Funny / Judge Dee

• Just about every encounter with Po Kai in The Chinese Gold Murders. The honorable Mr. Wang is having way too much fun with his disguise.
• In The Haunted Monastery the Judge reflects disgustedly that he has managed to bring together two young couples but failed to find the murderer. "I should give up being a magistrate and become a matchmaker!"
• Miss Violet Liang, a lady wrestler, giving a matter-of-fact description of her citizen's arrest of three kidnappers in The Emperor's Pearl is hilarious.
  • Cheng Pa's infatuation with Miss Violet, and the fact that it seems to be mutual.
• In-story, Ma Jong's Orphaned Punchline about the bed collapsing in The Chinese Lake Murders.
• Ma Joong's discovery that the poet he was investigating and young concubine he pays to set free are in love with each other in The Red Pavilion is both hilarious and rather touching.
• Almost every time the womanizing Magistrate Lo shows up, he gets Dee into some sort of ridiculous trouble with a woman Lo was romancing. You have to wonder why Dee puts up with him.
• In The Red Pavilion at one point Dee has to ask some questions of an elderly retired groundskeeper. It works but when the old man starts in with a story about his grandchildren Dee hurriedly thanks him and runs for it.
• Dee goes undercover as a soothsayer to investigate an abandoned temple, running into Cheng Pa and his beggars along the way. When Cheng Pa is called to the yamen, he is horrified to see that a Fortune Teller is responsible for running the city before the situation is explained to him.
• Ma Joong is sent by the judge to interrogate a prostitute in the early morning, hoping that as these girls rarely get a good night's sleep, it'll keep his mind on business. Unfortunately, it turns out she was able to sleep all night, and so was in a very receptive mood, to their mutual satisfaction.
  • Later, the judge mentions finding a suspect sleeping on a hard wooden bed to receive her lover, which strikes him as unusual. Ma Joong delivers his opinion and volunteers for a scientific experiment.
  'As to the second point, I have often enough slept on a plank-bed, but I confess I never thought of sharing it. I'll gladly go to the Willow Quarter, though, and make inquiries about its special advantages if any.' He looked hopefully at the judge.
  Judge Dee was staring at him, but his thoughts seemed to be elsewhere. Slowly tugging at his moustache, he remained silent for some time. Suddenly the judge smiled.
  'Yes,' he said, 'we might try that.' Ma Joong looked pleased. But his face fell as Judge Dee continued briskly, 'Go at once to the Inn of the Red Carp, behind the fishmarket.'

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