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- <text id=91TT0825>
- <title>
- Apr. 15, 1991: Can't You Yanks Take A Joke?
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1991
- Apr. 15, 1991 Saddam's Latest Victims
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- GRAPEVINE, Page 17
- Can't You Yanks Take a Joke?
- </hdr><body>
- <p>By David Ellis/Reported by Sidney Urquhart
- </p>
- <p> Never mind trade issues: the U.S. and Japan can't even
- agree on what's funny. That culture gap was illustrated recently
- when a Japanese businessman on a United Airlines flight from
- Tokyo to San Francisco handed a flight attendant a trash-filled
- airsickness bag and claimed it was a bomb. His attempt at humor
- didn't go over very well with the crew, which placed the bag
- carefully in a protective box, dumped fuel and headed back to
- Japan. Last week the prankster paid United a relatively small
- damage settlement of $29,000. An airline lawyer explained that
- after the man apologized, the company decided to take a "very
- Japanese action" and not sue for the total costs of the returned
- flight.
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
-
-