Category Archives: Proverbs

Water that you shall not drink, let it flow

Context:

A is a Mexican immigrant and has lived in the United States for roughly 30 years now. They are unable to visit their homeland frequently so they find ways to reconnect with their culture through television shows like Mexican soap operas. These are typically called novellas.

The context of this piece was when we were watching a novella and one of the protagonists was caught in an affair.

Text:

A: “Y por eso dicen que Agua que no has de beber, déjala correr”

Me: ¿Y qué quiere decir eso?

A: “Bueno, digamos que por muy tentador que sea algo como el agua, si sabes que no debes beberla, evítala con todas tus fuerzas. No seas un tonto como lo fue él al ser atrapado en una aventura.”

//Translation:

A: And that’s why they say, “Water that you shall not drink, let it flow.

Me: “And what is that supposed to mean?”

A: “Well, let’s just say that no matter how tempting something like water is, if you know you shouldn’t drink it, avoid it with all your might. Don’t be a fool like he was by getting caught in an affair.”

Analysis:

Within the Mexican culture, proverbs like these are commonly used on regular conversations are are called “dichos.” This particular dicho is about love.  Dichos like the one said by A are meant to guide lovers in their relationships in the hope of helping them have a prosperous relationship. This dicho serves as a warning for lovers that are guilty of surrendering to carnal pleasures or emotional relationships with others. The warning the proverb gives is to not give into the temptations one holds and to keep it as a reminder of what to avoid in life. This proverb is typically said so that a person doesn’t “dar alas” (give wings) to anyone. To give someone wings means to give someone hope that you’re interested in them when in reality you’re not. Giving someone “wings” depicts the perpetrator as untrustworthy and unreliable and stains their reputation in the community. Overall, the proverb suggests that a short-term relationship is not worth the trouble it would cause in the future. I found this this proverb really interesting because its purpose is to serve as both a warning and reminder for lovers. I enjoyed learning this one because I know it could apply to various situations and is easy to be memorized,

AI Poem

Background:

Informant (T) is a student studying at USC.

Main Piece:

“Nothing is so good or so bad that it can’t be both at the same time.”

Context:

“My friend likes to create poems using AI, and this was a sentence made from one of them, and we like to use it a lot now.”

Analysis: 

The usage of digital technology in folklore is now a primary topic of debate. Whether or not this saying can be constituted as folklore could certainly be contested, but as according to my informant, they use it amongst their group, thus being passed around orally. Folklore studies are also generally less concerned with the origin of a piece of folklore in recent years, so despite the technological origins of this piece, I believe it still counts as folklore. This particular saying is both vague and universal enough that it emulates an actual proverb, which are popular as they are short and easily understood, and also embody a form of historical wisdom. In this case, the saying speaks on moral balance and the inherent gray nature of things (rather than having a clearly defined good vs. evil), which perhaps aligns with the moral compass of my informant and his circle of contacts.

Using digital technology as a means to create folklore also raises interesting questions on copyright and ownership, which are also increasingly prevalent discussions in the 21st century. While my informant didn’t specifically touch on ownership, it is highly possible that such pieces of digitally-created media are then owned by its creator (perhaps the most prominent example of this would be NFTs), and while in this case the saying is attributed to my friend, if it spreads across a larger population, the origin of such a saying could eventually become blurred.

Proverb: “Marry a rich man. They all look the same in the dark.”

Text:

SP: “Marry a rich man. They all look the same in the dark.”

Context:

The informant is my grandmother. She is an 83-year-old woman of Ashkenazi Jewish descent who was raised in New York City and currently lives in Fort Lee, New Jersey. SP said that her mother said this to her when she was a teenager or in her early twenties. She got married at 23. Her mother was sharp-tongued, outspoken, and funny. They had a very close relationship.

Analysis:

Proverbs tend to be didactic, often conveying their message through metaphor. In chapter eight of Elliot Oring’s ‘Folk Groups and Folklore Genres: An Introduction,’ F. A. de Caro writes that, “Nonmetaphorical proverbs communicate through a direct statement of a presumed truth that supposedly applies to a situation, rather than by invoking a poetic image to which a situation is compared metaphorically” (de Caro 186). This proverb is blunt and probably hyperbolic, encouraging women to marry rich men because they’re ultimately the same. I think that this saying can be interpreted as cynical and sexist, neglecting women’s abilities to be self-sufficient and encouraging them to sacrifice their happiness for material wealth. It intends to dispel women of illusions about men and love. However, this proverb can also be read as subversive (especially considering that my grandmother heard it at a time when women occupied a lower social position than now), encouraging women to be cunning and look out for themselves and rejecting the idea that women should worship their husbands. It also is an example of how wisdom can be transferred from one generation of women to the next.

         Proverbs are almost always concise and easy to remember. This one is memorable because it’s so blunt and it conveys a jaded point of view, but also because it alludes to sex. Because female sexuality was so taboo at this time, so I imagine that such an allusion—even if it’s euphemistic—would be shocking.

Proverb: “It’ll make hair grow on your chest.”

Text:

AL: “It’ll make hair grow on your chest.”

Context:

The informant is a 20-year-old college student of Ashkenazi Jewish descent who currently lives in Los Angeles. He said that his grandmother would say this phrase in response to someone having to do something difficult. For example, AL said that if he were to complain to his grandmother about having to write a challenging essay, she would tell him that it would make hair grow on his chest. She also said this when someone ate something spicy.

Analysis:

This proverb promotes the belief that suffering makes an individual stronger. However, the contexts in which AL describes it being used suggest that it is not used to pacify the grievances of someone experiencing serious hardship. In chapter eight of Elliott Oring’s ‘Folk Groups and Folklore Genres,’ F.A. de Caro describes how metaphorical proverbs use imagery to illustrate a point more concisely than would be possible with a literal articulation. When boys undergo puberty, they grow hair on their chest, which is a biological signal that they are transitioning to manhood, the stage of life where one confronts expectations that they be strong, self-sufficient, and to provide for others. That this saying would be used to console someone undergoing something difficult or give a tongue-in-cheek justification for bad luck or misfortune reflects the widespread cultural association of masculinity with strength.

Sources:

Oring, Elliott, and F.A. De Caro. “Riddles and Proverbs.” Folk Groups and Folklore Genres: An Introduction, Utah State University Press, Logan, UT, 1986, pp. 175–197. 

“You can’t fix a human.”

B is a 21-year-old Korean male originally from Busan, South Korea. B is currently a college student in Los Angeles, California.

B informed me of this folklore while I was visiting him in his college dorm, which he shares with four other students. B recited the following saying to me after getting in a verbal argument with his messy roommate, who refused to clean his hair out of the shower drain.

B: You know, we have an old saying.. like, “you can’t fix a human.” You know you might give someone a second chance.. after they do something wrong, but they will still revert to their status quo even after a while. And it’s true most of the time.

Reflection: According to B, he did not know how to translate the exact Korean saying to English, as the full meaning does not transfer very clearly across languages. I can at least make an assessment based on the rough translation of “you can’t fix a human” and the context of its usage. It seems to be a direct reference to the idea that human nature is unchangeable, and people will make certain decisions regardless of outside influences. The saying is cynical and direct in nature, given that it assumes “broken” people are incapable of being ”fixed.” Or in other words, the hair will never be cleaned from the shower drain.