Getting-on-board V.S. going-to-bed

Shuibao Liu, UN

The short article above in Chinese is both a true story and a joke. Briefly, three men went on vacation during the summer without their wives. One day on an island cruise, they got off the boat to visit beauty spots and historical sites. While having a picture taken on the island, one of them met a beautiful lady. Both of them chatted for a while and discovered that they were actually on the same boat. So after taking a picture, they decided to get on board together.

When the three men returned home, one of them related this short insignificant episode to the wives. The tricky thing here is that the Chinese words “get on board” and “go to bed” sound alike if pronounced with an accent. And that was exactly what happened. What the wife understood was that her husband had met a beautiful woman, had had a picture taken and that they had then gone to bed together. She was furious and wanted to kick him out…

At first I was reluctant to submit this silly joke to the editorial committee of the UN Special because in the first place it was in Chinese, so at least far more than half of the readers would not understand it. Secondly, nowadays, we do not have time for things like this while doing more with less, even if language is not a problem.

The author, however, was very stubborn, insisting that I should bring it to the committee. Among the hundreds of arguments he gave for publishing it, one was interesting. He said: “It’s a joke all right. But it’s also true in real life. Both in private and public sectors, “getting-on-board” and “going-to-bed” do often get mixed up. Isn’t it true that sometimes getting-on- board follows going-to-bed or vice versa? In this aspect, do you think that the international organizations are exceptions and in a vacuum?”

“I don’t know but it’s a good question”, I replied. Hence, the silly joke is published here.