2010-09-07
Explanation
This comic features a couple standing at the Great Wall of China. The woman claims, "Did you know that when you conceive a baby in China, it comes out Chinese?" Her partner responds, "What? That's dumb." She then bets him $1,000 that it does. The caption below reads, "Nine months later, I found myself in a win-win situation."
The joke works on multiple levels. The man thinks the claim is ridiculous because he understands "Chinese" as referring to ethnicity or genetics, which obviously is not determined by geographic location of conception. But the woman is exploiting an ambiguity: since the baby would be born in China (or at least conceived there), it could technically be considered "Chinese" in terms of nationality or birthplace. More importantly, the "win-win" punchline implies that the real scheme was to trick her partner into having sex with her in an exotic location. Even if he "wins" the bet, she got what she actually wanted.