So there's a wonderful idea from the world of comedy about this. It's the idea of punching down, vs punching up. That is, if you are joking about someone in a

So there's a wonderful idea from the world of comedy about this. It's the idea of punching down, vs punching up. That is, if you are joking about someone in a worse position than you, it's punching down, and a dick move. If you are joking about someone in a better position than you, it's punching up, and allowable. It's why it's okay for black comedians to joke about white people, but not okay for white comedians to joke about black people. It's why politics is always fair game to make fun of (people in power), but disabilities, say, aren't. Etc. While punching across is technically doable, it's also very, very hard to do, because ultimately who are you telling the joke to? Who is laughing? I.e., if you talk about things your family does from your own homeland, and people laugh, what are they laughing at? They're laughing at your homeland, your culture, because they feel 'above' it in some way. It's an invitation to punch down. Otherwise it isn't funny; it's interesting. Truly punching across tends to be for an audience that is also the butt of the joke (think Vir Das telling jokes about Hindu beliefs). Now, that's not to be confused with an explanation or similar. I've worked for a German company, and when asking about why we did something that seemed suboptimal to me, another employee, himself German, has said "That's very German". That's not necessarily a judgement, that's not an invitation to laugh at how silly German culture is; that's just a prelude to an explanation that it's a cultural difference in priorities.