Tag Archives: cats

Korean Simile: Cats and Fish

Nationality: Korean
Primary Language: Korean
Age: 50
Occupation: Country Branch Manager
Residence: Seoul, South Korea
Performance Date: 16 February 2024

Tags: cats, fish, Korean, simile, proverb, stupidity

Text:

“고양이에 생선 맡긴꼴.”

Literal: ‘It’s like you’re asking a cat to protect the fish’

Meaning: ‘You’re giving an important/dangerous job to someone ruthlessly/irresponsibly.’

Context:

R is a born and raised South Korean. This is one of the sayings R taught me when growing up in Korea, along with a plethora of other proverbs and lessons. Apparently he had heard it from his father before him and so on, and it’s a pretty common Korean saying. One of the first times R said this in proper context was when he was complaining about someone in his workplace being given a task that he knew the person couldn’t really handle, but management insisted on letting the person handle the task instead of R anyway.

Analysis:

Koreans love similes, metaphors, and all types of idioms; I had an entire unit in Korean Idioms when I was studying the language growing up. I haven’t had many chances to use them in day-to-day conversations with other Koreans, but say something like this to any Korean local and they’ll immediately know what you’re talking about. This saying in particular brings to mind many stories like ‘Inviting a Snake to your House’ and ‘The Frog on the Alligator’s Back’, in which precarious situations are likened to dangerous animals.

Con Mèo in Vietnamese Superstitions

Main Text:

Me: Tell me about the superstition your family has around cats.

AL: Specifically, uhm my mom or other women— Vietnamese women that I’ve encountered… have this superstition of that there is this cat, Con Mèo, which translates to “Cat” in English… Essentially, this cat would kidnap children, so… it means for the children to stay close to their mothers…

Me: …Every single time Con Mèo was kind of brought up, would it be… kinda referred to as like a monster or some type of entity that would kidnap you, specifically?… Did you have a particular image associated with it? Or did you just see a cat?

AL: I just associated the entity as a cat… But somehow evil… And it’s usually referenced by my parents— by mom at like night. Mainly because it’s dark, and to like stay close… I would see this saying more in Vietnam due to how poorly lit the city is, and the suburbs or the countryside, compared to here which is much more safer and has a lot of lights…

Me: …What age do you think this kinda like started, and what age do you think this kinda stopped? Where your mother was like “You’re getting too old for this!” Or is it kinda like a little joke that you bring up every now and then? You know, how does that relate to your personal experience with cats now?

AL: This started when I was young, probably in Kindergarten… Six? Five?

Me: Yeah.

AL: …It’s not that she stopped saying that superstition at a specific age. It’s just— it occurs less. Like she sometimes says it… Like once in like a while, she’ll say it. Just kinda like, just as a fun joke. But I would never say it back because *shrugs* Eh. But my relationship with cats now… I like cats, so it didn’t really affect how I viewed them as monsters.

Context:

This was taken from a conversation with my roommate, in our bedroom at the Cale & Irani Apartments in USC Village.

Analysis:

This belief could reign from one of the oldest superstitions that black cats are considered bad luck. This is especially prevalent amongst Asian cultures, and I even saw this fear manifested as a general disliking towards cats by my Vietnamese mother. Cats in this context were used by the informant’s mother with him and his younger brother, to instill fear in them and keep them out of danger, especially at night. It is beliefs like these that lead to almost all children, having a universal fear of the dark—a fear that my roommate already had. However, his positive relationships with cats won out over his fear of the dark. Therefore, Con Mèo didn’t affect him that much.

Dead Man’s Cats

AO: So um, my parents told me about when they first bought the house I was raised in, this old man used to live there. Had a ton of cats. And he passed away in the house. Most of the cats escaped, but some just stayed in the house cuz they were raised domestic or whatever. As the old man decayed for like a month, the whole house reeked of cat piss and shit, they weren’t being taken care of. Obviously his cadaver was removed– but when it was, they found that his corpse was like, completely unrecognizable. We assumed the cats ate the remnants of the corpse because it was so decayed. It was a lot of cleaning to do, cuz there was a lot of damage around the house. And a couple nights after it was being refurbished and totally cleaned out, my mom would walk into the kitchen and see a pair of glowing eyes in pitch darkness. Or she’d see blinds move, hear scratching of fabric or sofas. There was scratching at the doors too. And it went away for a while, but when we first got my dog, he always avoided a spot in the back yard. And my mom realized it was one of the ways the cats would get into the house from the streets and stuff. In fact, it got to the point where we wouldn’t see a single cat on the street for a couple years, and my dog would still go crazy at that spot near the house.

Context: collected during an in-person conversation.

Thoughts: This story felt especially morbid to me– especially with the gnarly cat-corpse ordeal. It’s such a disgusting and disturbing visual. Upsetting too. I think it’s interesting that this deals with the presence of animal ghosts, but not at all with the ghost of the old man.

Waving/Beckoning Cat

R: Well, we gave him a cat for luck.
C: Why? And why is it waving
R: I’ve actually heard two stories for that. One, was a long time ago, there was an emperor who was a good man. He would always greet everyone he saw as he went about his walks. One day, he saw a cat waving at him and so he stopped to wave back. Then, right in front of him, whoooosh, a horse galloped by and would have hit him!
The other one I’ve heard is that the cat is actually beckoning you. So there was an emperor who was sitting under a tree and enjoying his day when he saw a cat beckoning him to come. So he did and then right after he was out from under the tree, lightning struck it and would have killed him had he not gone to the cat.
So now when someone is starting a new business, you give them a waving cat.
Context
The informant gave their brother-in-law a waving cat when he opened a new business and shared that story to those present when prompted to by his children. To the informant, it was a way of honoring their brother-in-law’s culture and sharing stories (the informant enjoys storytelling) that they had heard from their parents when growing up.
My Thoughts
I have heard several versions of this story besides the two shared here and have seen many different waving cats in Japanese stores. This shows the cultural desire to be able to influence things such as luck and to honor the things and people that bring good fortune: a good turn for a good turn. In another version of the story [see link below] the samurai is the one saved by the cat and he then goes on to give much wealth to the temple that the cat belonged to and honor the cat upon its death.
https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/maneki-neko-temple-tokyo/index.html

Black Cats Superstition

Main Piece:

“Black cats are bad luck.”

Context and Analysis:

My informant is a 19-year-old female. I asked my informant if she knew of any superstitions people live by.  To this, she responded,  “black cats are bad luck.” My informant does not remember when she first heard this superstition, but she thinks it was around the time of Halloween. She claims she also saw it in a tv show she watched as a child called, Sabrina the Teenage Witch. In the show, the black cat was friends with the witch. The informant states that a black cat is a sign that something bad is going to happen. For example, if you are going somewhere and you see a black cat it means something bad will happen in the near future. The informant recalls,

“One time I was driving in the car with a friend and her dad, can’t remember who it was, but we saw a black cat crossing the road and my friend’s dad turned around and drove the other way. My friend says that every time her dad is driving, and he sees a black cat he has to turn around and take an alternate route.”

The informant says she does not believe this is true and feels bad for black cats because everyone thinks they are evil.

I too have heard this superstition that black cats are bad luck. It is interesting to note the association with color. The color black is often used when referencing fear, mystery, evil and death. All of these themes are common around the time of Halloween, so it makes sense the informant believes to have heard this superstition around that time. One also wears black to a funeral to represent the mourning of a loved one. Therefore, seeing a black cat by the color alone can imply death. Death is a mysterious subject terrifying for many people. The black cats’ color can be enough to make people fear the superstition. Cats are also animals that hold a lot of mystery. Often it is said cats have nine lives. This makes the superstition that black cats are bad luck even more fascinating because if the color black is associated with death, and cats have nine lives, could this have some sort of implication that cats can take lives? An intriguing relationship to note.  When looking into this superstition I also found a reference to it in the book Fearful, Spirits, reasoned follies the boundaries of superstition in the late medieval Europe by Michael David Bailey. He also speaks of the association cats have with demonic beings and magical connections.

Bailey, Michael David. Fearful Spirits, Reasoned Follies the Boundaries of Superstition in Late Medieval Europe. Cornell University Press, 2013.