero…and one of our players had food poisoning that day and still played. However, it was still fun to play against Meshal and see him in his element on the soccer field. No doubt we will definitely be talking about it in our next meeting, and I’m sure he will be joking about how out of shape I was! 

Meshal: Soccer & Brazilian Models

This week’s meeting found Meshal a little quieter than usual, for he took his writing test on last Friday to determine if he was ready to leave the IEP. He needed a 5.5 but only obtained a 3.5, which was very frustrating to him. He speaks English well and is proficient at typing, but handwriting our language just stumps him and frustrates him greatly. He is trying hard to accelerate his process through the program in order to get into TCU as soon as possible, which he stated today is his “main and most important dream.” However, Meshal is an extremely fun-loving and easygoing person, so he isn’t too down about the situation. If anything, he has more fire with which to accomplish his goal!

           

After this initial downer conversation we found our way to the topic of soccer. Today is the match between Real Madrid, led by the fast and furious Cristiano Ronaldo, and Manchester United and their anger-prone front-man Wayne Rooney. Meshal was very excited about this game, as both his brothers are huge Real Madrid fans and he wanted Manchester United to win in order to spite them. He himself is a dedicated A.C. Milan fan, so really his only stake in today’s game is to see his brothers crestfallen and angry at the end of the day. We discussed soccer and how we both played: me for my entire childhood up through freshman year and him up to this day when he can. I was informed that soccer was the biggest sport in Saudi Arabia, which I guess makes sense since America is probably the only country in the WORLD who doesn’t obsess over the “real” football, unfortunately. Everyone there plays soccer or at least watches soccer, so it seems weird to him that so few people care about it (it seems, at least) and how limited the soccer channels are.

Last Friday he and his brothers moved into their new house and out of their small apartment, so Meshal now has his own room! He no longer has to be woken up by his brother coming in and sitting on the couch (where Meshal slept) early in the morning, playing Xbox, and smoking… Needless to say, he is extremely thankful for the move. It is a little farther from TCU unfortunately, but Meshal’s next goal is to get a car so that he won’t have to rely on his year older brother who is also in the TCU IEP for transportation.

On another high note, Meshal worked up the courage to ask the girl of his affections on a date! She is in the IEP with him, and apparently all the guys in the program “are in love” with her and “see her as a queen.” She is a model from Brazil wanting to attend TCU, and according to Meshal she is even famous in her country and her face is all over TCU! All the guys who wanted to take her on dates were just too afraid, I suppose, so Meshal just called her up and suggested they get lunch, which they did this past Sunday; he said it was a lot of fun and they definitely plan on going out again after spring break is over since she leaves tomorrow for her vacation. Funnily enough, they ate seafood which I found out during our last meeting Meshal does not enjoy at all! I asked why they got seafood then, and he replied, “She said ‘let’s get seafood!’ so it’s not like I could say no! She’s too pretty to say no to.” Hopefully things work out between the two of them!

Meeting with Meshal: Gambling and Wives

Same place, same time – Meshal and I began talking like we were old friends, it seemed like! Going off our last conversation about smoking hookah, we transitioned into another family-friendly topic: discussing the joys and sorrows of gambling. Gambling is illegal in Saudi Arabia, apparently, and it is considered a vice. The reason gambling came up was that he told me he was heading to Lubbock during spring break to see his cousin because he wasn’t able to go to Las Vegas (seems like a fair trade, right?). Never having been to Vegas (though he’d heard wonderful tales from his brother on the city) he wondered if I had ever gambled, and so I shared with him my experiences with good ol’ Winstar World Casino and Resort, one of my favorite night-out destinations. I described to him the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of shining, blinking, chiming slot machines stretching a mile across with poker tables and black-jack tables and roulette wheels interspersed, how the place unfortunately reeks of smoke (which Meshal is used to since his brothers smoke), and how much fun it is to win $8 from a $0.40 spin on the Cash Wizard machine, one of my personal favorites.

           

Meshal and his brothers started the moving process, going from a cramped apartment to an actual house today, about which he was very excited since it means he will have his own room and won’t have to sleep on the couch in the living room. When I asked him if he was helping he said, “No way, we have a moving company… we Saudis: we are all lazy!”

            Laughing, I asked him if he really thought that, to which he replied, “Oh, I know it. Easier is better.” This launched us into a conversation about free time and college life. I didn’t remember what free time was, but he convinced me it was very real and not a figment of my imagination, since he let me know he had plenty of it to spare. He goes to class from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., and after that he has nothing to do, really, unless he needs to prepare for a class the next day. He was curious as to why I had no free time, and I told him about the bustling life of a college student, about joining organizations and clubs, and about the work it takes to go through school. He was told to enjoy the free time while he has it in the IEP, and he plans on doing so before he starts school here!

            Toward the tail end of our meeting we saw Ashlyn and Kristin walk in with their partners, both of whom Meshal knew from his classes. He was explaining to me that Ashlyn’s partner, the woman, was accompanied by her husband – both from Saudi Arabia. He then went into why the husband was there – apparently in Saudi Arabia, wives are thought of as “queens” i.e. they must be driven around by the husband/a male relative, they are not to be left alone by the husband. I found this very interesting since my overall view of the Arab world was that it was a vastly male-predominating society in which women have little to no rights – not even the right to show their faces in public! But from what Meshal told me, there must be a great deal of trust between a Saudi husband and wife and a certain amount of doting upon from the husband. After this explanation he exclaimed that he didn’t want to get married – he would much rather be a bachelor and continue with free time, not worrying about having to follow a woman around everywhere she goes since it is part of the job of a husband!