Dealing With Cultural Differences – Example 1: The Two Ronnies

Obviously when you try to fit in to a new culture, there are some obstacles that will just not be overcome no matter how hard you try. This is one of the reasons that it’s so important to have friends from similar backgrounds, because completely severing the connection to your own culture can, I imagine, have some ugly fallout. This little bit of expatriate source code came up for me tonight when, feeling sad about the death of Ronnie Corbett, I pulled up of one my all-time favorite sketches from his legendary show The Two Ronnies and called my wife over to watch it with me.

While in the middle of my third or fourth heavy guffaw, it struck me that no such guffaws were coming from my wife. This is not a strike against her, by any means, but it did go to illustrate that no matter how much we have in common and no matter how similar our senses of humor are, this is another example of that un-bridgeable cultural gap.

If you’re unfamiliar with the sketch in question, it’s called Mastermind. It’s a parody of the famous 70s quiz show, but in the Two Ronnies’ version, the contestant happens to give the answer to the previous question. The brilliance of the sketch is that, despite being one question out of sync, his answers are still sort of correct. Watch it below:

Brilliant, right? And even though I’m from Canada and familiar with British culture and history, there are still several bits of this sketch that I don’t understand. (For instance, his answer of “Berks” had to be explained as a bit of Cockney rhyming slang. Berks = Berkshire Hunt = c**t). So of course it would be ridiculous to expect my Thai wife to have any idea what these guys were talking about, just as it would be for me to expect a Thai quiz show dealing with pop culture in the 1970s to give me a few good laughs.

But nevertheless, it did briefly reinforce the idea of how valuable your friends are when living as an expat. I love my wife and we get along great, but there just some things that we’re never going to be able to bond over. When I want that, I turn to Facebook, where pals are posting their favorite sketch by Ronnie, and we’re all having a good laugh.