The traveler and the Monk Narrative Joke

Text: 

“There was a man who was driving down a long stretch of road in the middle of nowhere when his car broke down. He gets out, tries to fix it, can’t, and decides to walk down the road to see if he can find any help. He eventually comes across a monastery. He walks up, knocks on the door, and asks the monk at the door “hey my car broke down just down the road, could I spend the night here until I get it fixed?” The monk happily agreed, not only welcoming him in, but offering to fix his car and get the traveler on his way. The man is grateful to the monk for his generosity, and enters the monastery for the night. The man meets the rest of the monks, has a great meal, and they show him to his room. As they were walking down the hall to his room, he passed a locked door with a very strange sound coming from it. He asks the monk “What is that sound?” The monk replies “I cannot tell you, for you are not a monk”. The man accepts the monk’s response, goes into his room, and tries to get a good night’s rest. However, he stays awake all night, unable to sleep because of the mysterious sound. It gets to a point where the guy just can’t take it anymore. So he gets up, wakes up the monk, and says: “Please can you please tell me what that sound is driving me crazy” The monk gives him the same response: “I cannot tell you, for you are not a monk”. The man is frustrated, but tries to go back to sleep. Still, he is kept awake by the sound, and is dying even more now to figure out what it is. In the morning, the man goes up to the monk, and says: “I need to figure out what the noise is, how do I become a monk?” The monk says “you must first travel around the world and count every blade of grass. Only once you have counted every blade of grass, can you become a monk. The man sets out, travels the world counting blades of grass. He covers every plain, every mountain, every hill, until he finally counts the last blade of grass. He travels back to the monastery, and tells the monk: “I have counted all 1 quadrillion, 985 trillion, 743 billion, 892 million, 41 thousand and 6 blades of grass, can I become a monk now? The monk says that is correct, but to become a monk you must first travel the world, and count every grain of sand on the earth. Only once you have done that can you become a monk” The man is so eager to figure out what the sound is, that he agrees. He sets out, goes to every beach, every dessert, every sand dune, and counts every grain of sand on the earth. He returns to the monk, and says: I have counted all “58 quintillion, 8 quadrillion, 247 trillion, 133 billion, 21 million, 607 thousand, 522 grains of sand, can I become a monk now? The monk says, that is correct, you can finally become a monk. The man is overjoyed, and he immediately follows the monk up to the room where he heard the sound, and figures out what was making it. 

“What was the sound?”

“I can’t tell you, because you’re not a monk”

Context: My informant is my younger brother who heard this story from one of his friends in highschool. His friend told him this story on a road trip as a way to pass the time. My brother says the idea of the story is to drag it out as long as the other person will take, usually adding quests the traveler must continue to complete, and stretching out the set up and conclusion. Then once the traveler finds the sound, you wait for the listener to ask what it was, then deliver the punchline. 

Analysis: I found this joke to be especially interesting because the funny part isn’t necessarily the punch line, but how the storyteller has essentially tricked the listener into sitting through a long story that is building up to a climax that is never delivered. Furthermore, the longer the story is continued, the more and more the climax of learning the sound is built up, to the point where no possible source for the sound could explain the traveler wanting so desperately to find it. But by using the punchline as a sort of anti-climax, it both preserves the sense of curiosity in the listener, and instills the same frustration that the traveler felt throughout the story.

Mid Autumn Festival

My informant usually celebrates this with family, and the date depends on the lunar calendar, but is typically in the autumn and is always the night of a full moon.

During this festival you typically gaze at and appreciate the moon and eat mooncakes. Mooncakes are typically sweet pastries but they can be savory with a variety of different fillings from date to a sweet nut paste to lotus paste and salted egg yolk.

This festival is celebrated because of a Chinese myth with many variations. The basic story is that a woman ended up drinking an immortality elixir that would have brought her to heaven, but her husband was still on earth. Because of this she chose to live on the moon instead so in the mid autumn festival, moon gazing is like how every year the husband would eat mooncakes and look for his wife on the moon. Due to this, the festival is generally a family activity.

The story itself can depend but in a few variations my informant is pretty sure that they were once gods, but the husband had to shoot down several suns (which were the children of the emperor of the sky) and as punishment the couple were turned into humans. However, they received the elixir at some point and wanted to split it to be together, but they had to wait until the full moon for the effect to work, but one month the husband was away and someone attacked the wife for the elixir so she drank it so the attacker wouldn’t get it.

This festival is based on a myth based on the cycles of the moon. Not only is the meaning based on the moon, but the food eaten is also moon based

Lunar New Year

My informant usually does not do as much as some other people may do on Lunar New Year because her parents are immigrants and the culture is not as strong here, but they typically have a large spread of different foods that are typically eaten during New Years and they eat together while watching the official Chinese broadcast of the Lunar New Year celebrations. They usually wear something red, as it is a lucky color and in old Chinese legends, it was one of the things that scared away a monster. Depending on the year, they might also have family friends over for a potluck.

My informant would celebrate on the lunar New Year’s Eve, the day of Lunar New Year, and the celebration lasts for 15 days after the first day. The 15th day is the lantern festival and she eat tangyuan for good fortune. In China, this celebration is a holiday so most people go home to celebrate. However, my friend lives in the United States, so they usually celebrate on their own, have friends come over and video call their extended family. They perform this because they believe it will bring their family good fortune over the next year. Each food item has special symbols, like fish being a homophone for a surplus or wealth, for good fortune as well as other things to “beckon” good fortune, health and general wishes for wellbeing in.

Such things include red outside the house. Firecrackers are also used because of an old myth that a monster kept attacking a village and the village realized they could use the color red and firecrackers to scare the monster away.

It appears that this tradition is widely practiced and based heavily on old myths and is adaptable even outside of the region that the tradition originated from. While the ritual may have changed as the United States does not have a holiday everywhere for Lunar New Year and they are further from their extended family, they found a way to celebrate and continue to complete this good fortune ritual and celebrate.

Candle Dancing

Whenever my informant’s Indonesian family members would visit, her mom would watch candle dancing with them. When asked about what a candle dance is, she replied that it is a graceful Indonesian dance where they would hold candles and it is a ritual they would do together whenever they met up.

She says that she herself had never seen a candle dance, but her mom would talk about it and how she thought it was the most beautiful thing growing up, and that her mom always looked forward to watching the dances.

This ritual appears to be something nostalgic and done more to remember and connect with an identity rather than something religious.

A Long Neck Means Good Fortune

My informant told me about how her grandmother said that if you have a very long neck, it is a sign that you will be successful. Her grandmother would tell this to her sister, who had a long neck. My informant does not believe in it however. Her grandmother had a lot of random proverbs, so even though she Is open to it, she doesn’t think of it as a law. My informant also told me that she did not have a long neck, and thus she was more inclined not to believe in the fortune her grandmother gave her sister.

It seems as if this proverb is the conclusion of a ritual of fortune telling her grandmother does. Whether it is believed or not seems irrelevant as the simple words boost the confidence of the individual with a long neck.