Category Archives: Proverbs

German Proverb: Bandaid is Sand

Background: My friend, ZK, comes from a German family and is bilingual in English and German. I asked her if she knew any German proverbs, and this was her response:

ZK: “The last proverb I can come up with is Unter dem Pflaster liegt der Strand, which translates to ‘under the bandaid is the sand,’ so like under the hard things there is something better but you can’t get to it.”

Analysis: As is the theme with all of the German proverbs my friend told me about, there’s a highly prevalent degree of delayed gratification here, a prioritization of hard work, sacrifice, and eventual payoff (hopefully). It’s also interesting how most of these proverbs fall under a pessimistic mentality–if the goal is to if not inspire, at least offer wisdom for future generations, that wisdom appears to be coming out of some incredibly jaded mouths. Which, once again, would make sense given Germany’s history.

German Proverb: Shirts Without Pockets

Background: My friend, ZK, comes from a German family and is bilingual in English and German. I asked her if she knew any German proverbs, and this was her response:

ZK: “I grew up with a lot of proverbs. My great-grandma’s favorite saying was das letzte Hemd hat keine Taschen, and it translates to ‘your last shirt has no pockets,’ which means you can’t take anything with you when you die. She said it every night before she went to sleep, and I feel like it says something about German culture.”

Analysis: My friend frequently talks about her family’s struggles growing up in Post-War East Germany, and I think this proverb in particular is strengthened by that context. This proverb is particularly anti-materialistic, and I think her great-grandmother saying it as a nightly sort of ritual is indicative of an ideal or desired mentality as reflective of a larger societal belief or priority. Its brevity makes it memorable, and I can imagine that the daily ritual of it indicates that choosing the anti-materialistic route was not instinctual, or always desired.

German Proverb: Day Before Night

Background: My friend, ZK, comes from a German family and is bilingual in English and German. I asked her if she knew any German proverbs, and this was her response:

ZK: “Oh wait, and there’s also Man soll den Tag nicht vor dem Abend Ioben which directly translates to ‘you can’t praise the day before the night’ so like you can’t say that something is good before the entirety of it is done because you never know what can still happen.”

Analysis: Based on my conversations with my friend, I think this proverb reflects a lot of the cultural values she was instilled with growing up–delayed gratification in some ways, a more conservative view on upcoming events and occurrences, a general sense of wariness that would be logical with Germany’s history. The realistic interpretation of the proverb in conjunction with its metaphorical meaning make its double entendre more significant.

Persian Roof Proverb

  1. They go so far up the roof they fall back. 
  2. When someone goes too far into something or pushes themselves too far, it ends up being more counterintuitive than helpful to their initial goal. 

Context:

The speaker presented this when discussing a conversation they had with their mom, bringing this up believing it to be a humorous moment. The discussion that the speaker had with their mom was about veganism, which prompted the speaker’s mother to respond to the explanation of veganism with this proverb, which while a persian proverb, was performed in English.

The performance was done in a manner of telling the story about this conversation with the speaker’s mother, wanting to make a point about how the mother’s response to veganism was humorous, since it was so negative. 

Personal Thoughts:

This piece is quite interesting as it is not only a humorous proverb to use in the context of veganism, clearly showing how when used in this specific context, it is meant to show how the speaker’s mother believes that some vegan practices may go too far. Culturally, many Persian cuisines are meat-based and also, food is a highly important part of Persian culture, as it can be representative of many different things. While in the West it is common to have “vegan alternatives”, that may not be the case for other cultures and the way something is made and what types of food is presented in the dish is highly important, thus it would be understood why some vegan practices may prompt this kind of response. 

Shart Proverb

  1. (laughter) He thinks h…his shart is so good and smell that he sits in front of the wind. (more laughter)
  2. When one believes in their ridiculousness so much they will attempt to pass it on to others. 

Context:

The speaker had fun with this proverb when sharing it out loud, sharing it both as a way to be informative of what a Persian proverb can look like, but also laughing at how ridiculous it is. The closest translation that the speaker found (with help from their family who was present) was the word “shart”, which is what the speaker used when performing this proverb. The family of the speaker laughed at this proverb, finding the proverb itself funny and finding it also funny hearing it come from this specific speaker, who is much older and would not normally know the word “shart”. 

Personal Thoughts:

I find this to be a really fun proverb that I learned about, mainly because it is a very unexpected one to hear that has a profound meaning. While there is humor in the phrasing of the proverb, the main idea of how one can believe their own foolishness to great lengths that they would want to sit in it and spread it to others is something that can be globally understood. Proverbs, especially ones that have more humorous or exaggerated phrasing are very interesting in that they can relate to many greater ideas, and while this may be funny to hear even in context of a conversation, there is still something to be said about why it is important, particularly in Perisan culture. One can gather from this that there is cultural significance with humility and there it is highly regarded to be humble, rather than foolishly believe solely one’s own beliefs.  It should also be noted that Western notions of the Middle East tend to depict these cultures as very reserved and conservative, which this proverb shows the exact opposite of, using crude language to make a point about a larger matter, thus not only revealing cultural significance but also subverting Western stereotypes.