Category Archives: Proverbs

Travelling Tradition of Eating Noodles and Dumplings

Text:

“Whenever you’re going after travel, even if it’s just one day or something, you have to eat dumplings before you go. And when you come back, you eat noodles. Like for the first meal. The meal right before you leave has to be dumplings, and the meal right after you come back has to be noodles. We have a saying that goes “When you get in the car, you eat dumplings. When you get off it, you eat noodles.” It might be a Beijing tradition, but my grandmom is from Shandong, and they still follows this tradition. The dumplings look like small pieces of gold. You have to eat an even number of dumplings. Even numbers are considered luckier than odd numbers. When you come back, you eat noodles, which symbolize that you are attached to your home, because the noodles look like ropes. They held you to your home. Noodles are also not tangled, which simplifies a smooth future and a smooth return home.”

Context:

The informant describes a travel-related food tradition practiced in her family. This tradition is possibly rooted in northern Chinese regions like Beijing and Shandong. Before leaving for a trip, even a short one, the family must eat dumplings, and upon returning, the first meal must be noodles. She learned this practice from her grandmother, who continues to follow it, showing how the tradition is passed down across generations. The informant also explains specific rules, such as eating an even number of dumplings because even numbers are considered lucky. This ritual remains important even when travelling becomes routine. For the informant, it functions as a meaningful way to frame movement away from and back to home.

Analysis:

This tradition shows that everyday practices create a symbolic order. The pairing of dumplings and noodles structures the uncertainty of travel into a predictable and meaningful sequence. Dumplings, shaped like gold, symbolize wealth and a good beginning, while noodles represent connection and continuity, emphasizing a safe return home. The rule of eating even numbers further reflects how ideas of luck and order are embedded in routine actions. These practices turn travel, a potentially uncertain experience, into something culturally organized and emotionally reassuring. Thus, this tradition reinforces values of safety, prosperity, and attachment to home.

Chinese Proverb

Text:

“Man proposes, God disposes.”

Context:

This text was collected from a Chinese international student who shared this proverb in our interview. The original Chinese, “谋事在人，成事在天” (móu shì zài rén, chéng shì zài tiān), translates literally as “the planning of affairs lies with man, but the completion of affairs lies with heaven.” It is one of the most widely known classical Chinese proverbs, originating from the Ming dynasty novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms and attributed to the strategist Zhuge Liang. Despite its literary origin, the proverb has long since detached from its source and circulates entirely through informal, oral transmission — functioning as everyday folk wisdom rather than literary quotation. It is typically deployed as a consolation in moments of uncertainty or disappointment, as it acknowledges the limits of human control while still affirming the value of effort.

Analysis:

This proverb is an example of a fixed phrase carrying metaphorical wisdom. It is transmitted orally across generations in an unchanged form, lending it the vernacular authority that distinguishes folk speech from ordinary language. Its staying power lies in the philosophical tension it holds together: human agency and cosmic limitation are acknowledged at the same time, offering the speaker neither full determinism nor full helplessness. This balance makes it useful as a coping tool across an enormous range of situations, from personal failure to collective misfortune. The proverb’s original literary attribution to Zhuge Liang is a compelling illustration of the idea that folklore and literature exist in a continuous feedback loop. More specifically, the text begins as authored writing, detaches from its source through centuries of informal transmission, and eventually circulates as anonymous folk wisdom. It has effectively become folklore through the process of diffusion. The proverb also demonstrates a distinctly Chinese cosmological worldview — the concept of “天” (tiān, heaven or fate) as a force beyond human control — reflecting how folk speech preserves and expresses deep cultural values across generations without naming them explicitly.




Chinese Proverb

Text:

“Dogs can’t change their habit of eating shit.”

Context:

This text was collected from a Chinese international student. The phrase is a well-known Chinese proverb, used across generations and regions, and the informant learned it through everyday family and peer interaction rather than any formal context. The proverb is often used spontaneously in casual conversation to describe someone whose behavior has repeatedly disappointed them. It functions as a sharp, often humorous way of complaining about someone’s character, as the phrase implies that no matter how many chances a person is given, their fundamental nature will still reveal itself. The proverb is vulgar in its imagery, which likely contributes to its rhetorical force and memorability. Moreover, it was shared in English translation, meaning some of the original linguistic texture of the Mandarin phrasing may not fully carry over.

Analysis:

This proverb exemplifies core folkloric features as it is a fixed phrase carrying metaphorical wisdom, transmitted informally across generations without a traceable single author. Its vulgarity is rhetorically strong — the shock of the imagery makes it memorable and forceful, which is also how oral traditions like this one are sustained across time. The proverb reflects folklore’s capacity to encode community beliefs and values: embedded in this saying is a culturally shared assumption that human nature is fundamentally fixed, offering a folk framework for making sense of repeated disappointment. This connects to the course’s discussion of folk speech as vernacular authority. More specifically, deploying a traditional proverb rather than plain speech transforms the speaker’s frustration from an individualized emotion state to a sense of collective, time-tested wisdom, making the claim feel less like personal opinion and more like cultural truth.




Chinese New Year Tradition of Making “Dern”

Text:

“On the 15th of the Chinese New Year, my grandma would make something called “dern.” “Dern” is like a bun shaped in the form of our Chinese Zodiac. She would make the “dern” for all family members. She would make seven of them, and they are all in our corresponding Chinese zodiac. So, if I’m born in the zodiac of the chicken, then she would make a chicken. This is practiced on the last day of the Chinese New Year. All of our animal characters would be on the same big bun; there are usually three big buns in total. She would also make two fish on one of the big buns, corresponding to the proverb “May you have abundance/surplus year after year.” After I got a boyfriend, my grandmother started making his “dern” as well. It is referred to as “dern” in the Shandong dialect. To be honest, sometimes it is hard for me to recognize which animal is which after she made them. Another thing is that we have to eat it. We have to bring this gigantic bun back to our own house and place it on our table for a day, and then you eat it. I’m not sure why we put it on the table for a day, but if you eat your zodiac, that just means that you are safe and good, and you have to eat the parts with the pieces of gold as well, which means that you can earn a lot of money in the upcoming year.”

Context:

This text was collected from a Chinese international student from Beijing, China. She learned this tradition through direct participation in her grandmother’s annual practice and shared it with me in a casual conversation as she spoke from personal memory. Her grandmother was from Shandong province, and dern is also a word describing decorated buns in the Shandong dialect. The tradition takes place on the 15th day of the Chinese New Year (the Lantern Festival), which marks the final day of the celebration period. The grandmother serves as the sole maker of the buns, crafting zodiac-shaped figures for every family member. A significant detail is that after the informant began dating her boyfriend, the grandmother started making a bun for him as well, suggesting the practice functions as an informal way of welcoming new members into the family. She interprets eating one’s zodiac as ensuring personal safety and prosperity in the coming year.

Analysis:

This piece exemplifies material culture, more specifically when it functions as a family lore, which shows how a broader regional tradition becomes personalized at the household level. This reminds me of Carl von Sydow’s concept of oicotypes: in this case, the family’s specific variation — seven individual buns, three large bases, fish for prosperity, a one-day display — represents a local adaptation of a wider Shandong practice. The variation is shaped by this family’s particular values and composition. Moreover, the ritual also aligns with Frazer’s theory of homeopathic magic: eating one’s zodiac animal and the golden pieces embedded in the bun not only symbolize safety and wealth, it also enact them. Corresponding folk beliefs like those exemplified through the shape of the “dern” collapse the boundary between representation and outcome. The grandmother’s decision to include the boyfriend’s bun is especially interesting, as it functions as a vernacular act of admitting family membership, which comes before any official social recognition of the relationship.





The Frog in the Well

CK: “So there’s a lot of folklore and children’s stories that I read when my mom was teaching me mandarin at home. There’s one that I like a lot and it’s pretty well known, like I feel like all Chinese people know it, it’s called: The Frog in the Well / The Frog at the Bottom of the Well. From what I remember, basically, there’s this frog and he lives a content life at the bottom of a well. He has company (fish and whatnot) and food and whatever you need to be comfortable. One day a turtle comes by the well and tells the frog that he should come out of the well and the frog is like ‘why would I do that lol my life is awesome and I have everything here I need, I have a beautiful view of the whole sky!’ 

Eventually, he’s convinced to hop out of the well and once he does he sees how vast the sky actually is. He realizes how much of the world he doesn’t know about and how much he hasn’t experienced. Yeah, moral of the story is about being open-minded, venturing out of your comfort zone, in general broadening your worldview, making the effort to learn, and discovering opportunities. 

There’s some idioms that come from it.  

井底之蛙 – jǐng dǐ zhī wā – “frog at bottom of well,” you might call someone this if they are close-minded

坐井观天 -zuò jǐng guān tiān – “gazing/looking at the sky while sitting in a well,” same use case as first one but the act of being close-minded

Oh, and a lot of Chinese idioms are 4 characters it’s like a whole thing.””

context: The informant is a Game designer who studied at USC and recently graduated as of 2025. She is a first generation Chinese American and grew up with a lot of Chinese traditions. Her family is from Southern China, and her parents put a lot of effort into teaching her about her culture’s food, language, rituals, etc.

Analysis: Looking at this children’s folktale through a functionalist lens, its meant to enforce a moral function within children. Its advice on how to go about life, and a warning to avoid being close minded. It also pushes children to get out of their comfort zone in order to gain new life experiences. This is further pushed through the multiple proverbs and idioms that come from this specific tale. the phrase “Frog at the Bottom of the Well” is also esoteric language between Chinese people, since they know the meaning behind the phrase due to most Chinese children growing up hearing this story.