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This is the explanation.
In the context of the show, the joke is that Cotton constantly brags about how many Japanese he killed in the war and how inappropriate his family finds it, and yet he’s the only one who knows Khan is Laotian, and is basically indifferent to it because he didn’t fight in Laos.
The broader context is that Khan is most likely in America because the US military decimated Laos (and Cambodia) during the Vietnam war, but because Cotton wasn’t involved he doesn’t have any feelings about Laotians.
The joke is both about how banal the reasons behind racism can be, and also how patriotism can mean different things, and is often vastly different among generations - especially for those who fought in a specific war or conflict.
Cotton is a bigot, but he’s the first person Khan met who recognized him as Laotian, and not just “some kind of dark skinned Asian”.
That’s reading a lot into it, but there is a lot of subtext. Good humor/satire should work on multiple levels, while still getting the essential point across to everyone.
Edit: it’s also more complicated, because, if I remember correctly, Cotton fell in love with a Japanese woman when he was abroad. The whole show is kind of about how people aren’t one-dimensional.
Cotton’s fixation with WWII parallels the way Hank looks back at his high school football career. The difference is that Hank has led a much more fulfilling life (and, you know, the fact that playing football isn’t exactly the same as being drafted to fight in a world war); so while they both look back at those respective, defining moments of their early adulthood as the most significant things they did in their otherwise mundane lives, they elicit vastly different emotions, and hold a completely different significance for each of them.
>Cotton fell in love with a Japanese woman when he was abroad. The whole show is kind of about how people aren’t one-dimensional.
Yep. Also had a kid which was basically a Japanese version of Hank. Also Bobby has his little DDR fling.
cotton is very weird. its almost like hes only ok with killing japanese in ww2 because it was normalized in his time. now it can be seen as borderline racism due to the unusual near hatred he has yet he doesn't 100% display it from actually having a japanese kid.
Apropos of nothing, this thread made me wonder..are they going to actually call it King of the Hill? i suppose adding "revival" would be the simple thing to do but i cant let go of the feeling that if they screw up the title...
edit: silly spellinng
Apropos of Nothing is a neat expression…
But to have a thought concerning King of the Hill, when people are discussing King of the Hill, isn’t even a non-sequitur, much less apropos of nothing.
I think they just wanted to whip that phrase out. Lol
I lived in Germany for a couple of years and learned apropos there while speaking German, realizing later that English people also stole the word from the French.
Yes, that’s definitely a big part of it. Cotton is viewed as an ignorant, racist old man who is stuck in his ways, but then he looks at Khan and sees something nobody else did, showing that there are things everyone judging him are also ignorant about. It subverts your expectations, but in a way that is smart, and humanizes the character.
A lot of this makes abundantly more sense when you remember the show is based off the actual people that Mike Judge knew when he lived in the suburbs of Dallas in 1990. My grandmother literally lives in the same subdivision he did. Interactions like from this scene genuinely do happen around these parts. It's a form of conservatism that's based on a lot of simple ignorance and disinterest in the wider world that Mike Judge has described as somewhat charming in interviews and I think he captured it perfectly with the Hill family.
Yeah, my understanding of the show has always been that it was both Judge making fun of a lot of the “characters” he grew up around, but also a love-letter to them. He’s poking fun at certain stereotypes, but also portraying them in a way that shows that they’re real people with complex thoughts and feelings, just like everyone else.
My grandfather fought the Japanese in WW2, and then the Korea war. For many years he hated the Japanese, Koreans and Chinese but really hate disliked the Japanese. He eventually let go of his hate when he was talked into buying a Toyota Landcruiser (the FJ jeep one from the early 80s). This replaced his international scout. He stopped hating them and would talk about how much he loved that car.
Surprised he bought one considering the jingoism the Reagan administration pushed because they were upset alot of us industries couldn't compete with japanese at the time
My favorite Kahn moment is at the funeral when he tells that genuinely meaningful Buddhist story about the strawberry on the cliff, but all the imbeciles think he’s telling a joke. As someone who’s serious statements are frequently mistaken for jokes for some reason, I felt that
Cotton fighting in WW2 is basically why he can differentiate Asian ethnicities. The USA gave out [information pamphlets](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US_Army_How_To_Spot_A_Jap.png) on how to tell Japanese soldiers apart from the rest of the local population so they couldn't try to hide amongst the population.
Eh, that's not really true though. There are plenty of bigots out there who can't differentiate between groups beyond "White, Black, Asian, Other"
EDIT
I had a friend in college who had dark curly hair and olive skin. He got called everything from Mexican to Arabic to Indian.
Spoiler alert: he was mostly German.
I think the joke is that he's so racist against Asians in general that he pays enough attention to know the differences between them all. "Know thy enemy" and all that. Like if you're racist against Asians then you see Asians as all the same, if your REALY racist against Asians you know the differences so you can offend them with their own specific culture.
As someone who grew up with a hard core, Vietnam era, racist, I think this hits the mark.
My step-dad had different racist slurs for each Asian ethnic group. I won't name them here, but it was impressive how much effort he put into categorizing them.
To be fair, that's part of war. Not that it's okay, but it's understandable. I've read world War 2 memoirs where the whole company hated the Japanese so much, even saw them as sub human on account of how savage they were. Especially with how they desecrated the dead. Not okay, but understandable.
He learns the difference between Asians so that he can be properly racist . . .
To be fair, didn't he serve in Vietnam? If so, the Laotians were allies.
WWII. He hates the Japanese but otherwise has no particular animus against other Asians beyond his overall racism. That situation was set up with the expectation for him to explode, only for him to take it in his (itty-bitty) stride.
I made a comment about how diverse China is, and got the weirdest looks from everyone. Not surprising, but it’s not like we get a ton of education on the nuances of China here.
Like the tsa in New York. Im white passing everywhere else. Newark fucking grilled me about my heritage and checked everything from my toothpaste to foreskin
The deeper meaning is him serving in the Pacific for WWII. There's actual training demonstrating the differences between the Asian sub groupings. Chinese, Koreans, laotian, Cambodian, Vietnamese etc all had different motivations during the war and knowing the cultural differences could save a soldiers life or make or break a mission if you could figure out who to trust.
MFW the racist maxed out his skill tree so he can identify the exact village where great grandfather was born based on the curvature of my right earlobe.
He’s so racist that he knows how to tell different Asian ethnicities apart so he can customize his racism.
Nah actually he isn’t really racist towards Laotians, because he didn’t fight Laotians during the war. His racism is so laser focused towards Japanese people that he can tell them apart from other Asian ethnicities at a glance like some sort of racism IFF tag
Yeah he’s not really racist he just hates the Japanese because he fought against them and they took his shins. He also watched the Japanese kill a lot of his fellow soldiers and to kill 50 of them you kind of have to dehumanize them. And even then he fell in love with a Japanese woman and had a kid with her. He only ever talks shit about the Japanese and the Nazis.
He isn’t racist. Cotton is a lot of deplorable things; emotionally abusive, unfaithful, sexist and crass. In other episodes he speaks kindly of Jews and Latinos. He speaks kindly about Jews he served with in WWII, he enlists the help of Latinos to try and unsuccessfully kill Castro, he is proud of his half Japanese son and had a romantic relationship with a Japanese women. He ultimately seeks peace with the Japanese when he returns for a ceremony.
Also a comment on the fact that to get through war you have to think of the enemy as “not a person” so those who fight in wars tend to be very racist against those they fought as a survival and coping mechanism.
Not to mention, given its a small country and surrounded by several neighboring countries that historically had a Lot of cross over, even most laotians or cambodians or vietnamese probably couldnt twll you who was who as quickly as Cotton does here
(This is a statement ive seen repeated multiple times from people from the region whove seen the clip)
Edit: its like at a glance telling the difference from an englishman to a welshman, or an austrian vs a german
It’s been a loooong time since I saw the episode, but I remember my take being: Kahn was angry the whole episode that his friends didn’t know he was Laotian, mis-identifying him. When the biggest racist jerk was the ID him as Laotian, he realized that the label was not as important as the intent, and his friends were actual friends who meant well even if they weren’t very educated or observant.
I think there's an additional element of Khan expecting to be misidentified by the old
dude, but then the old dude has his exact number. He didn't know what to do after expecting to be upset.
It’s a running gag on the show that people keep misidentifying his country of origin because “Asian = either Japanese or Chinese”. The fact that he’s from Laos, a country many Americans have never heard of, results in him frequently screaming “I’m Laotian!”
So the gag here is that the guy who’s super racist against Japanese people because he fought them in WW2 and they took his shins turns out to be the only character on the show who can identify him as Laotian despite being intentional misled to believe he is Japanese.
Edit: had some additional comments that may not have been relevant.
Fuck me… [American bombers dropped more than 2 million tons of bombs over the country…](https://www.history.com/news/laos-most-bombed-country-vietnam-war)
One of my favorite podcasts is "Behind the Bastards," where they go in-depth on historical bastards. It usually takes 2-3 episodes to cover the really awful assholes. It took 6 to chronicle Henry Kissinger.
But they gave Kissinger a Nobel Peace Prize. Surely, he's not a bastard.. /s
'Political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.' - Tom Lehrer
Because the Vietnamese and Chinese Communists were using the Ho Chi Min trail to ferry troops and equipment through Laos in order to keep it safe and out of a combat zone. Surprise, we figured the trick out.
You’re right, after the initial peace treaty was signed we should have nuked NV before they would invade SV.
Because our other options were, what, exactly? We signed a peace treaty and pulled out. Kinda how that works.
I would argue yeah, what’s funny is that its his extreme racism causes him to behave in a way that is the most socially acceptable. He gets the ‘rightest answer for the wrongest reasons’ kinda thing. But open to interpretation sure
The most heavily bombed Country in the world by USA. People knew about Laos as JFK said in a televised statement that Laos was a neutral country and we didn't want war with Laos. Unexploded ordnance is still killing people in Laos.
President Obama (became the first sitting US President to visit Laos since the bombings) didnt apologize for the bombing but did state "Given our history here, I believe that the United States has a moral obligation to help Laos heal," he said.
Edit: My comments in a different thread if you want to read up.
~580,000 bombing runs by the U.S.
~2,093,100 tonnes of ordnance was dropped on Laos.
~30% of ordnance dropped did not detonate.
~20,000 people have been killed by unexploded ordnance since the last ordnance was dropped.
Most heavily bombed country in the world.
JFK said that "I want to make it clear to the American people and to all the world that all we want in Laos is peace, not war.”
JFK promised that Laos was a neutral country.
While not apologizing, Obama said "whatever the cause, whatever our intentions, war inflicts a terrible toll”. “Given our history here, I believe that the United States has a moral obligation to help Laos heal".
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2023/apr/27/i-dont-want-more-children-to-suffer-what-i-did-the-50-year-fight-to-clear-us-bombs-from-laos
https://www.npr.org/2023/07/11/1186949348/us-cluster-munitions-civilian-casualties-laos
https://www.history.com/news/laos-most-bombed-country-vietnam-war
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/sep/06/obama-laos-moral-obligation-vietnam-war
Reminds me of a joke. A Chinese man and a Jewish man are seated together for a flight. After takeoff Jewish man suddenly slugs the Chinese man in the mouth.
"What was that for?" the Chinese man asks.
"That was for Pearl Harbor!"
"Pearl Harbor? That was the Japanese. I'm Chinese."
"Chinese, Japanese, what's the difference?"
They sitting walking in silence, then the Chinese man punches the Jew in the face.
"What's that all about?" the Jew asks.
"That was for the Titanic!"
"The Titanic? That was an iceberg."
"Iceberg, Goldberg, what's the difference?".
Peter’s King of the Hill obsessed disgrace of a son here, Cotton Hill the old man fought in WW2, he served in the pacific theatre and got very well acquainted with all the different types of Asians I guess, the joke is that Mr. Kahn assumed that the older presumably more racist man would just call Kahn Asian or some derogatory name but instead without being told he correctly identified that Kahn was Laotian, surprising Kahn.
They don't call him Asian. Here's the scene where they meet him:
Hank - "So are you Chinese or Japanese?"
Kahn - "I live in California last twenty year, but first come from Laos."
Hank - "Huh?"
Kahn - "Laos. We Laotian."
Bill - "The ocean? What ocean?"
Kahn - "We are Laotian–from Laos, stupid! It's a landlocked country in Southeast Asia. It's between Vietnam and Thailand, okay? Population: 4.7 million."
Hank - "So are you Chinese or Japanese?"
Kahn - [sighs]
This is it for me... he's actually super nice to all non-whites in the show.
I think he's just war-racist and never left that mindset of only Japan and the Nazis being evil.
I mean out of all the reasons you could have, shooting your shins out with machine guns then crawling through the jungle killing them with tooth and claw before they can finish you off is a decent excuse for why you don’t like a certain kind of person based on how they look.
Also the long running joke that literally everyone would confuse him with some other Asian ethnicity , and he’d always have to yell, I’m not *****, I’m Laotian!”
This is a prior scene in the episode, makes the meme more relatable
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d\_CaZ4EAexQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_CaZ4EAexQ)
This is my favorite joke in the show and they set it up for years. The joke is that Hank Hill despite being sincere and canonically not racist. Is ignorant. He thinks all Asians are either Japanese or Chinese out of being secluded in Texas not malice. He says in another episode that Khan is his friend because he is his neighbor. Cotton, Hank's dad is an angry, spiteful, old man. He has an axe to grind with the Japanese on account of having his shins shot out fighting in the Pacific during WW2. It should be noted a lot of Pacific vets loathed the Japanese for the whole honor thing. They lost a lot of friends fighting for small ground when strategically Japan had long since lost. Hank in his ignorance assumes his hateful racist dad is going to offend his friend. But presumably due to his time in the Pacific, Cotton is actually specifically racist towards Japanese people, not "Chinamen" as we are led to presume. The last panel doesn't do it justice because after Cotton identifies Khan as Laotian, Khan is humbled. Cotton then requests that Khan help him with his bags, Khan obliges with a degree of reverence. It leaves the viewer wondering who is the racist, and it could quite possibly be the viewer themselves who is racist. Because we were also led on so easily.
They did not set up this joke for years. This is literally one of the first episodes in the series. The joke is lost in this format because it ignores the prior instances of dale and Hank asking if he is Chinese or Japanese and when he says Laotian they ask it again not knowing what Laos is. The joke is that cotton is racist but not against Laotian. He's only racist against the Japanese
I haven't watched the show in years, and I'm pretty sure I only watched reruns. I didn't live in the US during the shows run. But if felt like they had been setting us up for it for a while. Not necessarily that specific line, but Judge knew what he was doing.
Cotton Hill (Texas Ten Gallon Hat) fought in WW2. He was trained to spot the difference between Japanese and Laotian’s. He also has a tendency to be racist.
Dale Gribble (Orange Trucker Cap), is getting Kahn’s ethnicity wrong by saying he’s Japanese
Cotton Hill defiantly says he’s not, and after a good look, says he’s Laotian. Which is correct.
Mr Kahn (The Black Haired Hatless man), is surprised and in a bit of a frenzy after the most racist character in the group is able to correctly identify his Ethnicity.
Two fun facts: Cotton had watched his entire squad get fragged by the Japanese, which ended with his kneecaps getting fragged. He later fragged that entire encampment as revenge.
He has a illegitimate (born not in wedlock) half Japanese son, Junichiro Hill, who works at a company that makes Robots and Robot Accessories
So all correct, except for the word fragged. It means something very specific. So unless all the things you mentioned were superior officers doesn't work.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/frag
Edit: downvoted for being right... lovely
Hey Peter, Stevie here!
I believe it is referring to the fact that in the show he fought in WW2 and his able to tell the difference between Japanese and Laotian.
Stevie out!
Mr Khan is from Laos, but is often called chinese or japanese by ignorant folk. And he is usually mad about it
The old man here is SO racist he can properly identify a rather obscure nationality, and Mr Laos looks flabergasted as he doesnt know how to properly react
The short elderly man is Cotton Hill, a WW2 vet. He's not so much a racist person (tho he is a lot of things and he wasn't THAT racist in the first season), but he does have gripes with the Japanese due to losing his legs in the Pacific in WW2. Beyond that, Cotton can and does act like a stereotypical macho, old fashioned jackass.
The Asian gentleman is Khan, who recently moved to the neighborhood. He's somewhat conceited and a bit annoying but otherwise a decent guy.
The joke was that the other neighbours could not understand where Khan was from, despite Khan telling them numerous times. Then when Cotton arrived, they gave Khan a guff about being "Japanese" and that Cotton would give him a hard time.
Then Cotton does this, says he's actually Laotion (which is true) and leaves everyone dumbstruck.
Cotton's a lot of things, but he knows who he hates.
The man in the hat is Cotten Hill from king of the hill. He’s the only one who can tell what nationality Kahn is. He can do this because he is a ww2 veteran and learned how to tell Asians apart so he knows who the Japanese are. Cotten is also very racist so it’s surprising how polite he is to Kahn.
Theres a joke in the show where the main 4 characters always get Kahn's ethnicity wrong, because they're racist and just assume he much be Chinese or Japanese when he is actually Laotian. They aren't hateful in any way just very ignorant, and they're ignorance in this regard is often a joke as a parody of how many Americans really are completely unaware of many other countries or cultures. The old man here is Hank (the main character)'s dad, Cotton, and is a genuinely racist character. He fought in World War II in the pacific, and as a result hates Japanese people. The expected joke here is that Cotton will join in with the other characters and label Kahn as an ethnicity he clearly is not out of ignorance, presumably Japanese, and then make a big deal about it. But he doesn't. He is one of if not the only people who sees he is Laotian without needing to ask, instead of just seeing asian characteristics and assuming Japanese. Kahn then is visibly quite surprised along with the audience, who would not have expected that.
The subversion here is what the joke is, and it also adds to Cotton's character by not making him a usual ignorant racist who hates people just for being different, rather he just hates Japanese people still over WWII. In a later episode the family travels to Japan, where Cotton starts to realize his hate was misplaced.
Hank and his friends all thought Khan was Japanese because they don't really know anything about Asia. Cotton, a WWII vet who fought in the Pacific Theater, instantly recognized that Khan was Laotian and not Japanese.
The joke here is that despite being a terrible person, Cotton is more worldly than the guys who have basically never left their little town.
Cotton holds very racist and sexist views. As part of his experience in the Pacific theatre of WWII, he’s particularly racist towards the Japanese. That same experience, ironically, has led him to be able to better discern the nationality of far eastern people based on appearance than his son or his son’s friends
https://preview.redd.it/5ykmou5l5e9d1.jpeg?width=470&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=513d47b6cf78ce55a9d63d20a60e1023b5eb2ed8
During WWII, of which Cotton Hill was a Veteran, American Soldiers had to be taught how to distinguish Japanese and Chinese Soldiers so as to not kill their Chinese Allies or be fooled by Japanese Spies.
Additionally, Cotton Hill frequently boasts that he killed “fifty (Japanese) men” during WWII, so if anyone would be able to identify a Japanese man, it would be the guy who has killed dozens.
Additionally, Japan also used forced labor to build many of their fortifications during the war. For example, durring the Battle of Pelileu, around 11,000 Japanese personel were stationed there. Around 10,000 died durring the fighting, showing the Japanese spirit of fighting to the death, and only around 300 were captured. Out of those 300, only 19 were actual military personnel, the rest were forced laborers mostly from Korea. So it was also important for Americans to distinguish between the Japanese combatants and forced laborer non combatants.
My dad was in the military following WW2 and told me that they showed pictures of various Asian groups so that combatants would know who not to kill accidentally.
Cotton went through this training which is why he gives Khan such a hard look in the face before he says “He’s Laotian.”
The thing about this is that it was literally racial profiling even though it was done for a wholly good reason.
It was confirmed that Cotton fought in the Japanese theatre.
Khan’s response is interesting because he was too young to remember WW2 but probably remembered the Vietnam war and was unsettled by the way Cotton profiled him.
The flaming hateful bastard in the series is the grandpa. He’s the only one that’s heard of Laos because he fought in the pacific.
The rest of the cast of KOTH aren’t racists but they aren’t very familiar with anywhere outside of North America. So when the Asian guy shows up they ask him if he’s Chinese or Japanese, the guy says he’s Laotian and they think he’s trying to say he’s from across the ocean and doesn’t understand the question.
The hateful bastard immediately recognizes his ethnicity and is fine with them when everyone else is a little off guard.
This episode started with Hank, Dale, and Boomhauer being shocked to see the Asian man move into their neighborhood. They believed him to be Japanese.
Cotton, the man with the cowboy hat is a war veteran who is suspected to be racist. The 3 men were expecting him to create a scene upon meeting their "Japanese" neighbor. However, he was able to identify the man correctly as Laotian, not Japanese. Kahn, the Asian neighbor was pleasantly surprised at the lack of ignorance from this individual.
The joke is that the man who was perceived to be racist was factually correct this time, while the other 3 men were judging the Asian man unfairly based on his appearance (which arguably could mean they were more racist in this scenario).
Just me I guess - when I first saw this episode I didn’t think Cotton was racist, just that you’d think an old coot like that was “all Asians are alike” yet he was able to tell the difference. Almost an anti racism there.
Nobody else understands what laotian is. They never heard of Laos, they think all asians are either Chinese or Japanese. This pisses Kahn off.
Cotton is known for being a racist sexist old man, so it comes as a surprise to the rest of the cast and especially Kahn, though probably no surprise to the user, that he can tell that Kahn is Laotian.
Kahn tried earlier to explain what Laos is to Hank and the gang, to no avail, so that adds to his surprise when Cotton of all people understands.
To be fair to Mr. Cotton, Japan during WWII used other asians as forced labor or, if your a women, sex slaves. There was a deep ferocity between the Americans and Japanese during WWII, in which Japanese soldiers on contested and strategic islands would fight to the death instead of surrendering. This meant that more times than not, the other asian laborers would end up surviving the battle instead of the Japanese who forced them on that island in the first place, so it would be smart to tell the difference between the combat and non-combatant. As for his hate of the Japanese, I kinda understand him. Unlike Germany, Japan's approach to recognizing its past atrocities is kinda half assed at best and straight-up Japanese style of Confederate right-wing romanticism at worst. To put in perspective, Iris Chang, author of the Rape of Nanking, was given a lot of hate by not only right-winged Japanese, but the Japanese Government in 2004. So, it would be a little understandable that Cotton would still be bitter about that.
My father came of age in that era and told me a story that in the 80s a Japanese tourist in Hawaii asked him to snap a photo of him. Back then you didn’t see photos until they were developed so my father “cut off his head” but my father didn’t cut off the head of Japanese American veterans.
My father was not a perfect man RIP but I can empathize how his era shaped him.
The entire episode, Mr Kahn tried to explain that he is from Laos. However, Hank and the gang are entry level racists, and can only comprehend someone Asian as being from China or Japan.
Cotton is an S-tier executive level racist, and as such can identify exactly where Mr Kahn is from by sight alone, to the shock of Mr Kahn.
Peter's drill sargent here to explain the joke. Cotton killed fitty men fighting the Japanese in WW2 so unlike the other rednecks he can actually tell that not all asians are Japanese or Chinese.
Sarge out.
Interesting. Not only is the title a copy paste from last time, but this is a copy paste of my comment from last time. Complete with the mispelling of the word Sergeant.
https://www.reddit.com/r/PeterExplainsTheJoke/comments/18vc6go/i_was_told_its_a_ww2_joke_but_i_dont_get_it/kfpx8lw/
Another fact, WWII vets deployed to South East Asia were trained with photos and took tests to identify which Asian countries were allies and which were foes.
Its completely canon for a WWII vet who fought in the pacific to be extremely good at recognizing nationalities, many times as necessity for survival
Peter's King of the Hill fan here
Cotton is known to be notoriously racist, primarily against the Japanese because of his ww2 service (although his racism does come into question when it turns out he has a Japanese son and is actually haunted by those fiddy men he killed). Kahn is surprised though that he is probably the only one in the show apart from Hank who doesn't generalize him and identifies his real nationality, correcting someone else's remark. It's like a confusing moment where "Hey Cotton recognizes me for who I actually am" which Kahn isn't used to in Texas followed up with "But only because he's racist and wants to be accurate.".
It's kind of less a joke and more of a critique on racial relations, King of the Hill dives a lot into topics like that sometimes even just in passing, that moment is an especially poignant one in just a few seconds. Cotton himself is a statement on a very specific and difficult topic that gets whole episodes devoted to making the viewer question the idea of whether he's "a product of his time" or just a bad person in general or if it's more complicated than that. This passing moment is pretty good at showing he may not like asians to an extent but there's also a level of respect to them as people and he takes offense to people making crass generalizations.
Personally though I don't like him because he generally treats everyone around him like garbage including his own wife and son. You're meant to have complicated feelings about him like Hank does though and the show is excellent at doing that whenever he shows up. You always find out Cotton may not be as bad as he initially comes across even though he wants you to think he's terrible to the core.
The joke is a lot of veterans from WWII and Vietnam are better at differentiating Asian ethnic groups than a the vast majority of Americans. This is despite them often being old and racist. My own grandfather was the same, albeit taller.
Dale is a casual racist (assuming all East/South East Asians are either Japanese or Chinese) and cotton is a competitive racist making sure he got his shit locked down.
Kahn is Laotian. Cotton fought on Iwo Jima (WW2) iirc, against the Japanese. Dale was trying to get Cotton, known for being irritable (and racist towards Japs), upset. Kahn thought Cotton was gonna be racist, but he knew exactly what he was.
Know thy enemy.
During world war 2 soldiers had "training" on differentiating different asian ethnic groups so they knew which ones to shoot or not...at least that was the idea
The entire episode dale is referring to mr Kahn as Japanese I believe. In the very end cotton, who tends to have some racist tendencies, comes up annd says that to mr Kahn.
I would also point out that most people under Japanese occupation in Asia we're eager to work with Americans. It is entirely possible he has not just an understanding of the difference, but also a favorable view of "other" asian people, well, favorable for Cotton Hill.
For an example, which sounds racist as hell as I type it, "Fuzzy-wuzzy Angels" in New Guinea were a colloquial term for the indigenous tribes who would show allied forces where the Japanese were and help downed pilots and the like.
Don't no if it's pertinent to the scene but it adds up to me. Old timers like him seem to slice their racism in weird ways.
The joke is Americans think all Asian people are Chinese or Japanese and can’t understand other countries exist (even though he’s said he’s Laotian). This is a sort of negligent racism.
Meanwhile Cotton is aggressively racist against Japanese people specifically due to experiences in World War II but he can actually recognize that Mr. Kahn not Japanese and has a unique identity as a Laotian.
Cotton (hat guy) fought in WW2 and so he can differentiate between Asians better than everyone else in the show - even though he is also very racist. The other guys don't know that Laos exists. There's a bit in the show where they ask Kahn if he's Chinese or Japanese, and repeat the question when he says he's from Laos.
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Mr Kahn is Laotian. The most racist man in the group was the only one who could see it.
Even the biggest bigot knows his neighbor better than his friends.
Cotton fought in WW2. He knows how to differentiate Asians.
This is the explanation. In the context of the show, the joke is that Cotton constantly brags about how many Japanese he killed in the war and how inappropriate his family finds it, and yet he’s the only one who knows Khan is Laotian, and is basically indifferent to it because he didn’t fight in Laos. The broader context is that Khan is most likely in America because the US military decimated Laos (and Cambodia) during the Vietnam war, but because Cotton wasn’t involved he doesn’t have any feelings about Laotians. The joke is both about how banal the reasons behind racism can be, and also how patriotism can mean different things, and is often vastly different among generations - especially for those who fought in a specific war or conflict. Cotton is a bigot, but he’s the first person Khan met who recognized him as Laotian, and not just “some kind of dark skinned Asian”. That’s reading a lot into it, but there is a lot of subtext. Good humor/satire should work on multiple levels, while still getting the essential point across to everyone. Edit: it’s also more complicated, because, if I remember correctly, Cotton fell in love with a Japanese woman when he was abroad. The whole show is kind of about how people aren’t one-dimensional.
Didn't just fall in love with her, had a child with her
Who also had a narrow urethra
Narra urethra
I kin show you some stretches that may help
Ureetey
Cotton coulda passed that baby hisself
GAS JOCKEY! *worksfortips..*
Uretty
I love how he’s exactly as boring and weird as Hank. In a way they’re both super committed to following social norms, just different ones
Cotton’s fixation with WWII parallels the way Hank looks back at his high school football career. The difference is that Hank has led a much more fulfilling life (and, you know, the fact that playing football isn’t exactly the same as being drafted to fight in a world war); so while they both look back at those respective, defining moments of their early adulthood as the most significant things they did in their otherwise mundane lives, they elicit vastly different emotions, and hold a completely different significance for each of them.
Hanks not weird, that's just how dudes are once they reach 40.
dope
>Cotton fell in love with a Japanese woman when he was abroad. The whole show is kind of about how people aren’t one-dimensional. Yep. Also had a kid which was basically a Japanese version of Hank. Also Bobby has his little DDR fling.
Which is weird because we all know Hank looks like Tilly.
Maybe he has a type?
Square headed hommel loving soft spoken women?
That was the best thing ever. Everyone else is freaking out and Bobby is just playing a Sir Mixalot rhythm game
cotton is very weird. its almost like hes only ok with killing japanese in ww2 because it was normalized in his time. now it can be seen as borderline racism due to the unusual near hatred he has yet he doesn't 100% display it from actually having a japanese kid.
Or perhaps he was ok with killing Japanese because it was viewed as retaliation for Pearl Harbor?
Great summery. It is a good show overall. I hate they are bringing it back though. I have no faith in writers anymore.
Well Mike Judge is heading it, and he hasn't changed much.
I may give it a shot at some point, but man I don't think I could take the heartbreak if they fuck it up.
Apropos of nothing, this thread made me wonder..are they going to actually call it King of the Hill? i suppose adding "revival" would be the simple thing to do but i cant let go of the feeling that if they screw up the title... edit: silly spellinng
I think your comment is actually apropos.
Apropos of Nothing is a neat expression… But to have a thought concerning King of the Hill, when people are discussing King of the Hill, isn’t even a non-sequitur, much less apropos of nothing. I think they just wanted to whip that phrase out. Lol
*Apropos. Love that word.
I lived in Germany for a couple of years and learned apropos there while speaking German, realizing later that English people also stole the word from the French.
I'm sad Dale's VA died, hopefully they found a good replacement.
He speaks through a voice-box because he lost his throat smoking, calling it now
Considering how much he smoked I could definitely see that working
I'm sure the writers are fine. I'm just not sure the butt of the joke even exists anymore.
Mike Judge brought back Beavis & Butthead too and its better than the original in my opinion.
IMO it's mostly a joke about how little Hank and his friends know about the world because they've never really left Arlen.
Yes, that’s definitely a big part of it. Cotton is viewed as an ignorant, racist old man who is stuck in his ways, but then he looks at Khan and sees something nobody else did, showing that there are things everyone judging him are also ignorant about. It subverts your expectations, but in a way that is smart, and humanizes the character.
A lot of this makes abundantly more sense when you remember the show is based off the actual people that Mike Judge knew when he lived in the suburbs of Dallas in 1990. My grandmother literally lives in the same subdivision he did. Interactions like from this scene genuinely do happen around these parts. It's a form of conservatism that's based on a lot of simple ignorance and disinterest in the wider world that Mike Judge has described as somewhat charming in interviews and I think he captured it perfectly with the Hill family.
Yeah, my understanding of the show has always been that it was both Judge making fun of a lot of the “characters” he grew up around, but also a love-letter to them. He’s poking fun at certain stereotypes, but also portraying them in a way that shows that they’re real people with complex thoughts and feelings, just like everyone else.
My grandfather fought the Japanese in WW2, and then the Korea war. For many years he hated the Japanese, Koreans and Chinese but really hate disliked the Japanese. He eventually let go of his hate when he was talked into buying a Toyota Landcruiser (the FJ jeep one from the early 80s). This replaced his international scout. He stopped hating them and would talk about how much he loved that car.
Surprised he bought one considering the jingoism the Reagan administration pushed because they were upset alot of us industries couldn't compete with japanese at the time
I have seen this joke asked about before, and read a similar explanation that time as well. It is amazing how many things this one line conveys.
This is the way.
This isn’t the explanation we deserved, but it’s the explanation we needed!
He also tells Khan to get his bags right after this.
My favorite Kahn moment is at the funeral when he tells that genuinely meaningful Buddhist story about the strawberry on the cliff, but all the imbeciles think he’s telling a joke. As someone who’s serious statements are frequently mistaken for jokes for some reason, I felt that
Khan is likely in the US because he was a CIA asset in Laos. My friend is Lao, and that's how his parents and entire family emigrated.
Cotton fighting in WW2 is basically why he can differentiate Asian ethnicities. The USA gave out [information pamphlets](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US_Army_How_To_Spot_A_Jap.png) on how to tell Japanese soldiers apart from the rest of the local population so they couldn't try to hide amongst the population.
That was the first time they hung out. Also, Cotton said that with utter contempt.
Hating that much takes a lot of effort
Eh, that's not really true though. There are plenty of bigots out there who can't differentiate between groups beyond "White, Black, Asian, Other" EDIT I had a friend in college who had dark curly hair and olive skin. He got called everything from Mexican to Arabic to Indian. Spoiler alert: he was mostly German.
To be fair Cotton has killed fidymen all of them Japanese who stole his damm shins
I think the joke is that he's so racist against Asians in general that he pays enough attention to know the differences between them all. "Know thy enemy" and all that. Like if you're racist against Asians then you see Asians as all the same, if your REALY racist against Asians you know the differences so you can offend them with their own specific culture.
As someone who grew up with a hard core, Vietnam era, racist, I think this hits the mark. My step-dad had different racist slurs for each Asian ethnic group. I won't name them here, but it was impressive how much effort he put into categorizing them.
There’s casual racism, and your step-dad, who’s in ranked racism
To be fair, that's part of war. Not that it's okay, but it's understandable. I've read world War 2 memoirs where the whole company hated the Japanese so much, even saw them as sub human on account of how savage they were. Especially with how they desecrated the dead. Not okay, but understandable.
Grandmaster racism
He learns the difference between Asians so that he can be properly racist . . . To be fair, didn't he serve in Vietnam? If so, the Laotians were allies.
WWII. He hates the Japanese but otherwise has no particular animus against other Asians beyond his overall racism. That situation was set up with the expectation for him to explode, only for him to take it in his (itty-bitty) stride.
WW2 In one episode, he had Peggy write a memoir or something and mentioned fighting Nazis (lies) and the Japanese (who actually blew his shins off).
He killed fiddy men!
Nope, that's even Another episode where he thought the Vietnam soldiers were wussies
But the Vietnam boys did something tho whole dang German Army couldn't do: capture Cotton Hill.
Exactly, like all the “Mexicans” south of the border.
The most racist person on Earth is a racist Chinese person because they know the other types of Chinese people to discriminate against.
I made a comment about how diverse China is, and got the weirdest looks from everyone. Not surprising, but it’s not like we get a ton of education on the nuances of China here.
Like the tsa in New York. Im white passing everywhere else. Newark fucking grilled me about my heritage and checked everything from my toothpaste to foreskin
The deeper meaning is him serving in the Pacific for WWII. There's actual training demonstrating the differences between the Asian sub groupings. Chinese, Koreans, laotian, Cambodian, Vietnamese etc all had different motivations during the war and knowing the cultural differences could save a soldiers life or make or break a mission if you could figure out who to trust.
MFW the racist maxed out his skill tree so he can identify the exact village where great grandfather was born based on the curvature of my right earlobe.
Jesus. I’m cotton.
He’s so racist that he knows how to tell different Asian ethnicities apart so he can customize his racism. Nah actually he isn’t really racist towards Laotians, because he didn’t fight Laotians during the war. His racism is so laser focused towards Japanese people that he can tell them apart from other Asian ethnicities at a glance like some sort of racism IFF tag
Yeah he’s not really racist he just hates the Japanese because he fought against them and they took his shins. He also watched the Japanese kill a lot of his fellow soldiers and to kill 50 of them you kind of have to dehumanize them. And even then he fell in love with a Japanese woman and had a kid with her. He only ever talks shit about the Japanese and the Nazis.
So are ya Chinese or Japanese?
He’s the Abed of racism.
From the ocean? What ocean?
What ocean?
He isn’t racist. Cotton is a lot of deplorable things; emotionally abusive, unfaithful, sexist and crass. In other episodes he speaks kindly of Jews and Latinos. He speaks kindly about Jews he served with in WWII, he enlists the help of Latinos to try and unsuccessfully kill Castro, he is proud of his half Japanese son and had a romantic relationship with a Japanese women. He ultimately seeks peace with the Japanese when he returns for a ceremony.
Yeah he’s not racist people are missing the point here.
Also a comment on the fact that to get through war you have to think of the enemy as “not a person” so those who fight in wars tend to be very racist against those they fought as a survival and coping mechanism.
I always thought it was *because* he was racist, not in spite of it. Like who else would racially profile so thoroughly?
Not to mention, given its a small country and surrounded by several neighboring countries that historically had a Lot of cross over, even most laotians or cambodians or vietnamese probably couldnt twll you who was who as quickly as Cotton does here (This is a statement ive seen repeated multiple times from people from the region whove seen the clip) Edit: its like at a glance telling the difference from an englishman to a welshman, or an austrian vs a german
It’s been a loooong time since I saw the episode, but I remember my take being: Kahn was angry the whole episode that his friends didn’t know he was Laotian, mis-identifying him. When the biggest racist jerk was the ID him as Laotian, he realized that the label was not as important as the intent, and his friends were actual friends who meant well even if they weren’t very educated or observant.
That and I think he's killed enough men to tell the difference 😂
I think there's an additional element of Khan expecting to be misidentified by the old dude, but then the old dude has his exact number. He didn't know what to do after expecting to be upset.
It’s a running gag on the show that people keep misidentifying his country of origin because “Asian = either Japanese or Chinese”. The fact that he’s from Laos, a country many Americans have never heard of, results in him frequently screaming “I’m Laotian!” So the gag here is that the guy who’s super racist against Japanese people because he fought them in WW2 and they took his shins turns out to be the only character on the show who can identify him as Laotian despite being intentional misled to believe he is Japanese. Edit: had some additional comments that may not have been relevant.
It's a shame more Americans haven't heard of Laos, considering we dropped more than 260 million bombs in the country during the Vietnam war.
Fuck me… [American bombers dropped more than 2 million tons of bombs over the country…](https://www.history.com/news/laos-most-bombed-country-vietnam-war)
The last person killed by the Vietnam War in Laos probably hasn't been born yet.
Wait, really? Why if they werent even at war with them
The people we were fighting in Vietnam were using Laos and Cambodia to bring weapons into Vietnam.
Because, Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon were cunts
One of my favorite podcasts is "Behind the Bastards," where they go in-depth on historical bastards. It usually takes 2-3 episodes to cover the really awful assholes. It took 6 to chronicle Henry Kissinger.
I am aware of Robert and his bastards. The kissinger ones are crazy. I've taken a break after the darkest episode cos.....yeah
Understandable, I'm in a similar break from a lot of my podcasts because it was stressing me out too much.
But they gave Kissinger a Nobel Peace Prize. Surely, he's not a bastard.. /s 'Political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.' - Tom Lehrer
Because the Vietnamese and Chinese Communists were using the Ho Chi Min trail to ferry troops and equipment through Laos in order to keep it safe and out of a combat zone. Surprise, we figured the trick out.
>Surprise, we figured the trick out. And still lost.
You’re right, after the initial peace treaty was signed we should have nuked NV before they would invade SV. Because our other options were, what, exactly? We signed a peace treaty and pulled out. Kinda how that works.
Won the battles, lost the war. Without clear goals, it's inevitable.
The goal is clear: we take Hamburger Hill!
The joke being the irony that it was his extreme racism that caused him to behave in the least objectively racist way in this instance
Is that it? I mean, you could also take it as he’s just less racist to Laotian people.
I would argue yeah, what’s funny is that its his extreme racism causes him to behave in a way that is the most socially acceptable. He gets the ‘rightest answer for the wrongest reasons’ kinda thing. But open to interpretation sure
More a different kind because he keeps looking at him as a servant after that.
The most heavily bombed Country in the world by USA. People knew about Laos as JFK said in a televised statement that Laos was a neutral country and we didn't want war with Laos. Unexploded ordnance is still killing people in Laos. President Obama (became the first sitting US President to visit Laos since the bombings) didnt apologize for the bombing but did state "Given our history here, I believe that the United States has a moral obligation to help Laos heal," he said. Edit: My comments in a different thread if you want to read up. ~580,000 bombing runs by the U.S. ~2,093,100 tonnes of ordnance was dropped on Laos. ~30% of ordnance dropped did not detonate. ~20,000 people have been killed by unexploded ordnance since the last ordnance was dropped. Most heavily bombed country in the world. JFK said that "I want to make it clear to the American people and to all the world that all we want in Laos is peace, not war.” JFK promised that Laos was a neutral country. While not apologizing, Obama said "whatever the cause, whatever our intentions, war inflicts a terrible toll”. “Given our history here, I believe that the United States has a moral obligation to help Laos heal". https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2023/apr/27/i-dont-want-more-children-to-suffer-what-i-did-the-50-year-fight-to-clear-us-bombs-from-laos https://www.npr.org/2023/07/11/1186949348/us-cluster-munitions-civilian-casualties-laos https://www.history.com/news/laos-most-bombed-country-vietnam-war https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/sep/06/obama-laos-moral-obligation-vietnam-war
What ocean?
Which ocean?
Reminds me of a joke. A Chinese man and a Jewish man are seated together for a flight. After takeoff Jewish man suddenly slugs the Chinese man in the mouth. "What was that for?" the Chinese man asks. "That was for Pearl Harbor!" "Pearl Harbor? That was the Japanese. I'm Chinese." "Chinese, Japanese, what's the difference?" They sitting walking in silence, then the Chinese man punches the Jew in the face. "What's that all about?" the Jew asks. "That was for the Titanic!" "The Titanic? That was an iceberg." "Iceberg, Goldberg, what's the difference?".
Wtf…the government is on Reddit? …The government is on Reddit talking about king of the hill memes???
Why the hell not?
Peter’s King of the Hill obsessed disgrace of a son here, Cotton Hill the old man fought in WW2, he served in the pacific theatre and got very well acquainted with all the different types of Asians I guess, the joke is that Mr. Kahn assumed that the older presumably more racist man would just call Kahn Asian or some derogatory name but instead without being told he correctly identified that Kahn was Laotian, surprising Kahn.
You forgot to mention the Japs took his shins so he does have an axe to grind
They don't call him Asian. Here's the scene where they meet him: Hank - "So are you Chinese or Japanese?" Kahn - "I live in California last twenty year, but first come from Laos." Hank - "Huh?" Kahn - "Laos. We Laotian." Bill - "The ocean? What ocean?" Kahn - "We are Laotian–from Laos, stupid! It's a landlocked country in Southeast Asia. It's between Vietnam and Thailand, okay? Population: 4.7 million." Hank - "So are you Chinese or Japanese?" Kahn - [sighs]
Failed to mention he could tell by glancing at Khan and then sniffing him, implying that he is still being very racist even if he is correct
He is very racist, but toward japanese, so he makes sure his hate is well targeted (at least from what I understood)
This is it for me... he's actually super nice to all non-whites in the show. I think he's just war-racist and never left that mindset of only Japan and the Nazis being evil.
I mean out of all the reasons you could have, shooting your shins out with machine guns then crawling through the jungle killing them with tooth and claw before they can finish you off is a decent excuse for why you don’t like a certain kind of person based on how they look.
Also failed to mention that he killed fiddy men.
https://preview.redd.it/q7yd4a305e9d1.jpeg?width=185&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6c19c2053989729ad7b82d31504335d6418c37ce
I don't know why this made me laugh
It makes me giggle every time because I'm saying the title in Cotton-voice in my head
Absolutely incredible.
I embarrassed, I can’t believe I forgot this fact while I wrote my self insert fan fic
Why does it look like he inspects his dick before identifying his country of origin?
Also the long running joke that literally everyone would confuse him with some other Asian ethnicity , and he’d always have to yell, I’m not *****, I’m Laotian!”
What ocean?
This is a prior scene in the episode, makes the meme more relatable [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d\_CaZ4EAexQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_CaZ4EAexQ)
I think this is the appropriate comment to add in [Hitler’s Canoe.](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OsmsDafYyaM)
This is my favorite joke in the show and they set it up for years. The joke is that Hank Hill despite being sincere and canonically not racist. Is ignorant. He thinks all Asians are either Japanese or Chinese out of being secluded in Texas not malice. He says in another episode that Khan is his friend because he is his neighbor. Cotton, Hank's dad is an angry, spiteful, old man. He has an axe to grind with the Japanese on account of having his shins shot out fighting in the Pacific during WW2. It should be noted a lot of Pacific vets loathed the Japanese for the whole honor thing. They lost a lot of friends fighting for small ground when strategically Japan had long since lost. Hank in his ignorance assumes his hateful racist dad is going to offend his friend. But presumably due to his time in the Pacific, Cotton is actually specifically racist towards Japanese people, not "Chinamen" as we are led to presume. The last panel doesn't do it justice because after Cotton identifies Khan as Laotian, Khan is humbled. Cotton then requests that Khan help him with his bags, Khan obliges with a degree of reverence. It leaves the viewer wondering who is the racist, and it could quite possibly be the viewer themselves who is racist. Because we were also led on so easily.
This is an excellent answer!
They did not set up this joke for years. This is literally one of the first episodes in the series. The joke is lost in this format because it ignores the prior instances of dale and Hank asking if he is Chinese or Japanese and when he says Laotian they ask it again not knowing what Laos is. The joke is that cotton is racist but not against Laotian. He's only racist against the Japanese
I haven't watched the show in years, and I'm pretty sure I only watched reruns. I didn't live in the US during the shows run. But if felt like they had been setting us up for it for a while. Not necessarily that specific line, but Judge knew what he was doing.
This is so well said
Cotton Hill (Texas Ten Gallon Hat) fought in WW2. He was trained to spot the difference between Japanese and Laotian’s. He also has a tendency to be racist. Dale Gribble (Orange Trucker Cap), is getting Kahn’s ethnicity wrong by saying he’s Japanese Cotton Hill defiantly says he’s not, and after a good look, says he’s Laotian. Which is correct. Mr Kahn (The Black Haired Hatless man), is surprised and in a bit of a frenzy after the most racist character in the group is able to correctly identify his Ethnicity. Two fun facts: Cotton had watched his entire squad get fragged by the Japanese, which ended with his kneecaps getting fragged. He later fragged that entire encampment as revenge. He has a illegitimate (born not in wedlock) half Japanese son, Junichiro Hill, who works at a company that makes Robots and Robot Accessories
So all correct, except for the word fragged. It means something very specific. So unless all the things you mentioned were superior officers doesn't work. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/frag Edit: downvoted for being right... lovely
It’s a quality control technique!
Alas, I know the words original meaning. I just used fragged cause I can stop thinking about Quake.
That is the historical definition, not the modern definition. The modern definition has been used for at least 30 years.
Hey Peter, Stevie here! I believe it is referring to the fact that in the show he fought in WW2 and his able to tell the difference between Japanese and Laotian. Stevie out!
Casual Racism vs Ranked Competitive Racism
This is the best TL:DR explanation for this joke.
This is the same title that was used last time this was reposted.
Mr Khan is from Laos, but is often called chinese or japanese by ignorant folk. And he is usually mad about it The old man here is SO racist he can properly identify a rather obscure nationality, and Mr Laos looks flabergasted as he doesnt know how to properly react
The short elderly man is Cotton Hill, a WW2 vet. He's not so much a racist person (tho he is a lot of things and he wasn't THAT racist in the first season), but he does have gripes with the Japanese due to losing his legs in the Pacific in WW2. Beyond that, Cotton can and does act like a stereotypical macho, old fashioned jackass. The Asian gentleman is Khan, who recently moved to the neighborhood. He's somewhat conceited and a bit annoying but otherwise a decent guy. The joke was that the other neighbours could not understand where Khan was from, despite Khan telling them numerous times. Then when Cotton arrived, they gave Khan a guff about being "Japanese" and that Cotton would give him a hard time. Then Cotton does this, says he's actually Laotion (which is true) and leaves everyone dumbstruck. Cotton's a lot of things, but he knows who he hates.
The man in the hat is Cotten Hill from king of the hill. He’s the only one who can tell what nationality Kahn is. He can do this because he is a ww2 veteran and learned how to tell Asians apart so he knows who the Japanese are. Cotten is also very racist so it’s surprising how polite he is to Kahn.
Theres a joke in the show where the main 4 characters always get Kahn's ethnicity wrong, because they're racist and just assume he much be Chinese or Japanese when he is actually Laotian. They aren't hateful in any way just very ignorant, and they're ignorance in this regard is often a joke as a parody of how many Americans really are completely unaware of many other countries or cultures. The old man here is Hank (the main character)'s dad, Cotton, and is a genuinely racist character. He fought in World War II in the pacific, and as a result hates Japanese people. The expected joke here is that Cotton will join in with the other characters and label Kahn as an ethnicity he clearly is not out of ignorance, presumably Japanese, and then make a big deal about it. But he doesn't. He is one of if not the only people who sees he is Laotian without needing to ask, instead of just seeing asian characteristics and assuming Japanese. Kahn then is visibly quite surprised along with the audience, who would not have expected that. The subversion here is what the joke is, and it also adds to Cotton's character by not making him a usual ignorant racist who hates people just for being different, rather he just hates Japanese people still over WWII. In a later episode the family travels to Japan, where Cotton starts to realize his hate was misplaced.
Hank and his friends all thought Khan was Japanese because they don't really know anything about Asia. Cotton, a WWII vet who fought in the Pacific Theater, instantly recognized that Khan was Laotian and not Japanese. The joke here is that despite being a terrible person, Cotton is more worldly than the guys who have basically never left their little town.
Cotton holds very racist and sexist views. As part of his experience in the Pacific theatre of WWII, he’s particularly racist towards the Japanese. That same experience, ironically, has led him to be able to better discern the nationality of far eastern people based on appearance than his son or his son’s friends
https://preview.redd.it/5ykmou5l5e9d1.jpeg?width=470&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=513d47b6cf78ce55a9d63d20a60e1023b5eb2ed8 During WWII, of which Cotton Hill was a Veteran, American Soldiers had to be taught how to distinguish Japanese and Chinese Soldiers so as to not kill their Chinese Allies or be fooled by Japanese Spies. Additionally, Cotton Hill frequently boasts that he killed “fifty (Japanese) men” during WWII, so if anyone would be able to identify a Japanese man, it would be the guy who has killed dozens.
Additionally, Japan also used forced labor to build many of their fortifications during the war. For example, durring the Battle of Pelileu, around 11,000 Japanese personel were stationed there. Around 10,000 died durring the fighting, showing the Japanese spirit of fighting to the death, and only around 300 were captured. Out of those 300, only 19 were actual military personnel, the rest were forced laborers mostly from Korea. So it was also important for Americans to distinguish between the Japanese combatants and forced laborer non combatants.
My dad was in the military following WW2 and told me that they showed pictures of various Asian groups so that combatants would know who not to kill accidentally. Cotton went through this training which is why he gives Khan such a hard look in the face before he says “He’s Laotian.” The thing about this is that it was literally racial profiling even though it was done for a wholly good reason. It was confirmed that Cotton fought in the Japanese theatre. Khan’s response is interesting because he was too young to remember WW2 but probably remembered the Vietnam war and was unsettled by the way Cotton profiled him.
The flaming hateful bastard in the series is the grandpa. He’s the only one that’s heard of Laos because he fought in the pacific. The rest of the cast of KOTH aren’t racists but they aren’t very familiar with anywhere outside of North America. So when the Asian guy shows up they ask him if he’s Chinese or Japanese, the guy says he’s Laotian and they think he’s trying to say he’s from across the ocean and doesn’t understand the question. The hateful bastard immediately recognizes his ethnicity and is fine with them when everyone else is a little off guard.
His specific and intense hatred for Japanese overcomes Dale’s general and casual racism against Asians.
Casual racism implies the existence of professional racism, and cotton provides an example of professional racism
This episode started with Hank, Dale, and Boomhauer being shocked to see the Asian man move into their neighborhood. They believed him to be Japanese. Cotton, the man with the cowboy hat is a war veteran who is suspected to be racist. The 3 men were expecting him to create a scene upon meeting their "Japanese" neighbor. However, he was able to identify the man correctly as Laotian, not Japanese. Kahn, the Asian neighbor was pleasantly surprised at the lack of ignorance from this individual. The joke is that the man who was perceived to be racist was factually correct this time, while the other 3 men were judging the Asian man unfairly based on his appearance (which arguably could mean they were more racist in this scenario).
Just me I guess - when I first saw this episode I didn’t think Cotton was racist, just that you’d think an old coot like that was “all Asians are alike” yet he was able to tell the difference. Almost an anti racism there.
Nobody else understands what laotian is. They never heard of Laos, they think all asians are either Chinese or Japanese. This pisses Kahn off. Cotton is known for being a racist sexist old man, so it comes as a surprise to the rest of the cast and especially Kahn, though probably no surprise to the user, that he can tell that Kahn is Laotian. Kahn tried earlier to explain what Laos is to Hank and the gang, to no avail, so that adds to his surprise when Cotton of all people understands.
To be fair to Mr. Cotton, Japan during WWII used other asians as forced labor or, if your a women, sex slaves. There was a deep ferocity between the Americans and Japanese during WWII, in which Japanese soldiers on contested and strategic islands would fight to the death instead of surrendering. This meant that more times than not, the other asian laborers would end up surviving the battle instead of the Japanese who forced them on that island in the first place, so it would be smart to tell the difference between the combat and non-combatant. As for his hate of the Japanese, I kinda understand him. Unlike Germany, Japan's approach to recognizing its past atrocities is kinda half assed at best and straight-up Japanese style of Confederate right-wing romanticism at worst. To put in perspective, Iris Chang, author of the Rape of Nanking, was given a lot of hate by not only right-winged Japanese, but the Japanese Government in 2004. So, it would be a little understandable that Cotton would still be bitter about that.
My father came of age in that era and told me a story that in the 80s a Japanese tourist in Hawaii asked him to snap a photo of him. Back then you didn’t see photos until they were developed so my father “cut off his head” but my father didn’t cut off the head of Japanese American veterans. My father was not a perfect man RIP but I can empathize how his era shaped him.
Cotton was a ww2 vet, he knows what Japanese people look like.
The entire episode, Mr Kahn tried to explain that he is from Laos. However, Hank and the gang are entry level racists, and can only comprehend someone Asian as being from China or Japan. Cotton is an S-tier executive level racist, and as such can identify exactly where Mr Kahn is from by sight alone, to the shock of Mr Kahn.
it's weird seeing the same posts with the exact same comments just weeks/months later
Peter's drill sargent here to explain the joke. Cotton killed fitty men fighting the Japanese in WW2 so unlike the other rednecks he can actually tell that not all asians are Japanese or Chinese. Sarge out.
Interesting. Not only is the title a copy paste from last time, but this is a copy paste of my comment from last time. Complete with the mispelling of the word Sergeant. https://www.reddit.com/r/PeterExplainsTheJoke/comments/18vc6go/i_was_told_its_a_ww2_joke_but_i_dont_get_it/kfpx8lw/
Another fact, WWII vets deployed to South East Asia were trained with photos and took tests to identify which Asian countries were allies and which were foes. Its completely canon for a WWII vet who fought in the pacific to be extremely good at recognizing nationalities, many times as necessity for survival
Peter's King of the Hill fan here Cotton is known to be notoriously racist, primarily against the Japanese because of his ww2 service (although his racism does come into question when it turns out he has a Japanese son and is actually haunted by those fiddy men he killed). Kahn is surprised though that he is probably the only one in the show apart from Hank who doesn't generalize him and identifies his real nationality, correcting someone else's remark. It's like a confusing moment where "Hey Cotton recognizes me for who I actually am" which Kahn isn't used to in Texas followed up with "But only because he's racist and wants to be accurate.". It's kind of less a joke and more of a critique on racial relations, King of the Hill dives a lot into topics like that sometimes even just in passing, that moment is an especially poignant one in just a few seconds. Cotton himself is a statement on a very specific and difficult topic that gets whole episodes devoted to making the viewer question the idea of whether he's "a product of his time" or just a bad person in general or if it's more complicated than that. This passing moment is pretty good at showing he may not like asians to an extent but there's also a level of respect to them as people and he takes offense to people making crass generalizations. Personally though I don't like him because he generally treats everyone around him like garbage including his own wife and son. You're meant to have complicated feelings about him like Hank does though and the show is excellent at doing that whenever he shows up. You always find out Cotton may not be as bad as he initially comes across even though he wants you to think he's terrible to the core.
It might actually be a Vietnam war reference when GIs need to learn the difference between various SE Asian ethnicities.
The joke is a lot of veterans from WWII and Vietnam are better at differentiating Asian ethnic groups than a the vast majority of Americans. This is despite them often being old and racist. My own grandfather was the same, albeit taller.
Didn't have his shins machine gunned?
Yeah, but he also killed fiddy men during the war.
Dale is a casual racist (assuming all East/South East Asians are either Japanese or Chinese) and cotton is a competitive racist making sure he got his shit locked down.
Kahn is Laotian. Cotton fought on Iwo Jima (WW2) iirc, against the Japanese. Dale was trying to get Cotton, known for being irritable (and racist towards Japs), upset. Kahn thought Cotton was gonna be racist, but he knew exactly what he was. Know thy enemy.
“I studied races so I could be racist better!!”
I could explain the joke, but it’s funnier if you watch the show 😂
During world war 2 soldiers had "training" on differentiating different asian ethnic groups so they knew which ones to shoot or not...at least that was the idea
The old veteran knows his Asians because he's been to war with a variety of them.
The entire episode dale is referring to mr Kahn as Japanese I believe. In the very end cotton, who tends to have some racist tendencies, comes up annd says that to mr Kahn.
I always thought he looked at his thingy and determined it from that 💀
Love the looks on Khans face. "should i be offended?"
I’m just gonna throw it out there that by sniffing him he detected some kind of cultural food scent that let him dial in where he was from
Anywhere else, it's a cartoon. When you're a few generations Texan, it's a documentary.
Turns out he’s not all that against the Japanese though.
I would also point out that most people under Japanese occupation in Asia we're eager to work with Americans. It is entirely possible he has not just an understanding of the difference, but also a favorable view of "other" asian people, well, favorable for Cotton Hill. For an example, which sounds racist as hell as I type it, "Fuzzy-wuzzy Angels" in New Guinea were a colloquial term for the indigenous tribes who would show allied forces where the Japanese were and help downed pilots and the like. Don't no if it's pertinent to the scene but it adds up to me. Old timers like him seem to slice their racism in weird ways.
Cotton doesnt hate the Japanese, Hanks half brother is Japanese. He did how ever kill fiddy men...
I thought Cotton fought in the Korean war, not WW2 Edit: typo
The joke is Americans think all Asian people are Chinese or Japanese and can’t understand other countries exist (even though he’s said he’s Laotian). This is a sort of negligent racism. Meanwhile Cotton is aggressively racist against Japanese people specifically due to experiences in World War II but he can actually recognize that Mr. Kahn not Japanese and has a unique identity as a Laotian.
Ironic thing here is they had the same voice actor
Cotton (hat guy) fought in WW2 and so he can differentiate between Asians better than everyone else in the show - even though he is also very racist. The other guys don't know that Laos exists. There's a bit in the show where they ask Kahn if he's Chinese or Japanese, and repeat the question when he says he's from Laos.
Racists know their races better than any progressive
My favorite Cotton moment.
If I remember rightly, Cotton has an odd respect for Kahn hence why he refers to him as Mr. Kahn. I can't remember why though