Tag Archives: folk saying

“When the tiger used to smoke” (호랑이 담배피던 시절)

Main Piece : 

“호랑이 담배피던 시절”

Original Script : 호랑이 담배피던 시절

Phonetic (Roman) Script : Horangee dambae pidun shijul

Transliteration : When the tiger used to smoke

Full Translation : Long, long time ago… 

Context :

My informant is an adult male who was born in the Gangwon Area of Korea, which is located on the East side of the peninsula. He received Korean education throughout his life and he now works in Korea. Here, he is describing a commonly used proverb that is used in the Korean society. He is identified as S in the dialogue. This piece was collected over a phone call in Korean and was translated into English.  

S : So ‘호랑이가 담배피던 시절’ is one of the most famous opening lines of Korean folk stories. The storyteller, or whoever narrates the story would start off with this opening sentence and continue telling the first chapter of the story. It is similar to how Disney movies start with “once upon a time..”. They never identify the exact year of what’s taking place, but only hints that it is a very long time ago. 

E : Is the author for this opening line known?

S : I don’t think so. I’m not an expert on this, but because this is a very widely used opening in countless folk stories, I think it is unknown and will be hard to find who started this. I don’t think the author for “once upon a time” is known too. I’d be surprised if the author is known. 

Analysis :

I think this particular folktale opening reflects a very Korean aspect as they introduce the tiger out of all animals. Tiger has been a national animal of Korea for a very long time and a lot of the ancient folk drawings or cultures include, or is related to tigers. Tigers in Korean folklore hold a great importance and has been used in various occasions such as the Olympic mascot. Also, when we explain smoke, it doesn’t mean Western cigarettes, but it is most likely believed to be ‘곰방대(Gombangdae)’, which is a traditional smoking device of Korea made out of wood and metal. This opening lets the readers imagine a tiger, sitting in his house like a human, and smoking, using Gombangdae. The triggering of the imagination of the readers gives off a mystical feeling to open the scene. 

This article highlights how Korea used a white tiger as a mascot for their 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics and what tiger means in their culture.

Jinx! You Owe Me a… Handstand?

 

Abstract: The jinx game has multiple different outcomes. In this particular instance, the person who says “jinx” last after saying the exact same thing as someone else must do a handstand no matter the location.

 

Background: JW is a college senior in California. He grew up in California his whole life. He and his roommates decided to add a twist to the “jinx” game by adding humiliation in the form of a handstand. After being flabbergasted when we said the same thing and he told me to do a handstand, I asked him about it further.

 

The game:

 

JW: Yeah, instead of owing me a soda or a pinch, you have to do a handstand if you’re last on jinx.

 

Example:

 

Person 1: What’s your favorite color?

Person 2 and 3: Green

Person 2: Jinx! You owe me a handstand.

 

Person 3 must now do a handstand.

 

Interpretation: Rather than inflicting pain or adding monetary value, the punishment becomes humiliation which is much more enjoyable to most crowds. At this point it does not become an individual reward for the person who said jinx first, but  a group reward in getting to see someone attempt to do a handstand in possible obscure places. Humiliation offers much more than any soda or pinch could offer. This says that our society values laughing at the others more than inflicting damages upon each other or causing financial burden. Laughing and happiness will outweigh a couple bucks and pain for most people in the world today.

 

Chinoisms: Canning

Context & Analysis

The subject often mentions her mother’s “Chinoisms”, or unique sayings that her mother learned when growing up in Chino, CA. Below is the subject’s direct quote on the origin of her mother’s proverbs:

            “So my mom comes from Chino [California], and so she has a plethora of sayings that I didn’t even know what they meant earlier, I just said them until I got older and I was like “Oh! That actually makes sense!”

This proverb seems to suggest that the subject’s mother came from a background that was very conscious of food waste. The reference to the process of canning also implies that this saying could have originated before the refrigerator was the primary method of preserving food.

Main Piece

“When you—when we’re eating food and we can’t finish it we say “Eat what you can, can what you can’t” so like you can’t eat what you can’t eat, so like you put it in a can if you can’t eat it, so like you’re saving it.”

Difficult Difficult Lemon Difficult

Context: My roommate discovered this meme one day, and it prompted a discussion about the various levels of depth it reached.

Background: My roommate is a self-described “conveyor of fine memes” and has a hobby of collecting, creating, and sharing Internet memes.

The Meme: The meme (attached to this post) is a play on the phrase “easy peasy lemon squeezy.” The phrased is reworked in a text explanation that laments the fact that things are not “easy peasy lemon squeezy” as once believed, but are in fact “difficult difficult lemon difficult.” This explanation is accompanied by the image of a middle-aged woman furiously gripping a laptop in both hands and biting into it.

Analysis: This became a folklore discussion as a surprise, as the further my roommate and I discussed it, the more it seemed to work as a piece of folk speech. “Difficult difficult lemon difficult” is definitely an evolution of the saying “easy peasy lemon squeezy,” which itself has an origin that feels meaningless in the context the phrase has since gained. The specific discovery of the newly-changed saying also has the context of being in meme form, memes being one of the more common areas of unauthored expression in the 21st century.

“Put your foot up on the barstool”

Informant explains a line that her mother told her when she was beginning to go out at night to bars and interacting with men.  The informant explains her mother would always ask, “Did you put your foot up on the barstool?”  The informant explains that this was a way of mother asking whether she had tried or met different guys at the bar or whatever places the informant went out that night.  The informant does not know whether the mother created this saying herself or heard it somewhere else.  The informant explains that her mother continues to ask her grandchildren whether they had “put their foot on the barstool” after a night of going out.

This saying collected from the informant is interesting as it relates to young women meeting men when they go out for the night.  The question and saying indicates the older/parent generation’s interest in the younger generation’s interactions with men.  It indicates the great interest parents have in their daughters meeting someone who they may potentially marry.  It also displays young women’s interest in putting themselves out there to meet someone special.