Monthly Archives: April 2019

4 Questions, 4 Tests

Nationality: American
Age: 62
Occupation: Retired
Residence: Corona del Mar, California
Primary Language: English

This conversation is between the collector (C) and the informant (I).

I: I’m going to ask you four questions, and this isn’t just for fun. It’s going to test you on your greatest strengths and weaknesses. Are you ready?

C: I’m ready.

I: The first question is, “How do you put a giraffe in a refrigerator?”

C: (After a long pause) I don’t know.

I: You open the refrigerator, put the giraffe inside, and close it. That was to test if you overthink simple questions. The second question is, “How do you put an elephant in a refrigerator?”

C: You open the refrigerator, but the elephant inside, and close it.

I: Wrong. First, you have to take out the giraffe. That was to test whether you understand the consequences of your actions. The third question is, “The whole jungle has an animal meeting, and all but one animal show up.Who isn’t there?”

C: (After a long pause) I give up.

I: The elephant! He’s still in the refrigerator. That was to test your memory. You have one last question, and it’s the most important one: “You need to cross a river. It is filled with crocodiles, and you have no boat. How do you get across?”

C: You distract the crocodiles?

I: You don’t need to. They’re still at the animal meeting. That was to test whether you learn from your mistakes.

Context: The informant is significantly older than the collector, which might add to the educational aspect of the joke.

Interpretation: Obviously, this is first and foremost for entertainment. But it does teach the audience to think through their answers carefully, understand that actions have consequences, and learn from past experiences. It is a silly series of questions with a surprising amount of moral value. It is distinctly structured for educational purposes, and therefore places the joke-teller in a position of authority and wisdom over the audience.

 

Zap Game

Nationality: American
Age: 22
Occupation: EMT
Residence: Santa Rosa, California
Primary Language: English
Language: Italian

“We used to play this game in middle school called “Zap.” You wrote a name on someone’s palm and a time on the top of their hand. If they look at their palm before the time on their hand, they have to ask the person named out. Obviously, the names would be of people of the opposite sex. One time, I lost “Zap” and I had to ask out this boy who I actually hated with a passion. That’s probably why my friend wrote his name. Anyway, no one took it seriously because we did it all the time, so people knew it was usually a joke when classmates asked them out.”

Context: The informant went to school in St. Helena, California, twenty minutes from Napa. She is female, and grew up in a small, close-knit community.

Interpretation: This can be viewed as an introduction to the courtship process with less pressure than truly trying to ask someone on a date. It is interesting that both genders engage in “Zap,” as Western ideals would usually impose this burden on men for the most part. It is a lighthearted way of familiarizing children with the pressures and uncertainties of finding a romantic partner while also shielding them from the consequences of earnest romantic rejection.

 

The Hungry Fox and the Sacred Tree

Nationality: Thai
Age: 60
Occupation: Restaurant Owner
Residence: New York
Primary Language: Thai (laotian)
Language: English

Context:

The following informant is a 60-year-old Thai immigrant who heard the following story growing up as a kid. This interview was carried out in a mix of Thai and English. In this I will be denoted as C and the informant will be denoted as S

Item:

S: This story is, this story is … uh the fox … uh (in English: the fox) and the sacred tree.

C: I see.

S: There is this fox, it is skinny, hungry, it hasn’t eaten, it is very skinny. So it went and it prayed, in other words it went to ask the sacred tree. The fox asked, it asked to become an ox. An ox that people would take care of and become big and healthy. Strong, and had things to eat all the time. Do you understand?

C: Yes, I understand.

S: And now the fox, whose body was very skinny, became an ox. It became an ox and the people around there started to take care of it. Once they took care of it until it was large and healthy they took it to chai naa.

C: What is chai naa.

S: chai naa (in English) means to work in the field.

C: I understand.

S: After having to work in the field the fox goes back to the sacred tree and says “I can’t take this. Once becoming an ox, they took me and used me in the fields. Can I become a horse or something? At least I’d have someone taking care of me.”
But once it became a horse, the king, uh, the king that lived in that country saw how beautiful this horse was and ordered his soldiers to capture it and make the horse his personal horse. Do you understand?

C: What do you mean personal horse?

S: He used the horse to ride around for fun.

C: Oh, to ride around for fun.

S: He also used the horse to ride for work, for religious events, stuff like that. The King’s working horse. After becoming a working horse, the fox felt bored and realized being a king was betterthan being a horse. You understand?

C: Right.

S: The fox felt the kings used horses and were better than them. So, the fox went to the sacred tree and asked to if it could be a king instead. Now once the fox was a king, it wanted to travel on a boat. It wanted to, uh, wanted to travel on the ocean. So, it ordered its soldiers to go cut down trees to, uh, make a very large boat. And the soldiers ended up trying to cut down the sacred tree too.

C: Uh oh.

S: So now the sacred tree was very angry, that it, that it had helped the king, had helped the king since way before when it was a fox, and fox’s soldiers were trying to cut it down. So, it ordered the soldiers to tell it’s king to come cut the sacred tree itself. Once the king came to the tree, the sacred tree blamed the king that “You don’t know, you don’t appreciate, you don’t, you’re a bad person who got whatever they wanted and it wasn’t enough.”

From being a fox to becoming an ox, from becoming an ox to becoming a horse, from becoming a horse to becoming a king, becoming a king and even trying to cut down the sacred tree that helped it. So the sacred tree cursed the king and turned him back into a hungry fox.

C: Uh oh.

S: The end.

C: Okay.

Analysis: This tale is serves as an example of how someone should conduct themselves and to appreciate the things that people, in this case a sacred tree, would give them. There seems to be a greater message to this tale than just the story itself.

Bloody Mary

Nationality: American
Age: 22
Occupation: EMT
Residence: Santa Rosa, California
Primary Language: English
Language: Italian

“In fourth grade, everyone knew about Bloody Mary showing up in bathrooms, and there were these creepy bathrooms down a super long hallway. The area was really shaded so they were pretty dark. We always were scared to go alone because they were so creepy. One day we were playing with the lights and turned them off and yelled “Bloody Mary” four times and then turned the lights back on. We saw a shadow staring behind us in the mirror. It was so, so scary. So we all ran out screaming and never went back in those bathrooms again. We always used the bathroom on the other side of campus.”

Context: The informant went to school in St. Helena, California, twenty minutes from Napa. She is female, and grew up in a small, close-knit community.

Interpretation: The Bloody Mary ghost story has been interpreted as a symbol of womanhood and menstruation, and this is an excellent example of how Bloody Mary is utilized as such. While the informant did not see the correlation, her story was exclusively prepubescent girls in a female bathroom. By facing the terrifying bathroom and summoning Bloody Mary, the informant and her friends symbolically opened the portal to female adulthood. Perhaps their avoidance of the aforementioned bathroom could further be seen as the fruitless attempt to avoid womanhood once the process of puberty has started. After seeing Bloody Mary, the participants are uncomfortable and scared, but also more knowledgable. The same can be said when a woman receives her first period. Furthermore, there is an obvious tie between the ‘bloody’ part of Bloody Mary and the blood tied to menstruation. For another interpretation of Bloody Mary, see the 2006 horror film directed by Richard Valentine.

 

Was haben Frauen und Handgranaten gemeinsam?

Nationality: American
Age: 25
Residence: Long Beach, California
Primary Language: English
Language: German

“Was haben Frauen und Handgranaten gemeinsam?

Ziehst du den Ring ab, ist dein Haus weg!”

“What do a woman and a hand grenade have in common?

When you take the ring off, your house is gone!”

Context: The informant went to school on a military base in Weisbaden, Germany, and spent the majority of her childhood there. She heard this joke from classmates who were mostly male.

Interpretation: This is perhaps meant to be cautionary toward young men. It is based on the stereotype that women use men for money, and could perhaps make men more cautious when choosing a wife so that they do not have to worry about “taking the ring off.” It uses humor to make women and marriage threatening, which is a common occurrence in American stand-up comedy. Furthermore, it subtly warns against divorce, which could suggest to the audience that an unhappy marriage is better than a divorce.