Cebuano Humor

While waiting for my flight to board, I was drawn into conversation with a fellow passenger who was also a kababayan. He was returning home after attending a seminar in Manila. He was funny in a Cebuano way. What do I mean by that, you might ask. Cebuano humor is something that only another Cebuano can truly appreciate. It straddles the thin line between corny and witty but funny nonetheless. But one thing it is, it is not sophisticated. It’s dry humor combined with a deadpan delivery of down to earth observations on life, work, and everything else under the sun. I can’t describe how it is different from other regions but it just is. Having been away from Cebu for a number of years, this realization was brought home to me during that flight back to the island of my birth and carefree childhood. Only Cebuanos can come up with lines such as the classic “Ikaw ba’y gwapo, lalim ba”, a line in a Cebuano commercial delivered by a popular Cebuano actor whose face even his blind mother will not call handsome. Another line that became popular after my time and something I heard from my wisecracking brother when he visited was “Bahala na saging basta loving”. It’s a Cebuano take on love conquers all even poverty. These lines lose their color in translation because your appreciation hinges on your understanding of the language (as it is in most cases). Such lines embody the Cebuano sense of humor: unsophisticated, quirky and refreshing.