While having a chai tea latte (very yuppie! oops… yummie… yummy!) and waiting for the chiropractor to return to his office, I read an article on German humor in today’s Wall Street Journal.
I thought you might be interested:

Germans aren’t necessarily known for their humor. Still, Viacom believes it can build an audience for the German version of Comedy Central by running homegrown programs alongside foreign fare. Its most popular show so far is “Para-Comedy,” produced for Viacom by Dortmund- based Prime Productions. The show follows handicapped people who play practical jokes on unsuspecting passersby, “Candid Camera” style. In one episode, a blind woman asks a couple to give her guide dog directions. They readily oblige. “You have to go straight down that way and on the left you’ll see a large fountain. Take a left and go about 30 meters,” the man tells the Labrador retriever, stroking its head. “Did you get that?”
It might shock the sensibilities of some, but those involved say their motivation is to break down stereotypes of handicapped people through humor. “German humor is very down-to-earth,” adds Catherine Muhlemann, a Swiss executive who heads Viacom in Germany.

Humor can be a key to the heart. (Witness how Jesus used humorous images to drive home a point. He skewered the “super-pious”, for instance, by saying that they carefully insured their water was kosher by filtering out every gnat, while overlooking the fact that they were swallowing a whole camel - a notably unclean animal!).

After living in Germany for almost thirty years, I’d add just a couple of additional observations to the Wall Street Journal comments:
- German humor has a strong affinity to Jewish humor. There is a strong sense of both the joy of life and its shadow side. This probably isn’t unusual, since Jewish and German culture were so intertwined over centuries. (Germany was the place for Jewish life until the horrors of the so-called “Third Reich”).
- German jokes are seldom self-directed. Unlike the Irish or the English, or - to some extent - the Americans, Germans do not usually tell jokes on themselves.

(When we see each other personally, ask me to tell you my all-time favorite Irish joke. It was told to me by my friend, David Wilson, who directed the Irish work of Campus Crusade for many years.)

Have a wonderful weekend. Please keep praying for the German people - and for our friend in Korea, Jin-Ok, and her associates in the mission congress.