Category Archives: Proverbs

畫蛇添足

Nationality: Chinese
Age: 58
Occupation: Art Teacher
Residence: Fullerton
Performance Date: 4/14/2017
Primary Language: Chinese

Informant KY is my aunt who was born and raised in Shanghai, and came to the states when she was in her late 20s.

Original: 畫蛇添足

Phonetic: hua she tian zu

Translation: draw snake add feet

So tell me where this proverb came from

KL: “So a long time ago in China, they prayed to Buddha and stuff right? So one day after praying this dude had a bottle of wine left and he was going to share it with his friends but he didn’t have enough. So he thought ‘why don’t I have them do a competition where they draw a snake. The first person to finish drawing a snake will get to have this wine all to himself’. So, the guy tells his friends and his friends are all down. They begin their drawing. Eventually one guy finishes, but he sees everyone is still drawing so he laughs out loud and says ‘man i can add feet to this snake and still be faster than you guys’. Which is exactly what he did, he began to draw feet for the snake. However, while this guy was drawing his feet for his snake someone else finishes and take the bottle of wine. The guy who got the bottle of wine turns to the guy drawing the feet and says “why would you even draw feet on a snake, snake don’t have feet dumbass’. ”

okay so is that it or what do this proverb mean?

KL: “Basically the point of this proverb is to tell people to not do more than they need to, because sometimes doing more will only cause you more trouble.”

Thoughts: A lot of Chinese proverbs are based off of stories to teach a lesson, and the proverb literally spells out what happens in the story. I think even though this saying has a point, many times doing extra can still pay off. For example, doing extra work at a job may get you a raise, or going above and beyond in homework will get you a better grade etc.

守株待兔

Nationality: Chinese
Age: 58
Occupation: Art Teacher
Residence: Fullerton
Performance Date: 4/14/2017
Primary Language: Chinese

Informant KY is my aunt who was born and raised in Shanghai, and came to the states when she was in her late 20s.

Original：守株待兔

Phonetic：shou zhu dai tu

Translation: guard tree and wait for rabbit

How did the story go again?

KY: “Basically, the story behind this proverb is a guy, who always wanted become really rich and successful but was really lazy, was walking around in the woods one day. Then this rabbit jumps out of nowhere and runs into a tree killing itself. The guy quickly grabs the dead rabbit, goes home, and eats the best meal he’s ever had in his life. So he thinks ‘wait why don’t I just wait at the tree every day since rabbits will just kill themselves, its free food!’. So the next day this guy goes to the tree and waits for another rabbit to kill itself. Obviously there was no rabbit, but the guy keeps waiting day after day until eventually he dies. The meaning of this proverb is that even though sometimes we get lucky, we can’t expect the same thing to happen all the time or else we will end up failing.”

Even though the story behind this proverb is ridiculous, it makes a lot of sense. There are a lot of times where people get lucky and expect it to happen to them all the times and just wait for things to fall on their lap. Unfortunately, thats not how life works and we need to go out and be proactive to get the things in life that we want.

For another version of this story see: Chinese Proverb Stories: A Simplified Version of Ancient Chinese Stories with English for American Secondary School Students by HongChen Wang

Monisha Mantras (1)

Nationality: Indian
Age: 38
Occupation: Alternative Medicine
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 4/16/17
Primary Language: English

“Let it be easy, let it be good.”

 

Monisha is my older cousin who has taken a longer route to find what she ultimately wants to do, and that ended up being alternative medicine, so she does acupuncture and provides herbal remedies for people seeking less traditional forms of healing. She’s also very into yoga, hiking, and finding oneself, and as a result, she has lots of mantras that she shared with me after she asked me how college was and I told her I was a little stressed. I decided to write them down, because she’s heard these mantras from backpacking trips through Asia, Europe, and California when she goes with groups of other people for meditation trips. She said that she didn’t know what she wanted to do for a long time, but now she does. I asked her to tell me some of the mantras that helped her at our annual Easter party, and she immediately had some to lend out. She said she uses this one a lot.

Monisha Mantras (2)

Nationality: Indian
Age: 38
Occupation: Alternative Medicine
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 4/16/17
Primary Language: English

“I am anticipating a pleasant surprise.”

Monisha is my older cousin who has taken a longer route to find what she ultimately wants to do, and that ended up being alternative medicine, so she does acupuncture and provides herbal remedies for people seeking less traditional forms of healing. She’s also very into yoga, hiking, and finding oneself, and as a result, she has lots of mantras that she shared with me after she asked me how college was and I told her I was a little stressed. I decided to write them down, because she’s heard these mantras from backpacking trips through Asia, Europe, and California when she goes with groups of other people for meditation trips. She said that she didn’t know what she wanted to do for a long time, but now she does. I asked her to tell me some of the mantras that helped her at our annual Easter party, and she immediately had some to lend out. She said she uses this one a lot.

Monisha Mantras (3)

Nationality: Indian
Age: 38
Occupation: Alternative Medicine
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 4/16/17
Primary Language: English

“I choose my thoughts.”

Monisha is my older cousin who has taken a longer route to find what she ultimately wants to do, and that ended up being alternative medicine, so she does acupuncture and provides herbal remedies for people seeking less traditional forms of healing. She’s also very into yoga, hiking, and finding oneself, and as a result, she has lots of mantras that she shared with me after she asked me how college was and I told her I was a little stressed. I decided to write them down, because she’s heard these mantras from backpacking trips through Asia, Europe, and California when she goes with groups of other people for meditation trips. She said that she didn’t know what she wanted to do for a long time, but now she does. I asked her to tell me some of the mantras that helped her at our annual Easter party, and she immediately had some to lend out. She said she uses this one a lot.