Huihua, a Chinese student, and Mary, an American student studying Chinese in China, were on their way to a bookstore. As they got to the bookstore, they saw a young man walking down a flight of stairs. In his hurry, he missed the last two steps, and fell on the ground. He struggled to get back to his feet while people around him laughed. Fortunately, he seemed to be O. K.

    Mary was worried. She found Huihua smiling a little and was not comfortable about it. “Tell me, Huihua, how could people laugh when someone fell like that? Do they care at all? Shouldn't they go up and ask the young man whether he was hurt?” 

    Huihua said, “they knew he wasn't hurt too much.” 

    “But I still don't understand. A fall is a fall. In my culture, people would do anything but laugh!” 

    Chinese perspective 

    This is another example in which the Chinese and the Westerner interpret a smile differently. As mentioned in the last case, Chinese people resort to laugh or smile when they feel embarrassed3. Very often, the person caught in the embarrassing situation would also laugh or make a joke, to ease the embarrassment. However, if someone gets hurt seriously, it will not be a laughing matter any more. People will help him/her instead.

    North American perspective 

    A Westerner would interpret laughter in such a setting as a sign of either insensitivity4 or, worse, pleasure that the person falling had hurt himself/herself because that person was disliked. A Westerner's response would have been to rush over, assist the person up, and to inquire about5 any injury by saying something like, “Are you okay?” If a Westerner fell, they, like a Chinese person, might attempt to make a joke out of the incident if they were not hurt. If two close friends are walking together, and one trips but clearly isn't hurt, a common joke is to say “Have a nice trip”— a pun6 based on two very different meanings of “trip”: one meaning a vacation, the other meaning “to stumble7”. However, this joke would be made only between two people who knew each other well. 

    中國(guó)學(xué)生慧華和在中國(guó)學(xué)中文的美國(guó)學(xué)生瑪麗結(jié)伴去書店。到書店時(shí)看到一個(gè)年輕人正下樓梯，匆忙中少踩了最后兩級(jí)樓梯，摔倒在地上。他掙扎著站起來(lái)，周圍一片哄笑聲，所幸的是他沒(méi)受什么傷。 

    瑪麗挺為那個(gè)年輕人擔(dān)心，卻見(jiàn)慧華嘴角上也有笑意，瑪麗看了覺(jué)得不是滋味。“慧華，告訴我，為什么人家摔倒了那些人還能笑出來(lái)？他們就不關(guān)心人嗎？他們就沒(méi)想到要上去問(wèn)問(wèn)那年輕人是不是摔著哪里了？” 

    慧華說(shuō)，“他們知道他沒(méi)摔著。” 
 
    “我還是不明白，再怎么說(shuō)也是摔跤。要是在美國(guó)，旁觀者什么都可能做，就是不會(huì)取笑人家。” 

    中國(guó)人的解釋 

    這是另一例中西方文化對(duì)笑的不同理解。如上例所說(shuō)，中國(guó)人有時(shí)以笑來(lái)消除尷尬，而當(dāng)事人也往往自嘲地笑笑或開(kāi)句玩笑來(lái)緩沖尷尬。不過(guò)，如果當(dāng)事人受了重傷，那就另當(dāng)別論了，人們會(huì)上前相助，而不會(huì)一笑置之。 
 
    北美人的解釋 

    西方人會(huì)認(rèn)為在這種情況下笑是沒(méi)有同情心，或者更惡劣：是對(duì)摔跤受傷者的幸災(zāi)樂(lè)禍，因?yàn)榇巳瞬皇軞g迎。一般西方人的反應(yīng)往往是趕上前扶起摔倒者，關(guān)心地問(wèn)對(duì)方“你沒(méi)事吧？”摔倒的人如果沒(méi)有受傷，他們自己也會(huì)像中國(guó)人一樣開(kāi)玩笑。如果兩個(gè)很要好的朋友走在一起，其中一個(gè)絆倒了但沒(méi)受傷，常見(jiàn)的玩笑話會(huì)是“旅途愉快”——這個(gè)雙關(guān)語(yǔ)利用了“trip”這個(gè)詞大相徑庭的兩個(gè)詞義：一是“（度假）旅行”，一是“絆倒”。不過(guò)這種玩笑只會(huì)出現(xiàn)在非常熟悉的朋友之間。