Publisher's Synopsis
Christopher Rea argues that this period-from the 1890s to the 1930s-transformed how Chinese people thought and talked about what is funny. Focusing on five cultural expressions of laughter-jokes, play, mockery, farce, and humor-he reveals the textures of comedy that were a part of everyday life during modern China's first "age of irreverence." This new history of laughter not only offers an unprecedented and up-close look at a neglected facet of Chinese cultural modernity, but also reveals its lasting legacy in the Chinese language of the comic today and its implications for our understanding of humor as a part of human culture.