@Renovatio said:

The Chinese sex joke that Gittes learns from his barber was a classic!

I don't get it at all, Chinese guy takes lot's of breaks screwing his wife, then she gets mad and says you're screwing like a "chinaman"? What's the joke?

@Badlands1 said:

@Renovatio said:

The Chinese sex joke that Gittes learns from his barber was a classic!

I don't get it at all, Chinese guy takes lot's of breaks screwing his wife, then she gets mad and says you're screwing like a "chinaman"? What's the joke?

I think the idea was that this guy's wife had been fooling around with a Chinese man, that's how she knew he was screwing like one, something like that. That was all I could get from it. That and that it wasn't all that funny. It was meant to be embarrassing for Gittes since there was a lady right behind him.

I think the idea was that this guy's wife had been fooling around with a Chinese man, that's how she knew he was screwing like one, something like that. That was all I could get from it. That and that it wasn't all that funny. It was meant to be embarrassing for Gittes since there was a lady right behind him.

Actually the joke was about a Chinese couple, so maybe it could imply that the wife was screwing around with a white guy, but that was never implied, it's just a racist 50's joke..

@Badlands1 said:

I think the idea was that this guy's wife had been fooling around with a Chinese man, that's how she knew he was screwing like one, something like that. That was all I could get from it. That and that it wasn't all that funny. It was meant to be embarrassing for Gittes since there was a lady right behind him.

Actually the joke was about a Chinese couple, so maybe it could imply that the wife was screwing around with a white guy, but that was never implied, it's just a racist 50's joke..

Maybe so. I found a clip and listened to it and it really wasn't funny.

I recall in the 60s there were still lots of jokes of that sort being told, making fun of various races or ethnic groups. Polack jokes were really a big deal for a while in the 1970s. For some reason nobody was bothered by those jokes. They were socially acceptable while jokes about other races had become taboo. There were coffee mugs with the handle on the inside labeled Polish Coffee Mug sold at novelty gift shops. Stuff like that.

So I guess maybe it was meant to illustrate that racist jokes about Chinese were commonly told in that time period in L.A. But they made sure it wasn't really funny because the producers didn't really want to promote racist jokes?

The point of the punchline is how would the wife know how a Chinaman screws? Interracial relationships weren’t common back then, especially amongst white women and other races. Heck, Virginia actually had laws against interracial marriage until the Sixties!

@Tresix said:

The point of the punchline is how would the wife know how a Chinaman screws? Interracial relationships weren’t common back then, especially amongst white women and other races. Heck, Virginia actually had laws against interracial marriage until the Sixties!

Because the couple was Chinese....

@Badlands1 said:

@Tresix said:

The point of the punchline is how would the wife know how a Chinaman screws? Interracial relationships weren’t common back then, especially amongst white women and other races. Heck, Virginia actually had laws against interracial marriage until the Sixties!

Because the couple was Chinese....

No, I didn't get that from the scene. I listened to it again. Jake just says "there's this guy". And his friend says to him, "why don't you do it like the Chinese do?"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SZMEImptPQ

Listen to it again. I think the joke is about a non-Chinese couple. The guy's friend tells him to try screwing like the Chinese do, and describes the rest periods. So the guy tries it that way with his wife. She gets frustrated with the interruptions and says "Hey! What's the matter with you? You're screwing just like a China-man"

The joke is that the wife knows how a Chinese man screws, implying that she has had experience screwing a Chinese man.

I think there are a few symbolic levels to this joke that have not been explored yet, which capture the larger essence of the movie. I'm certainly not offended, but I share the opinion that the joke is not really that funny. However, it stood out to me too. While it didn't make me laugh, it seemed to embody something much more complex about the story as a whole...

Per the FIRST LEVEL (literal meaning of the Joke): I agree that the Husband is likely a white man (same ethnicity as the Private Investigator, Jake). The Husband had tried to make sex interesting again with his wife, by initiating a chaotic new Chinese method of starting and stopping during sex. The Wife had remarked that she got extremely sore from the Husband's new erratic "screwing" method. The joke is ultimately on the Husband, who realizes that his wife is all too familiar with this chaotic/painful method of screwing, as his Wife had actually been cheating on him all along by having sex with another erratic/hurtful man (Chinaman).

On a SECONDARY LEVEL (metaphorical connection to entire story): it's important to take account of the symbolic meaning that the place Chinatown has in the movie, which seems to embody an unlucky, painful, and unpredictable element from Jake's past. The joke could have involved any ethnicity, but it was specifically linked to a Chinese guy. This was deliberate. Jake had grown tired of the unpredictability/pain of the Chinatown Police Beat in his former life, so he quit to become a Private Detective. In many ways, Jake could be seen to embody the chaotic Chinaman in the joke. Jake had lived the chaotic lifestyle of Chinatown and may/may not still be living it during Depression Era, drought ridden, Los Angeles. The only woman that Jake sleeps with in the movie is Evelyn (Faye Dunaway). Just like the guy in the joke, who Jake describes as taking a break during his chaotic new screwing technique with his wife to smoke a cigarette, Jake also continually smokes cigarettes in between literally/metaphorically erratically screwing Evelyn's character over before/after they have sex.

Jake's behavior worsens and eventually becomes physically abusive to Evelyn, slapping her around repeatedly to coerce her into revealing her traumatic past. Evelyn gets so "sore" from Jake's screwing her over this time (just like the woman in the joke), that she eventually tells Jake the complete truth (punchline of the joke). That truth being... Evelyn is all too familiar with this chaotic/abusive form of lovemaking, because her own Father raped her as a child. It's a stark reminder that Jake is himself an unpredictable/unreliable character that inflicts pain and bad luck upon women. It may be open to interpretation as to whether Evelyn's Father, Jake, or both represent the Chinese lover in the joke, as they both are unpredictable/abusive. Evelyn had a Husband (now dead), so perhaps Jake and her Father are both chaotic/painful symbols of Chinese style affairs.

The full weight of the punchline comes at the end of the movie. Jake realizes he's still one-step too slow in discovering the truth. After having sex, Jake tells Evelyn that in his previous Chinatown life, "I tried to make sure someone didn't get hurt, and because of that, she got hurt in the process." This unlucky-Chinatown-cycle from Jake's past repeats itself. After falsely suspecting/pursuing Evelyn's character (a victim molested by her father and trying to protect her daughter/sister), Jake effectively contributes to her being killed by the cops, and leads her murdering/molesting Father straight to discovering/seizing the young girl that he fathered and who had been safely hidden from him, until now. If Jake had never called the cops, Evelyn would have safely escaped to Mexico with her daughter.

The complexity of the joke, seems to be that Jake thought he could make his career (metaphor for sex) fun again, by leaving the unlucky/unpredictable Chinatown police beat. Things seemed relatively normal, he investigated predictable/non-dangerous people cheating on their spouses, made good money, and wore nice suits. Perhaps Jake started getting bored (missing the unpredictability of Chinatown) just like the guy in the joke who got bored. Jake met a mysterious woman, smoked a cigarette, got his nose cut, smoked another cigarette, had sex, smoked another cigarette, kept seeking some form of truth (despite increasing danger) abused an innocent woman in the process, and eventually discovered that his mysterious love interest had an unpredictable/abusive backstory. This pulls Jake right back into the painful Chinatown atmosphere he wanted to escape, and in which a woman from his romantic past also likely died because of him.

While Jake was telling this joke, it's important to note that the woman he would have sex with later (Evelyn), and who would deliver this exact same punchline to him in real life, albeit with far more punch/pain, is standing right behind him. The moment Jake turns around and sees Evelyn, he immediately stops laughing. Jake had also told Evelyn the second time they met that he "didn't want to be the joke of the town... didn't want to get caught with my pants down." By the end, he was fooled twice. The joke was on Jake.

On an even deeper THIRD LEVEL (transcending the movie itself): This film was likely Roman Polanski's most critically acclaimed movie. The darkly perverted twist in this movie was that the Villain had shockingly raped his own 15 year old daughter. Three years after this movie was released, the shocking twist was that the Director of this film, Roman Polanski, raped a 13 year old girl. This crime also happened while Polanski, Jack Nicholson, & Angelica Houston (daughter of John Houston, the Villain in the movie) were at Nicholson's house. Polanski immediately fled from the United States and will be villainized for eternity. The joke was on Polanski.

@20thCentury said:

I think there are a few symbolic levels to this joke that have not been explored yet, which capture the larger essence of the movie. I'm certainly not offended, but I share the opinion that the joke is not really that funny. However, it stood out to me too. While it didn't make me laugh, it seemed to embody something much more complex about the story as a whole...

Per the FIRST LEVEL (literal meaning of the Joke): I agree that the Husband is likely a white man (same ethnicity as the Private Investigator, Jake). The Husband had tried to make sex interesting again with his wife, by initiating a chaotic new Chinese method of starting and stopping during sex. The Wife had remarked that she got extremely sore from the Husband's new erratic "screwing" method. The joke is ultimately on the Husband, who realizes that his wife is all too familiar with this chaotic/painful method of screwing, as his Wife had actually been cheating on him all along by having sex with another erratic/hurtful man (Chinaman).

On a SECONDARY LEVEL (metaphorical connection to entire story): it's important to take account of the symbolic meaning that the place Chinatown has in the movie, which seems to embody an unlucky, painful, and unpredictable element from Jake's past. The joke could have involved any ethnicity, but it was specifically linked to a Chinese guy. This was deliberate. Jake had grown tired of the unpredictability/pain of the Chinatown Police Beat in his former life, so he quit to become a Private Detective. In many ways, Jake could be seen to embody the chaotic Chinaman in the joke. Jake had lived the chaotic lifestyle of Chinatown and may/may not still be living it during Depression Era, drought ridden, Los Angeles. The only woman that Jake sleeps with in the movie is Evelyn (Faye Dunaway). Just like the guy in the joke, who Jake describes as taking a break during his chaotic new screwing technique with his wife to smoke a cigarette, Jake also continually smokes cigarettes in between literally/metaphorically erratically screwing Evelyn's character over before/after they have sex.

Jake's behavior worsens and eventually becomes physically abusive to Evelyn, slapping her around repeatedly to coerce her into revealing her traumatic past. Evelyn gets so "sore" from Jake's screwing her over this time (just like the woman in the joke), that she eventually tells Jake the complete truth (punchline of the joke). That truth being... Evelyn is all too familiar with this chaotic/abusive form of lovemaking, because her own Father raped her as a child. It's a stark reminder that Jake is himself an unpredictable/unreliable character that inflicts pain and bad luck upon women. It may be open to interpretation as to whether Evelyn's Father, Jake, or both represent the Chinese lover in the joke, as they both are unpredictable/abusive. Evelyn had a Husband (now dead), so perhaps Jake and her Father are both chaotic/painful symbols of Chinese style affairs.

The full weight of the punchline comes at the end of the movie. Jake realizes he's still one-step too slow in discovering the truth. After having sex, Jake tells Evelyn that in his previous Chinatown life, "I tried to make sure someone didn't get hurt, and because of that, she got hurt in the process." This unlucky-Chinatown-cycle from Jake's past repeats itself. After falsely suspecting/pursuing Evelyn's character (a victim molested by her father and trying to protect her daughter/sister), Jake effectively contributes to her being killed by the cops, and leads her murdering/molesting Father straight to discovering/seizing the young girl that he fathered and who had been safely hidden from him, until now. If Jake had never called the cops, Evelyn would have safely escaped to Mexico with her daughter.

The complexity of the joke, seems to be that Jake thought he could make his career (metaphor for sex) fun again, by leaving the unlucky/unpredictable Chinatown police beat. Things seemed relatively normal, he investigated predictable/non-dangerous people cheating on their spouses, made good money, and wore nice suits. Perhaps Jake started getting bored (missing the unpredictability of Chinatown) just like the guy in the joke who got bored. Jake met a mysterious woman, smoked a cigarette, got his nose cut, smoked another cigarette, had sex, smoked another cigarette, kept seeking some form of truth (despite increasing danger) abused an innocent woman in the process, and eventually discovered that his mysterious love interest had an unpredictable/abusive backstory. This pulls Jake right back into the painful Chinatown atmosphere he wanted to escape, and in which a woman from his romantic past also likely died because of him.

While Jake was telling this joke, it's important to note that the woman he would have sex with later (Evelyn), and who would deliver this exact same punchline to him in real life, albeit with far more punch/pain, is standing right behind him. The moment Jake turns around and sees Evelyn, he immediately stops laughing. Jake had also told Evelyn the second time they met that he "didn't want to be the joke of the town... didn't want to get caught with my pants down." By the end, he was fooled twice. The joke was on Jake.

On an even deeper THIRD LEVEL (transcending the movie itself): This film was likely Roman Polanski's most critically acclaimed movie. The darkly perverted twist in this movie was that the Villain had shockingly raped his own 15 year old daughter. Three years after this movie was released, the shocking twist was that the Director of this film, Roman Polanski, raped a 13 year old girl. This crime also happened while Polanski, Jack Nicholson, & Angelica Houston (daughter of John Houston, the Villain in the movie) were at Nicholson's house. Polanski immediately fled from the United States and will be villainized for eternity. The joke was on Polanski.

I don’t think when Jake says the wife was “sore” that he meant she was in pain. Some people say “sore” to mean angry. I think that was what Jake meant. The punchline is that she knows how a Chinaman has sex.