Background:

My informant is a twenty-one year old student at USC; she’s studying neuroscience with an eye towards medical school. Her father is Laotian and French and her mother is French.

Performance:

“It goes: ‘learning means loving your country.’ I probably heard it from my Dad, since he’s a teacher, but I can’t really remember. It sort of reminds me of those bumper stickers that say ‘dissent is patriotic.’ Like, question everything, due your research, don’t just sit there and be complacent. Like, you’re only your best self and making your best contributions to, um, society, if you’re out there bettering yourself and asking questions and being aware of everything. Super important right now, with all of the fake news and stuff like that.”

Thoughts:

Like my informant said, this proverb seems to be of great significance in our current political climate. It speaks to the importance of education and knowledge in a political context; interestingly, it values the individual and the individual’s contribution over the state itself, which is unusual in the folklore we’ve studied. Generally the state and its glory, collective wellbeing and legacy are the focus of folklore.