Category Archives: Folk speech

“Row” the Fish Over

Nationality: China
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Tsingtao, Shandong, China
Performance Date: 5/1/2021
Primary Language: Chinese

Backgrounds:

DerShann is currently a student at USC, majoring in Philoshophy. His family are from Tsingtao, Shandong, China. He likes to play the game League of Legends, and the following folklore is collected during some of the games we played together via the voice chat chanel.

The Mian Piece:

DerShann:”In Tsingtao, when you eat a fish, if you finished eating all the meat on one side and want to turn the fish over to eat the other side, you cannot say ‘翻过来 fan guo lai（turn it over）’, you must say ‘划过来 hua guo lai（row it）’. Tsingtao is a city that is built on the fishing industry, and a lot of people are fishermen, especially those who sell you the fish. Fishermen are afraid that their ship might sink and they might die, (in Chinese it is called 翻船了 chuan fan le（the ship is turned over）. So they really hate the word ‘翻， fan（turn over）’. So we say ‘划过来 hua guo lai（Row it）’. This is like encouraging the fishermen to row their ships back, to have a safe sail, kinda like, row it to the beach. This is something everyone knows in Tsingtao.


Analysis:

This way of saying things reveals that the city Tsingtao is heavily based on the fishing industry. It also shows how people there value their safety during theiir sea sails. This is a custom that’s specific to cities that are close to the sea and relies on fishing, or have rich histories in fishing.

People believe merely saying the word “翻 fan” might cause the ship to really be turned over by waves and wind, which shows how people draw connections between words and actual events.

“Hit the iron while it’s still hot” – Arabic Proverb

Nationality: Jordanian
Age: 55
Occupation: Disabled
Residence: Long Beach
Performance Date: 5/1/2021
Primary Language: Arabic
Language: English, French

Context:

He learned it from his mom (according to him, she would say it a lot) when he was “around four or five years old,” when he was in Jerusalem. He said that you would use this proverb to tell somebody to “follow through while the opportunity still exists.”

Text:

Original Script: اضرب الحديد وهو حامي

Transliteration: Odrob al hadid ou houeh hami

Literal Translation: Hit the iron while it’s hot

Smooth Translation: Hit the iron while it’s still hot

Thoughts:

When I first heard the proverb from him two years ago, when I was trying to find a summer job, I did not need an explanation to know that he was telling me to follow through without delay; the image of a blacksmith shaping red-hot iron, as well as the common knowledge that hot metal is easier to shape than cold metal, got the point across. Until he explained it to me today, I thought that one would say it to tell someone to follow through while it is still fresh, or to not stop something while you are already in the right mindset. I would often use it to justify why I could not stop midway through something–I did not want to have to heat up the iron again. Even if I had not heard my informant’s explanation, I would still think that this proverb shows that there is an imperative in Arabic culture to finish what you started in a time-efficient manner.

“During the day she left her house, and during the night she burnt her oil” – Arabic Proverb

Nationality: Jordanian
Age: 55
Occupation: Disabled
Residence: Long Beach
Performance Date: 5/1/2021
Primary Language: Arabic
Language: English, French

Context:

He learned it when he was in elementary school in Jerusalem. “You hear it all the time,” he remarked, and stressed that it was common to hear when you put off work because this proverb is used to tell somebody to not procrastinate.

Text:

Original Script: بالنهار تركت بيتها، وبالليل حرقت زيتها

Transliteration: Bil nhar tarkat bait-ha, ou bil lail har’at zeit-ha

Literal Translation: During the day, she left her house, and during night burnt her oil

Smooth Translation: During the day she left her house, and during the night she burnt her oil

Thoughts:

I remember first hearing this proverb from him when I was in middle school. Unsurprisingly enough, I had procrastinated, and I was finishing my work at night with my desk light on. As soon as I processed the Arabic, I realized it as a remark of my subpar time management. It was also fitting because I was also having to work under artificial light because I did not take advantage of the natural daylight. This proverb shows a cultural aversion towards poor time management (if there is work to do, one should do it in the day, and then rest at night).

The Curse Word Rhyme

Nationality: China
Age: "No no no, don't tell them my age"
Occupation: Elementary School Teacher
Residence: Shenyang, Liaoning, China
Performance Date: 2/24/2021
Primary Language: Chinese



Backgrounds:

Ms. Z is an elementary school Maths and Chinese teacher in Shenyang, China. We were having dinner together when I mentioned my folklore collection project. She then shared some of the interesting folklores she’s learned of from the kids in her class or from her colleagues.


The Main Piece:

Z: After the graduation of some of the kids in one of my classes, they came back to visit me and told me about one of the rhymes they’ve made in elementary school, which is used to curse others.

It goes as follows:

orignial text: 操你妈，操你爸，操你全家嘎啦哈，操你奶奶高血压，操你爷爷被车轧

Phonetic script: cao ni ma, cao ni ba, cao ni quan jia galaha, cao ni nai nai gao xue ya, cao ni ye ye bei che ya

Word to Word translation: fuck your mother, fuck your father, fuck your whole family galaha (this is the name of a traditional folk toy in Northeast China made of the leg bones of pigs. But it is used here maily to keep the rhyme and rythm, with to specific meaning), fuck your grandma, high blood pressure, fuck your grandpa, run over by a car

A more artistic translation that keeps the flow and the rhyme: Fuck your mom. Fuck your Pa. Fuck your whole family from the bottom up. Fuck you grandma with an attack in the heart. Fuck your grandpa, he got hit by a car.

Z: I knew that they had such a dirty rhyme, but I didn’t know it was as offensive as this one! I’ve gotten angry with this when they were in school. But thinking about it now, they were quite creative.

 

Analysis:

Although these are not the most offensive things I can imagine, they are quite offensive for elementary school kids. This dirty little rhyme perfectly shows how creative, and cruel and mean, kids can be. Using this rhyme to curse others makes cursing a fun thing to do, and it even stimulates innovations in cursing, because kids might want to come up with more humorous and offensive ways to curse others. 

Also, 操你妈， or “fuck your mom” is the most commonly used curse word in China. Its presence in such rhyme shows that by the age for elementary school, most kids have already been exposed to curse words, either from the outside world or from their family. I remember when I was in elementary school, I was super excited to use curse words or learn about new curse words. This rhyme can also show the strong interest of young children, especially elementary school kids, in curse words

 

“The eye of the soul fattens your horse”

Nationality: cuban
Age: 29
Occupation: doctor
Residence: san diego
Performance Date: may 2 2021
Primary Language: Spanish

Context: My informant is a 29 year-old man who is of Cuban descent. He grew up in San Diego and still lives there. He described a common saying for Cubans that his family taught him growing up. He likes this saying because it has led him to be more attentive and focused at many parts of his life.

Transcription

Informant:

“‘El ojo del alma el gordo el caballo’ is a popular Cuban saying. In english it translates to the eye of the soul fattens your horse. It basically means if you care about something and you want it to grow, you have to um… keep your eyes on it and pay attention. I remember my parents telling me this when I was growing up and it has always been something that has stuck with me. I um… definitely wanna teach it to my children some day,”

Thoughts:

This saying resonated with me as I am also a Cuban person. This was definitely a message implemented by my family throughout the years as it shaped a lot of how I thought about work and things that I care about in general. It is the culmination of hearing phrases like this that helped me to understand the world around me. This type of oral tradition is extremely impactful, especially to children, as they are so malleable. 

This is the type of phrase that the informant will pass on to his kids and so on forever as these types of sayings are very important to the culture and beliefs. Many other cultures have sayings along this message which helps explain why it is such an important message to hold. Using the horse as a reference is very interesting and also mentioning the idea of a soul as these things illuminate that these ideas might be more common for Cuban people to understand than others.