Hi, everyone and welcome back to Britain Under the Microscope. 欢迎回来【闲话英伦】. Hi, 安澜.

Hi Lulu, hi everyone.

So 安澜, one of the other episodes we talked about British people being sarcastic usually saying words with a hidden meaning.

Oh, yeah.

But I've noticed another quality of British people… Okay. which I see again in you a lot. Don't worry, It's a good thing! The understatement, so like the modesty, 英国人很喜欢自谦, 甚至是自我嘲讽.

安澜is a typical example. So if one day he's done something great, if he has made some sort of achievement, if I say congratulations, that's such a job well done. 安澜would give me some joke, some self-deprecating humor就是那种自嘲或者自我贬损的这种幽默. And that I've come to know that is not just you, that is actually a quality of British people.

Yeah, I would say British people like making jokes about themselves. Even as a country when we display our country or we present our country to the rest of the world, we also still use lots of self-deprecating humor even though it was years ago now.

But I think one of the best examples is the Olympics that were held in London over 10 years ago and the opening and closing ceremonies. It was filled with jokes. It was filled with jokes about England, and it was filled with jokes about the UK.

I think this is something cross-culturally, it's quite difficult to understand, especially for Chinese because we focus a lot on national pride. Yeah, we can complain about our country, but it's rather unthinkable for a lot of people to make fun of ourselves in that way.

Again, this is no judgment not saying which side is good or bad. But I've really noticed in the UK this ability to laugh at yourself and not to take yourself too seriously.

That's true. I would say British people we like to laugh at ourselves, we don't really take ourselves too seriously. And it seems as a good thing. It's not seen as a negative. It doesn't mean that we have low self-esteem.

Is the country, isn't it？

Is the country. It's our culture where being seen as modest and humorous are seen as positive traits. They're seen as virtues.

I also get the feeling that you gotta have high self-esteem to be able to make fun of yourself. Yeah. That sort of idea.

Exactly! Being too self-content is seen as arrogant or as we might say, blowing one's own trumpet.

Blowing one's own trumpet in English this expression means to brag about yourself.

Yep! And that's just seen as a negative between us, too. Don't tell James or Brad, British people generally see Americans as quite arrogant, and also they do take themselves too seriously.

There there, let's not judge other cultures.

But that is a stereotype, whether it’s true or not, it’s a bit of a stereotype.

Yeah, I think this is just something to keep in mind. Cultures are very different. So, when British people are saying something, especially when they're making fun of themselves or making fun of their country, it doesn't necessarily mean or most of the time it doesn't mean they don't like their country or they don't feel national pride like we do. It's just that their way of showing it is very different.

Yes.

Actually, I speaking as an outsider, I would say British people still feel a lot of national pride and when they make fun of their countries, and you as an outsider, if you chime in, if you join in, that's not gonna end well.

No. This is one thing that I have noticed. If a British person makes a joke about their family or their country that is not an invitation for you to do the same, and it's happened a few times when I go and speak to people from other countries where I might make jokes about the UK, but if they start making jokes about my country. You'll be defensive. I will start getting defensive and sometimes I might even get a bit angry.

I think this is all a little bit of cross-cultural miscommunication. Obviously, coming from a Chinese perspective, sometimes it feels like… if I'm talking to you as a Chinese person you... as a British person and you say a lot of quite negative things, negative jokes about your country, I would feel not that it invites me to talk smack about your country but more like this is how you truly feel. Yeah. You truly feel negatively about this and that side of your country. So, it's okay for me to comment on it or for me to add onto that. But it's not okay culturally.

No. And this is actually another one of the reasons why we make jokes about ourselves, because it's a way of making ourselves more relatable and approachable. So, people often make jokes about themselves to make other people feel more comfortable.

So if you're in a social setting, for example, you're among a group of strangers, you make jokes about yourself. It's a way of saying I’m being friendly, I'm open, I'm approachable.

Is that your goal to response to make a self-deprecating joke about yourself? Especially when someone's giving you a compliment. So what if someone says, oh, 安澜, you are so handsome!

I would say, well my mom thinks so.

哈哈，起码我妈觉得我帅. What if they say, 安澜 , you're so rich, you're successful.

Well, that's not what my bank manager keeps telling me.

I see. Don't you think it's also assigned to show that you generally British people are not very comfortable having people say those very blatant overly exaggerated compliments.

I would say we just don't really feel that comfortable in those type of situations. I would say is not just a cultural thing. I know lots of people here in China they get really embarrassed as well.

Yeah, we have that as well. I wouldn't say we're self-deprecating, but modesty is definitely traditionally valued. But nowadays for social media, I think things are changing in the UK and in China.

Well, yeah. I have to admit kind of being more involved in social media that's gonna sort of fight against my inner Englishness.

You have to brag about yourself or at least...

I still don't like doing that. I still hate doing that.

Yeah, you're truthfully stating your strength. Why not?

Well, someone has to.

Okay. So, coming back to this topic, we talked about this self-deprecating humor, but can I just very quickly ask you as a non-British person dealing with a British colleague or client, when I say something meaning to compliment them and they say some self-deprecating humor. What do I do? What's the polite...? Why can't I just lay in on it?

Oh, no. You just kind laugh and just say, oh no, no. That's it. I'm being completely sincere. You would laugh. You wouldn't actually say, well, yeah, you're not that handsome.

I can't lay bare.

No, no. But you would just laugh. 嗯，就尬笑一下呗。 Exactly, because that's the whole idea, it’s to elicit a laugh.

I see. But the other thing that I've noticed on top of being modest or even self-deprecating, you also really like understatement. Yes. So, for example, if you say it's a bit wet, and that means it has rained for a week, nonstop.

Yeah, it's a bit chilly today. It means it's -15℃. The service in this restaurant was a little bit slow, means I waited 4 hours for my meal.

And why would you do that? The understatement.

It's to minimize the seriousness of a situation or its importance. Now there are different reasons for doing this. One is to be polite that we don't want to make the other person feel embarrassed, it could also be modesty.

So, for example, I did quite well, means I did brilliantly. It could just being funny really for irony, but it can also be to ease tension. So, when people are in a stressful situation, they… lots of people tend to use understatement to make themselves feel better.

I see. I see.

So, one of the things that you will notice in the UK, again I'm not saying it is right or wrong, but if there's a serious situation, could be anything people start making jokes.

Yeah, I think it's also almost like an automatic setting, it's like a muscle memory. Yeah. A lot of the situations that you guys make jokes from it's completely unthinkable in Chinese culture to make jokes or in many other cultures probably they wouldn't think about making jokes. This is also why if you listen or watch British humor there's a lot of actually jokes about taboo subjects or black humor.

Yeah, it was exactly, for example, jokes about death. We make jokes about death because same as anyone who scared of it, we're nervous about it. So instead of kind of avoiding it, what we do is we make jokes about it to try to ease the tension, make it seem less serious.

Yeah. So, as we're approaching the end of today's topic, I think you probably got to know a little bit more about British psyche. So, I love this segment Britain under the microscope, we started off as some real generic topics like housing like work and all that, and now we're upgrading to the British psyche.

Exactly. Because these are all important things to understand. And it's not about saying that one side is better than the other, or one culture is better than another. That's not the point. It's all about trying to better understand Britain and the culture behind it, and also how that affects language as well.

Yeah. Now we actually got the idea for this particular topic because 安澜 was telling me that he wished there could be like a course or a podcast where that could help him better understand how Chinese people really think.

Because it's a lot of… I mean we can talk about Chinese culture. But these generic topics are not gonna really help you understand our hidden meaning, the nuances, the subtlety.

Well, exactly. And the thing about talking about generic topics such as, you know, what we have done like, what British people eat and drink and things like that.

We don't want to make the culture exotic, because it's not British people, same as Chinese people, American people, we all have our own cultures, we all have our own cultural values, but ultimately, we all humans. We are not trying to make Britain to be exotic.

Yeah, exactly. It's… I think the point is to really to ease the understanding. So, if you guys have any tips to help 安澜 better understand the nuances, the subtleties in Chinese culture, leave us a comment in the comment section, I'm sure he's gonna really appreciate it, although he's gonna understate it.

Yeah, I said I will completely understand it and Lulu you can teach me 我们改天吧！

All right, on that note, we're gonna say goodbye. Thank you, 安澜 for coming to the show.

Thanks everyone, and until next time!

We'll see you next time!

Bye.

Bye.