Why do North Korean’s like crude jokes?
According to the Daily NK the answer is simple: they won’t get the joke teller in trouble. For as the article states, “A short tongue can lose a long neck.”
For many years I have been on the lookout for North Korean jokes. Economic theory tells us that if the penalties are high, then only hysterical jokes will circulate. The higher the “tax” on jokes, the higher their “quality”. Kind of like the effects of prohibition on alcohol or drug use.
In the past, I have posted some North Korean humor. Here is the equivalent of a North Korean stand-up routine (which no South Korean has been able to translate for me yet). Here are a bunch of jokes that supposedly circulate in the DPRK, though most of them were also told throughout the socialist world.
I know there is humor in the DPRK; I have seen it first-hand. Every time I have asked a North Korean for examples, however (defectors and those still on the inside), I get nothing. If any North Koreans or friends of North Koreans are reading, please send in some North Korean jokes.
