Tag Archives: folk speech

Chinese promise gesture and accompaning phrase

Text:


“Here is a gesture that might be interesting. The gesture is for making a promise. I think the U.S.’ is very similar. You hook your pinky finger with your friend and touch your friend’s thumb.”


“But what’s different in China is that at the same time, you need to say ‘la gou shang diao yi bai nian bu xu bian.'”


“The two thumb touching is what we say like putting a stamp on the promise.”


Context:


FG is a student studying history and economics at USC. He is currently in a program in Ireland. He performed this folk gesture and folk speech to me through a zoom call. This piece of folklore is something that is performed many times by the informant when he was young.


Analysis:


This is a combination of folk speech and folk gesture. The folk speech has to go in combination with the gesture to make any sense. As a matter of fact, because this folk speech has been around for too long, part of the content doesn’t make sense anymore. “La gou shang diao yi bai nian bu xu bian,” or “拉勾上吊一百年不许变,” translate directly to “hook, hang, a hundred years no change. ” The “hang” part doesn’t make sense because as this piece of folklore spread in China, the original word for “shang diao”, or “上吊”, or hang, actually is a transformation from the homophone “上调,” which also is “shang diao,” but the meaning is very different. “上调” means the thumbs pull up and meet to put a red stamp on the things we want to promise.


On the other hand, another explanation is formed for the transformed version of “shang diao,” or “上吊.” People start to say that it means we keep our promises til we die. Because “上吊” specifically means a method of suicide: hanging on a rope. Folklore rationalizes itself with different transformations. It intrigues me when I think of the transformation and the rationalization of this particular piece.

Phrase: “A Senior is Half a Teacher”

Text: “一个学长,半个老师”
Pinyin (Simplified): yi ge xue zhang, ban ge lao shi
Translation: One senior is half a teacher.

Context:
N is a junior at USC, majoring in Communications. N is an international student from China, Anhui Province. When N was a high school student, he was in a soccer team on campus which is the community he refers to in this phrase.
N: “There’s this sort of tradition, more like a phrase. The phrase is ‘一个学长,半个老师’ (yi ge xue zhang, ban ge lao shi). It’s like, ‘a senior is equal half a teacher, or half a coach. It’s part of a tradition in my soccer team when a junior would just, like, make the freshmen do whatever they want them to do. That’s just a tradition, I guess.”
Is that like a criticism of experience?
N: “I think it’s because in China, the people who go to sports, they don’t need to have really good grades. They just go to high school or college with their sports, they just go to practice. They’re more like a street gang, like a clique. So, because they’re bad, they want to control the people who are new.”

Interpretation:
This phrase is circulated throughout the students. It isn’t a proverb which relays some form of wisdom or life lesson to the listener and it is also not a joke, as there is no humor behind the reality of the statement. It observes a complex power dynamic and metaphorically summarizes it in a concise way, likely as a call to how unfair such a hierarchy is and an acknowledge about the inevitability of its insistence in the school system. It’s a stereotype of athletes at this school widely known and accepted by the students, a blason populaire of this community of soccer players. Such speech is usually created by an external audience, the students who are not in the soccer team themselves but are familiar with it. When asked why the juniors bully the lower classmen, the answer could be this phrase. It is a lighthearted observation of the corruption and power play at school and its unfair treatment of the students, so much so that N associates this phrase with his specific team. Simultaneously, it encourages no revolt against such a system, already knowing full well the impossibility of change that could come from speaking up. This acceptance adds to the stereotype, almost perpetuating its truth.

Proverb – “Eat from the Bowl, Look from the Pot”

Text:
Mandarin (Simplified): “吃着碗里,看着锅里”
Pinyin (Simplified) : chi zhe wan li, kan zhe guo li
Literal translation: Eating in the bowl, looking in the pot

Context:
C is a Chinese international student from Anhui Province, Hefei studying at USC. There were a lot of pauses between sentences as C was finding the right words, as English was not his first language.
C: “This folk speech is relatively widespread in China. It’s not very local or original, but it’s more like a proverb. That kind of thing. It’s called “吃着碗里,看着锅里“ (chi zhe wan li, kan zhe guo li). My parents used that a lot with me, because when I was very young, I tend to be very protective of my food. And that’s why my parents described me as that. It translates that you’re eating the food in the bowl, and looking at the food in the pot. I remember one time when my cousin was visiting over the weekend and my parents was cooking a lot of good food. I was always the one eating the chicken leg, the best part of the chicken. And I was so protective, I licked the chicken. I was so young at the time. And my mom said that [proverb to me]. In my family, it was more about not being greedy.”

Interpretation:
This proverb is a shorthand bit of wisdom passed down from parent to child. It condones the subject for being too greedy with food. In Mandarin, it’s also a comment on personal character. The direct English translation implies a passiveness to eating and looking, merely an observation. What’s lost from the original Chinese wording is the tone of condescension and the clear subject being the person who is eating. It is not only an observation but a warning. What is in the pot, what the eater cannot look away from, is something the bowl cannot and will not have. This proverb is not only about sharing food with others, but also a caution against selfish desire. One’s personal needs cannot always come first in every situation nor can they be met perfectly. It is not the right response to be ungrateful and expectant for a self-centered result every time, but better to practice moderation and patience with what one wants most and be understanding towards others about their own desires. This proverb’s nugget of knowledge goes past the surface level hoarding of food and deeper into human nature without becoming overbearingly moral. It exemplifies how proverbs operate in folklore well; as generational sayings that though short, have deep meaning.

Dumb Joke Turned Rivalry

J is a freshman studying Journalism at University of Southern California but grew up in Maryland.

Text:
J: “‘I could prove you’re dumb.’
And I was like ‘How?’
And he was like ‘Do you wanna play a game?’
And I’m like ‘Sure.’
And he says ‘Sure. Just remember everything I said. So what’s the color of the sky?’
I was like ‘blue.’
‘What’s the color of the grass?’
‘Green.’
‘What’s one plus one?’
‘Two.’
‘What’s the first question I asked?’
And I would say ‘What’s the color of the sky?’ ’cause I thought that was the first question he asked. But, he was like ‘No.’ It’s ‘Did you wanna play a game?'”

Context:
“So I play this with my cousin during childhood. He’s like a boy, so we always had this gendered rivalry almost…and so, that was his way to prove that I was dumber than him because I fell for his trick. But basically, it just became a lighthearted thing where even after I knew the joke, we would still repeat it to each other just for fun. And I started doing this to a bunch of people, like my friends, and I would feel this satisfaction when they also fell for it ’cause it’s just like a little joke and it’s so easy to fool people with it.”

Interpretation:
This joke is a practical joke, where it is played on the unassuming and clueless audience. It also serves as an initiation into the know, wherein after the audience hears it once, they can then play it on other people and the cycle repeats itself, inadvertently spreading the joke as folklore. This joke is lighthearted and there is no inherent deeper meaning behind the so-called “testing of intelligence” rather than just finding humor in a harmless mistake. However, in certain situations, this joke can easily become volatile. It uses logic and the lack of attention span as reasoning for intelligence, making the listener easily frustrated. As J talks about this in context, she says how this joke helped spur on a gender battle between her and her cousin. Practical jokes create temporary rivalries or tensions between groups. These tensions are relieved in the punchline, but require that initial stupidity to let the humor hit, which can easily offend. What’s important about these jokes is the atmosphere and context in which they are told to avoid anger or offense.

That’s So Camp

CONTEXT:

A is one of my best friends. She is a senior in high school from my hometown. She enjoys writing poetry as well as knitting.

The context of this piece was during a facetime call in which I asked her to share some pieces of folklore with me, and she referred to this collection as “camp.” I asked her to elaborate on the phrase for the collection and to explain its meaning. 

TEXT:

Me: “Where would you say you got ‘camp’ from?”

A: “I like it a little bit when people don’t initially understand what the hell I’m talking about. And that was one of the phrases where if I said it, people would just be like, ‘What the hell does that even mean?’ I just like things that are very subjective to interpretation. And ‘that’s so camp,’ depending on how I say it, is just something that can be very subjective and it can be an insult or a compliment or just an observation. I’m pretty sure it was after an award ceremony, maybe the Met Gala and the theme was ‘camp.’ That was years ago and I remember being like, ‘That is such a good definition,’ I need to start using that and now I think it’s a staple of my vocabulary.”

Me: “What does it mean to you?”

A: “I feel like it’s very hard to describe verbally. I would say camp is when you can tell someone is trying to do something where there’s a very large amount of effort present, and the execution is more questionable. So like, sometimes outfits are camp in that sometimes they’re good because they’re camp and sometimes they’re bad because they’re camp and it’s just about how you sort of pull it off.”

ANALYSIS:

I also use this term — “camp” tends to refer to things that are a little weird or off-putting, but not always necessarily in a bad way. For example, things that are eccentric are camp. Anything that is camp also tends to be somewhat amusing. They can be artificial or self-consciously ironic. In a sense, it refers to things that are so bad they are good because of the intention. Today, there almost seems to be a revitalization of the appreciation for things that aren’t perfect, and even more so, things that are intentionally imperfect. Irony, especially amongst the younger generation, has taken hold as a point of appreciation. There seems to also be a lack of desire for people to point out that one thing is absolutely cool or uncool, and “camp” is a way to fit in between that. With such a loose definition, it’s easier to judge ambiguously, which can serve a good purpose at a time when our statements are much more highly scrutinized.