Discovering Humor in Modern China: The Launching of the Analects Fortnightly Journal and the "Year of Humour" (1933 )

As an ancient civilization, Chinese culture has also produced a long historical legacy of humor literature. However, youmo, the Chinese term for “humor,” is a modern neologism, a transliteration from the English word “humor” coined by the bilingual and bicultural modern Chinese writer Lin Yutang. In a sense, the consciousness of humor as an important cultural disposition was a modern event largely thanks to the launching of the journal Analects in 1932 by the so-called “Analects school” of men of letters headed by Lin Yutang. This paper will offer a historical account of this cultural event surrounding the launching and publication of the journal Analects in 1932. It will set the emergence, or “discovery,” of humor against the socio-political and literary and cultural background in modern China. The discussion will map out the literary and cultural lineage of the Analects school of writers, as well as the general outline of the genesis, style and content of the journal, which was unexpectedly so successful that it became a run-away bestseller, and consequently the idea of youmo was then permanently brought into a prominent statue in Chinese culture. Special attention will be paid to the account of the Leftist objection to youmo, particularly Lu Xun’s relationship with Lin Yutang. The historiography will probably end with a detailed account of the visit of Bernard Shaw in Shanghai—the meeting of the “real master of humor” from the West and the “Chinese master of humor” (Lin Yutang) together with major contemporary Chinese literary and cultural dignitaries such as Cai Yuanpei, Song Qingling and Lu Xun, was considered an important cultural tete-a-tete between East and West.