Hi,
I wonder how the natives rate the following exchange. The NY Times’ readers were divided on it (some considered it funny, some facetious).
"This month at my annual checkup, I had the following exchange with my doctor:
Doctor: “What is your level of stress on a scale of 1 to 10?”
Me: “I have nothing in particular stressing me out at the moment, but I am a Russian Jew from New York.”
Doctor: “I’ll give you a 4.”
Well, I hope I’m allowed to answer this although I’m not ‘a native’ 
(Well, actually I am a native of my country.) To me, there is neither anything particularly funny nor facetious in this joke since it works for pretty much any ethnicity living in New York.[YSaerTTEW443543]
TOEIC short conversations: Employee congratulates co-worker on his job promotion.[YSaerTTEW443543]
Thanks, Torsten.
It’s often confusing when it comes to interpreting jokes in another language, and I’m still in two minds how to accept this one: for me, it’s neither former nor latter. Perhaps you should walk a mile in a New Yorker’s moccasins, or convert into a Russian Jew…