Category Archives: Folk speech

김치국부터 마시지 말라

Nationality: USA, Korea
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Cerritos
Performance Date: 4/19/16
Primary Language: English
Language: Korean

CJ is a student at USC studying Business Administration. He is half Korean and half American, and he lives in Cerritos, California. He was in my Dance in Popular Culture GE last semester.

Proverb: 김치국부터 마시지 말라
Pronunciation: Kimchi-guk-buteo ma-si-ji mal-ra
Literal meaning: Don’t drink the kimchi soup first

“My mom used to say this to me a lot. You can say this when someone gets ahead of him or herself when planning for a project of future. It’s like when you eat a kimchi based dish, you won’t drink the kimchi sauce first right? ”

Because I did not grow up within a Korean household, I am not familiar with specific Korean dining practices such as the proper way to eat kimchi. That is why when I first heard the literal translation of the proverb I was confused. When my informant explained to me the context in which it was used, however, it gave me a better understanding of the origin of the saying. This proverb also emphasizes the importance of food practices in Korean culture.

신발 선물하면 도망간다

Nationality: USA, Korea
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Cypress
Performance Date: 4/19/16
Primary Language: English
Language: Korean

AK is a first generation Korean American from Cypress, California. She is majoring in Occupational Therapy at USC.

“Koreans say not to buy your girlfriend or boyfriend shoes because they will walk away, meaning that they’ll break up with you.”

Original Translation: 신발 선물하면 도망간다
Pronunciation: shin-bal sun-mul-ha-myun do-mang-gan-dah
Literal Translation: If you gift someone a pair of shoes, he/she will run away

“This is a common phrases I heard growing up that was often used in a comedic way.”

I find it interesting how even in giving gifts, there are cultural taboos, or things that generally avoided. Also, the interpretation of the symbol of shoes is that they are specifically used for running away, and not something else such as protecting the feet from the ground. It could be useful to know metaphors such as this, because you could accidentally send the wrong message by buying your significant other shoes if they are Korean!

井の中の蛙大海を知ら

Nationality: Japan
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Tokyo
Performance Date: 4/19/16
Primary Language: Japanese
Language: English

SF was born in Tokyo, Japan, and lived there for 10 years. She is a student at USC majoring in Business Administration. SF is in my Introduction to Music Technology class and she had a ton of Japanese folklore to share with me.

Proverb: 井の中の蛙大海を知ら

Pronunciation: i no naka no kawaze taikai wo shirazu

Literal Translation: A frog inside the well will not know the big ocean.

Meaning: This means that if you never go out of your comfort zone and stay in a restricting or small environment, you’ll never get to know about the outside world and will have a narrow world view.

My informant learned this proverb in her Japanese class.

In my own Chinese class in middle school, I learned a similar proverb (shares many of the same Kanji characters) which tells about a frog who can only see his world from the bottom of the well, and when a turtle passes over the mouth of the well and chats with the frog, the frog claims that he knows all about the world because all he can see is a circular sky. Both versions of this proverb emphasize the importance of knowledge and learning about the world.

For another version of this proverb, see http://www.mamalisa.com/blog/the-frog-in-the-well-a-chinese-idiom-story-and-bilingual-book/

猿も木から落ちる

Nationality: Japan
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Tokyo
Performance Date: 4/19/16
Primary Language: Japanese
Language: English

SF was born in Tokyo, Japan, and lived there for 10 years. She is a student at USC majoring in Business Administration. SF is in my Introduction to Music Technology class and she had a ton of Japanese folklore to share with me.

Proverb: 猿も木から落ちる

Pronunciation: saru mo ki kara ochiru

Literal Translation: Even a monkey falls from a tree

Meaning: It means nobody’s perfect, and that everybody makes mistakes.

My informant learned this proverb in Japanese class.

I found this proverb interesting because there are many variations of it from different cultures. With this proverb it recognizes the universal fallibility in humans. Even in cultures that highly prize expertise and perfection, there is still an acknowledgement of some sort of the phrase “we are all human.”

Grandma’s Ghost

Nationality: Colombian-America
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: April 23 2016
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

Informant (A.G.) is an 18 year old student from Los Angeles.

A.G.: “My mom is really religious and my grandma is really religious. I was raised Catholic and I used to go to church and stuff”

While his “dad is Italian” and his “mom is Colombian,” they “both grew up in Columbia” to come here when they were “18 or 19.” Alex’s mom is a “stay at home mom,” and his dad does “construction” and owns some local “properties.” We grew up in the same area of Los Angeles, and started to hang out in high school. He was telling some ghost stories at a party one weekend, so I set up an interview for the following Saturday afternoon. I picked him up and brought him to our mutual friend’s house to conduct the collection.

A.G.: “In my apartment building, we used to live in one of the back apartment units.”

While the family still owns the apartment building, A.G. has since upgraded to a nearby house.

A.G.: “At the dinner table… my brother and sister used to talk about stuff that would happen to them because our house was super creepy.”

Here “our house” refers to the family’s apartment building.

A.G.’s family connects over the supernatural. For instance, while the non-religious A.G. is less concerned with Christianity than his pious mother, she is less concerned with the supernatural. However, they all contribute supernatural experiences to the dinner table discussion.

A.G.: “This happened to my mom. It was weird hearing it from her because she’s always like ‘oh that stuff’s bullshit.’ This happened in Florida when she was visiting my grandma in her last days. After a few days after she passed away, my mom said she was sleeping in the living room or something and then she said that she woke up at night and the TV was on and she saw a figure that reminded her of her mom.”

A.G’s mother’s experience of seeing a recently deceased family member is a regular part of the grieving process. Such memorates, referred to as crisis apparitions, make up a large part of the ghost story genre. While A.G.’s mother’s experience was attached to the deceased grandmother, A.G.’s siblings had their own supernatural experiences attached to the old apartment building. Whether it’s remembering the loss of a loved one, or a displeasurable living situation, I interpret the exchange of scary stories to be the family’s way of bonding over personal tribulations.

For more ghost stories about deceased loved ones, visit http://www.cnn.com/2011/09/23/living/crisis-apparitions/