Tigers and Crying Babies

The interview will be depicted by initials. The Interviewer is QB and the interview is SH.

QB: Do you know of any folklore that your family told you?

SH: Yes I do!

QB: Alright what is that?

SH: There was this story that my mom used to tell me all the time that, um, about a tiger who is looking for this boy. The tiger, like, goes through and finds this boy, and the story is about is about this tiger hearing this boy cry. So the tiger goes to the house to check on the boy and the thing that shuts him up is his mom saying, “If you keep crying then the tiger will come after you.” And then she feeds him sweet rice cakes and then he doesn’t cry anymore. But I don’t remember the entire story right now. But its actually really good.

Analysis: Even though the student did not remember the entire story, it is evident that the story still had a deep impact on them. The student mentioned that the story was told many years ago to them as a young child and the story was still very enjoyable by them. However, it is difficult to decipher the moral of the story or what it was for. Perhaps it was for the particular rice cakes the mother was feeding the child or a lesson of being a good child so that tigers would not find you and you would be rewarded with sweet rice cakes.