How did we laugh for four hours? I have no idea!

Laughter 2: How did we laugh for four hours? I have no idea!

A few weeks ago, I experienced one of the best nights this semester with a real stomach abs work out from laughing too hard for too long. I was spending the whole evening with one of my favorite group of people. We were a group of goofy young adults coming from different backgrounds who happened to become close friends: I am Vietnamese who is still too young to drink, Evegine is a Russian-American who miss Russian food on a daily basis, Tung is a Russian-Vietnamese who forgot how to write in Russian, Quan is a calm and collected Chinese who is working as an engineer after graduation from TCU, Kaylee is an American dork who has written five fiction novels, and Mandy is an Taiwanese-American whom I like to call “Asian Mama” even though she can barely understand any other language besides English. Despite of our age gap (the youngest is nineteen and the oldest is twenty-six), we hang out together quite often and do activities together like a family. It was a night full of laughter; the contagious laughter was carried from the restaurant to the candy to shop to the laid-back tea party after that.

That evening, my friends and I decided to try out some European food at a place called “A Taste of Europe” because one of our Russian friends missed his home food. The restaurant was nicely decorated with warm-lighting, creating a warm, relaxed atmosphere for us to enjoy our dinner. As we looked the menu written in Germany, Polish, and Dutch with small English subtitles below, we started to giggle and tell jokes about some European language. With the help of our Russian friend, we managed to order some superb-taste dishes. We were amazed when the gigantic dishes were placed in front of us. I had the best Russian cabbage rolls ever! As we were eating, we talked about the food in our countries and made fun of ourselves about how clumsy we all were when it came to cooking. We joked that we would become broke soon if we didn’t improve our cooking skills. After we finished the dinner, we strolled around the restaurant to shop for some Russian candies. As we were looking around, Mandy and I saw two t-shirts hanging on the wall for sale. I was pretty sure that the two faces printed on the t-shirts were Carl Max and Lenin – the founders of the socialist state.  However, I was not sure what the words on the shirt means, so I asked Tung to translate them. As soon as he finished explaining that the words mean “Long live Communism,” Mandy, Quan, and I immediately busted into laughter because we all experienced the taste of a communist society and knew what Communism has turned Vietnam and China into. Kaylee was confused at first but couldn’t resist the contagiousness of our laughter. Reflecting upon this, I realize that Mandy, Quan, and I could laugh at the idea of communism because we all had prior knowledge about communism and we were all on the same page of how we felt about it. If one of us was a big fan of communism, then that laughter would have become inappropriate and offensive. Kaylee, on the other hand, is an American and never travelled to any socialist countries, thus she didn’t feel as strong as we did about communism. As we walked out of the door as saw soon ridiculously abnormal painting on the wall, the boys busted into laughter again, pointing at the girl with huge nostrils. They said the girl look like Kaylee. Kaylee, not offended at all, laughed out loud and even posed a picture with that painting.

After filling our stomach with yummy food and preparing some candies, we headed to Mandy’s house for a small tea break. Mandy brought out 30 types of tea that she has collected over time and fed us with three types of Blue Bell ice cream. This is the reason why I usually tease Mandy with the phrase “Asian Mama.” She is the one who always takes care of other people in a meticulous way that we often see in the typical Asian moms. We then discussed about some stereotypes of moms; two types mentioned were “tiger mom” and “cool mom.” We talked about our own moms and what kind of parents we expected to become in the future. I don’t know whether it was the sugar in the ice-cream and candies or not, but we kept laughing and giggling throughout the whole discussion. Furthermore, as soon as Mandy got out of the room with her phone left, we took a silly picture on her phone entitled “When our Asian Mama is not home” and couldn’t stop laughing since then. Our laughter continued into the late night when we played “Heads Up” and acted along the words. One person would laugh about a silly things and all of the others would laugh along and could barely stop.

Reflecting on that night, the content of the conversation itself that was not that hilarious. However, it was the relaxed, family-like atmosphere and the open-mindedness of all the people in that room that allowed us to be goofy, silly, and laugh out laugh uncontrollably for almost four hours. It was one of my happiest moments when I experienced the contagiousness of laughter. Laughter doesn’t need a reason. It just happens naturally when people are enjoying each other’s company.