Category Archives: Riddle

Time to Investigate

Nationality: Japanese American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Huntington Beach, CA
Performance Date: 4/28/14
Primary Language: English

Time to Investigate

Personal Background:

Tiara is sophomore at California State University, Long Beach and she is studying accounting. She has grown up with Japanese and German influences since she has a mother from Japan, and a father who grew up in a German household. Even with her diverse family, she loves being part of American culture.

Joke:

Tiara loves telling jokes that have a pun involved. She works with children, so a lot of the jokes she hears are from kids.

Tiara: What do you call an alligator in a vest?

Me: What?

Tiara: An investigator!

She loves being able to tell this joke. She had heard it from one of the kids she works with, and she decided to tell the joke to a group of her friends when they went to a reptile museum. She thought the timing was right since there was an alligator in the museum. All of her friends gave her really good feedback from the joke. When asked about the connection with the joke, she said she really liked the little girl she heard it from, but the day Tiara used it herself was a day her friend was able to conquer her fear of snakes and hold one. She feels really happy when she thinks about it because it reminds her of a day she was able to make her friends feel good.

Analysis:

This joke is part of folklore because of the way it uses its words. Jokes are a way to use the power of words and how they can affect the punchline. Jokes usually involve using words that sound similar to get something different for an outcome.

To me, this joke is bringing childhood into adult world. We are still able to laugh at jokes from younger kids. They are always coming up with new ones, and they are always going to be changing.

The Hat

Nationality: Korean American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 4/18/2014
Primary Language: English

The Hat

My friend was born in the U.S. He is currently a second year at USC.

The riddle goes like this:

Q: There are three people who were abducted by an alien. They are each blindfolded and put in a straight line. They are told that there are two black hats and a white hat. Each one of the abducted people is wearing either a white hat or a black hat. The last person in line can see both people’s heads in front of him, the second person can only see the first person’s head, and the first person can’t see anything. The alien then says that if they can guess the correct color of the hats, then they will be let free. Who speaks up and what answer would he give?

A: The person standing last in line would speak up only if he sees that the hats in front of him are the same color. If the colors were opposites then person in the middle would speak up. The middle guy would know that the person behind him is quiet because the hats in front of him are two different colors. By this deduction, the man in the middle knows that whichever color hat he is wearing is the opposite of the hat color he sees in front of him, and the same as the color of the hat color behind him.

The Analysis:

Me: Where did you hear this riddle?

J: My friend, Daniel Chun.

Me: When did you hear it?

J: I heard it about a month and a half ago. After sophomore accountability, we were just chilling in another friend’s room.

Me: Do you guys do this often?

J: Oh yeah, we just chill, share stories, talk, and stuff.

 

It should be noted that there was a similar riddle to this one about hats and prisoners but without aliens.

 

The Magical Wolf Island Riddle

Nationality: Mexican
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/12/14
Primary Language: English

This informant is a senior at USC in the Marshall School of Business.  He told me he had a riddle for me that he was asked in an interview for consulting, but then later said it could have been an investment banking interview as well he didn’t remember.

Out in the middle of the ocean there exists a magical island with only grass.  There are 120 wolves and 1 sheep on the island.  The wolves can live off the grass but they would rather eat sheep.  Every time a sheep is eaten that wolf turns into a sheep.  Now the wolf has to worry about being eaten by another wolf.  All the wolves are rational and smart and want to survive.  Given that there are 120 wolves and 1 sheep on the island, will the sheep be eaten?

The answer is: No the sheep will not be eaten.  This can be shown much simpler with smaller numbers.  If there is 1 wolf and 1 sheep the sheep will be eaten.  If there is 2 wolves and 1 sheep the sheep won’t be eaten, because each one knows the other will eat him right after.  So with this reasoning, whenever there is an even number of wolves on the island, the sheep won’t get eaten.

I definitely didn’t know the answer off the top of my head, but once I heard the answer it seemed like a pretty simple concept.  This shows how much people working in high finance value critical thinking and problem solving skills.

 

 

A Black Dog on a Black Road

Nationality: Canadian
Age: 19
Occupation: Student, Journalist
Residence: Los Angeles, CA; Vancouver, Canada
Performance Date: April 16, 2014
Primary Language: English
Language: French

Informant is a University student from Canada, studying in the United States. When asked about what she remembered from camp, she was most excited to offer riddles, and had many to share. When asked why she was so excited, she said that it was because they were so prevalent in her childhood. These riddles were everywhere for her, and so it brings back more nostalgia than jokes or games for her.

What was the other one? Like.

Any jokes?

Jokes?

Yeah, like. Any jokes as a kid that made you laugh really hard.

[Visibly excited] Can they be like riddles?

Yeah, definitely.

Like riddles that we always told. [Pause, more excited as she remembers and smiles as she tells] Like did you have the one, where it was like, A Black Dog on a Black Road, um There were no lights on, the stars and the moon weren’t out, and a black car comes by without its lights on and it sees the dog and its moves, how do you know like, how did it see the dog?

Same Time: How do you see the dog?

[Super smiling and proud now] The answer is it was day time. [Shrugs as though it was nothing.]

[Laughs]

I dunno if. Do you know that one?

I may. Have heard that one, I don’t know. That’s a really good riddle though.

That one was literally like, everywhere when I was a kid.

This is interesting that riddles were more important to her childhood than games. I must confess, that I was never very into riddles as a child, and though I remember seeing books of riddles, they were not prevalent in my own childhood (though I moved around a lot). The fact that they were everywhere in the Informant’s says a lot about her, her friends, and the culture of her neighborhood in a Vancouver, Canada public school. Though what, I’m not sure, and I’m not sure if riddles are more prevalent in Canadian culture than they are in the United States’ culture.

How Do You Get an Elephant in the Refrigerator?

Nationality: Canadian
Age: 19
Occupation: Student, Journalist
Residence: Los Angeles, CA; Vancouver, Canada
Performance Date: April 16, 2014
Primary Language: English
Language: French

Informant is a University student from Canada, studying in the United States. When asked about what she remembered from camp, she was most excited to offer riddles, and had many to share. When asked why she was so excited, she said that it was because they were so prevalent in her childhood. These riddles were everywhere for her, and so it brings back more nostalgia than jokes or games for her.

And then the last one that I can think of is. How do you get an elephant in the refrigerator?

How do you get an elephant in the refrigerator?

You close the door.

[Laughs]

Well, okay, how do you get a giraffe in the refrigerator? [Pauses, gestures to me.] Can you like. Answer the question?

You uh. You open the door and put the giraffe in the refrigerator and close the door.

Ah. You open the door, take the elephant out, put the giraffe in and then close the door.

[Big laughs.]

This one was another favorite of the Informant, who really played up the delivery of this one. When asked why, she emphasized again that riddles were an important part of her childhood, and this one usually also got a big laugh. Alternatively, she also had a friend who was not very good at riddles, and so to tease her, the Informant would tell her riddles, and this one frustrated her friend the most due to its hidden simplicity.