The Chinese must have a different definition of comedy. The last two Chinese movies I watched, which were billed as "tremendously funny" and "hilarious" respectively, ended with a blind girl heading into the city searching for her father and a couple passing out from a gas leak. That is not funny. And that proves worrisome, as it leads to one of two conclusions. First, it is possible that life in China is just so wrenchingly difficult that those movies are actually hilarious in comparison.

The second possibility is that the Chinese have
never actually seen a comedy.

Both of these are troublesome, so I will have to go with secret option C. It's a different culture. And while I currently find it mystifying, I hope that by the time I return I will have a small grip on it. And to be fair, The World was not really described as a comedy, but it did have the adjective "hilarious" on the back. I didn't laugh once. Hopefully, next July, I will laugh more. Above, a particularly comedic scene from the second movie, 世界 (The World).