Who was the funniest Chinese philosopher?

The pick: Zhuangzi (Zhuang Zhou)

Daoist philosopher, 4th century BCE

Called China's very first humorist in the journal Humor, and singled out for pervasive humor in Christoph Harbsmeier's survey of ancient Chinese philosophy.

Also in the running

• Confucius (Philosopher and teacher, 551–479 BCE): Harbsmeier writes that the Analects describes him as "a man of wit and of humor," and argued in a Confucius Institute lecture that the book is full of subtle self-humor.
• Han Feizi (Legalist philosopher, 3rd century BCE): Harbsmeier calls his book "the most important single source we have of pre-Han jokes."
• Gongsun Long (Logician of the School of Names, 4th–3rd century BCE): Harbsmeier describes him as "something of a logical court jester" at the court of the Lord of Pingyuan.

What made them funny

Zhuangzi's humor works through stories, not lectures. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy describes his tales as short, pithy and amusing, and notes that he pokes fun at the moralists of his day, Confucians and Mohists alike. The cast is deliberately ridiculous: priests who reason with pigs, a tree that survives because it is worthless, a young man who studies walking so hard he forgets how. Scholars Hans-Georg Moeller and Paul D'Ambrosio built a whole Columbia University Press book, Genuine Pretending, around the satire and humor in the text.

His sparring partner was the logician Hui Shi, and many of the best bits are their arguments. Zhuangzi rarely wins by being more serious. He wins by taking his opponent's words more literally than they were meant, or by agreeing with a premise and following it somewhere absurd. Confucius, the runner-up, is a quieter case: Harbsmeier reads his jokes in the Analects as small, self-mocking asides from a teacher who could laugh at his own seriousness.

Techniques to take into your videos and sets

1. 1. Win on a technicality

   What they did

   Walking over the Hao River, Zhuangzi says the fish are enjoying themselves. Hui Shi asks how he could possibly know. After a round of logic, Zhuangzi goes back to the word "whence" in the question and answers it as if it asked where he was standing: "I knew it from up above the Hao," in the translation in Harbsmeier's essay.

   Why it works

   The audience expects a defense of the big claim. Instead the challenge gets answered with a literal, physical fact, which is technically correct and dodges the whole argument. The challenger is left with nothing to push against.

   Example (original, written by Shutap)

   My boss asked where I got the idea I'm underpaid. From my banking app, mostly, around the 26th of every month.

   Try it

   Take a "how do you know" or "where did you get that" from your story and answer it with a place, a time or an object, said with total sincerity.

2. 2. The sales pitch to the pig

   What they did

   In one Zhuangzi story, a priest walks up to the pigsty and makes the sacrificial pigs an offer: "I will feed you well for three months," then fasting in their honor, a bed of fine white reeds, and their remains on elegant ritual vessels. Harbsmeier calls it black humor. Every perk is real, and the deal is still death.

   Why it works

   The joke is the gap between the polished presentation and what is actually on offer. Listing the perks in loving detail makes the bad part louder, because nobody says it out loud.

   Example (original, written by Shutap)

   The airline moved me to the 6 a.m. flight and made it right with a $9 food voucher, valid in the terminal I now live in.

   Try it

   Find the worst deal in your story and describe it the way the other side would sell it: the perks first, in detail, and the catch slipped in last.

3. 3. Improve until the original skill is gone

   What they did

   A young man from Shouling travels to the capital to learn its elegant way of walking. He fails to learn it, also forgets his own way, and "So he came crawling back home on all fours," in the translation Harbsmeier quotes. Harbsmeier admires how tight the story is and reads it as a jab at higher education.

   Why it works

   Self-improvement is supposed to add something. A story where the effort subtracts the one thing you could already do is a clean reversal, and the ending is a picture the audience can see.

   Example (original, written by Shutap)

   I took four dance classes so I'd look less awkward at weddings. Now I can't even do the sway. I just stand by the cake, counting to eight.

   Try it

   Pick something you tried to get better at and end the story on the moment you lost the basic version, described as a physical image.

4. 4. Promote the flaw

   What they did

   The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy says Zhuangzi's most beloved example is how useful it is to a tree to be useless to humans: nobody bothers to cut it down. The book keeps returning to uselessness as a way to survive.

   Why it works

   Everyone knows the usual story where the flaw is the problem. Turning the flaw into the reason you survived flips the value of everything in the story, and it reads as confidence rather than complaint.

   Example (original, written by Shutap)

   My car is so ugly that in six years not one person has asked to borrow it.

   Try it

   Name the thing about you or your stuff that people tease, then name the specific trouble it has kept you out of.

5. 5. The ox-knife for the chicken

   What they did

   In the Analects, Confucius visits a small town where his student governs with formal music and ritual, the kind fit for a state. He smiles and says, "Surely you don't need to use an ox-knife to kill a chicken!" When the student objects, Confucius says he was only joking. Harbsmeier reads it as self-irony from a man who taught that very ritual.

   Why it works

   Scale mismatch is instantly visual: a huge tool, a tiny job. Naming the tool and the job is enough, and walking it back afterward makes the speaker likable instead of smug.

   Example (original, written by Shutap)

   My HOA sent a certified letter, four pages, double-sided, about a pumpkin that was on my step for three days.

   Try it

   Find someone in your story who overreacted and describe only the size of their response next to the size of the problem. Skip the verdict.

Before you quote them

The Zhuangzi is a compilation, and the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy treats it as the work of several hands, so not every story in it can be credited to Zhuangzi himself. Quotes from ancient Chinese texts are translations and differ by translator; the lines above come from the renderings in Harbsmeier's essay, which does not name a translator for each passage. The famous butterfly dream is left out here because the sources we checked don't discuss it as humor.

Questions people ask

Who was the funniest Chinese philosopher?

Zhuangzi, the Daoist philosopher of the 4th century BCE. Xiao Dong Yue's 2010 study in the journal Humor calls him the very first humorist in China, and Christoph Harbsmeier's 1989 essay in Philosophy East and West finds a pervasive touch of humor in the book that bears his name.

Was Confucius funny?

Harbsmeier thinks so. He writes that the Analects describes Confucius as "a man of wit and of humor," and he reads the ox-knife line, where Confucius teases a student for running a small town with state ritual and then says he was only joking, as self-irony.

Who else in ancient China was known for humor?

Harbsmeier names Han Feizi, whose book he calls the most important single source of pre-Han jokes, and the logician Gongsun Long, whom he describes as something of a logical court jester at the court of the Lord of Pingyuan.

What is Zhuangzi's funniest story?

A strong candidate is the fish debate on the Hao River. When Hui Shi asks how he could know the fish are enjoying themselves, Zhuangzi answers the word "whence" literally: "I knew it from up above the Hao." Harbsmeier also singles out the priest's offer to the sacrificial pigs as black humor.

Did Zhuangzi write every story in the Zhuangzi?

No. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy treats the book as the work of several hands, and Harold Roth's 2001 entry says only the Inner Chapters, 1 to 7, are traditionally credited to Zhuangzi himself, so not every funny story in it is his.

Sources

• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, March 24, 2024: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Zhuangzi (Chad Hansen)
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, November 10, 2001: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Spring 2003 archive: Zhuangzi (Harold Roth)
• Philosophy East and West, July 1989: Christoph Harbsmeier, "Humor in Ancient Chinese Philosophy," Philosophy East and West (1989)
• Humor: International Journal of Humor Research, August 2010: Xiao Dong Yue, "Exploration of Chinese humor," Humor (2010)
• Columbia University Press, 2017: Columbia University Press: Genuine Pretending by Hans-Georg Moeller and Paul J. D'Ambrosio
• Confucius Institute for Scotland, September 29, 2009: Confucius Institute for Scotland: Harbsmeier lecture "Confucius, the Humourist" (2009)