A joke with the Dalai Lama

Good day everyone!

If you really want to learn and understand another language, it’s important to be able to understand the jokes told in that language. Why? Because it shows you not only understand the words themselves, but also the culture behind them and the nation’s sense of humour.

In the following video, a news anchor from Australia tells the Dalai Lama a joke. First, take a moment to read the transcript below and then watch the video, trying to understand each word.

Joke

So the Dalai Lama walks into a pizza shop and says: “Can you make me one with everything?”

Did you understand it? It’s a joke regarding the understanding that Buddha taught that we were part of a whole.

The Dalai Lama did not understand this joke but he laughed when the anchor man said “I knew this wouldn’t work”. When someone tells a joke and nobody laughs, we say it “fell flat”. Unfortunately, this joke fell flat because the only person laughing was the person who told it.