Oh, How They Laughed

A bear is walking through the woods when he sees a man fishing at the edge of a river. He decides to ask the fisherman how its going. “If he answers ‘Good’, I’ll eat him” the bear plans; “If he answers ‘Bad’, I’ll eat him all the same.”

The bear walks up to the fisherman and asks him how the fishing is. “Get lost,” the man answers rudely.

“That’s also an answer,” the bear says.

I heard this joke at a party. All the Russians in the room burst into laughter. The foreigners were sort of left standing around looking at each other. But no one who laughed could explain why the joke was funny – they’d start out with “well, you see…the bear…”. Invariably, though, the answer to the question was simply “it just is.”

In any event, it’s a very Russian-style anecdote with its loads of fatalism. For all the modernism sweeping the country, and the new style of working hard to get ahead, there are certain elements of the Russian character that aren’t changing all that fast. In this instance, the simple joke reveals the widespread belief that you are screwed no matter what. Force majeure (played here by the bear) will shift its tactics and responses according to whatever cleverly devised plan you have. And no matter what you do, the bear will get you.

Contrast this to the half-optimistic fatalism of the closest ursine American proverb – “Some days you get the bear, some days the bear gets you.”

A similar situation occurred once before with a joke about a man in a banya looking for a towel but finding a crocodile instead. Again, the Russians laughed heartily while I translated and re-translated the joke in my head. It still remains well beyond my ability to even begin to analyze that one.

Maybe i'm wrong about the bear joke. Until I actually hear why its funny, though, I'll just have to go with my analysis.