Even Monkeys Can Fall from Trees

Original Phrase: 원숭이도 나무에서 떨어진다
Translation: Even monkeys can fall from trees.

K is a Korean American whose parents are of Korean ancestry. He is currently in college. He says that he had heard this proverb from his parents. This piece is memorable to him because he tries to take this message to heart when it comes to doing anything.

Context: This proverb came up in a discussion about proverbs. There was a back and forth between interesting proverbs and what they meant before this piece came up.

This proverb is very similar to other childhood proverbs in that it uses animals to teach children an important lesson in life. This lesson is that even the best, most specialized people can still fail. So do not be over confident. This is because monkeys are typically seen as adapted to living in trees. They spend all their time swinging from tree to tree, often looking like there isn’t a care in the world. In reality, however, these monkeys will still miss and fall from the tree. This message is pretty important to children as it teaches them to be humble about their skills. If you become arrogant and comfortable with your skills without being sufficiently cautious, you can still fail.

Tiger and the Persimmon

Text: A long time ago, a widowed mother and child lived alone in the mountain forest. At night, the baby would not stop crying. SO, the tiger that lives in the mountain comes out at night to look for food. He heard the baby crying and made his way to where the family lives. The mom could not stop the baby from crying, and the tiger saw that there was a mother and child in the house and wanted to eat them. The mom said.” If you don’t stop crying, I will give you the persimmon. The persimmon is dry and unpleasant. The tiger hears this and thinks the persimmon must be very scary because it stopped the baby from crying. But he does not know what a persimmon is. And the tiger ran away. And the baby stopped crying.

Background: K is a Korean American whose parents are of Korean ancestry. He is currently in college. He says that he had heard this proverb from his parents. This piece is memorable to him because his mother would tell him this story at night before bed.

Context: This tale came up during an interview regarding Korean folklore. This was told in English for ease of understanding.

This tale is used as a bed time story. As such, it is primarily targeted towards children. There could be many ways to interpret the message of this tale. If you look at it through the tiger’s point of view, the lesson of this story is to try to confirm something and not go solely off of rumors. In that the tiger of this tale came over to the house and was close to eating the family but was scared off by rumors of stuff that it did not fully comprehend. If it had individually assessed the situation, it would have walked away with a decent meal. If you look at the perspective of the mother, the moral of the tale could be that the protecting the child is very important and sometimes one must do stuff they don’t like to protect their family. But the moral takes a drastic turn if you look at the child’s point of view. In his point of view, the message is that you should not make much noise at night lest you attract the attention of a tiger or other scary creature.

Aso Ebi

The Aso Ebi is a cultural cloth that is worn during certain marriage events. In Nigerian customs, there are two weddings. The first is a religious wedding full of religious traditions. After that wedding is the cultural wedding, where the bride has her own unique dress, the Aso Ebi. The bridesmaids all wear a unique other dress with a different style to the bride. In each tribe, the Aso Ebi is different. The Ebo tribe uses coral with their Aso Ebi.

O is a culturally Nigerian African American woman whose mother knows a lot about Nigerian culture. She had learned this ritual from her mother as well as individual research

Context: This item came up during a discussion about Nigerian culture. This was memorable to her because she loved the styles of these dresses and was very interested in finding more about them herself.

What strikes me as very interesting his how the Nigerian wedding is structured, in that there is much room for individuality and customization. It also fits with many different religions. The two separate weddings allows the couple to celebrate their wedding without angering either the historical customs nor the religious peoples. It can be a form of adaptation against colonization, as the colonizers would have a vetted interest against cultural practices. The diversity of dresses also allows for different tribes to have their own twist to the tradition while still making it distinctly Nigerian.

Hiccups

Having the hiccups means that someone is thinking about you.

G is an Indian American whose family has strong cultural ties with India. This is memorable to him because his family would often talk about this with him.

Context: This practice came up during an interview about Indian cultural norms and practices.

The idea that if someone is talking about you, there will be a response in your body is a fairly common idea throughout Asia. In Japan and China, if someone is talking about you, you would sneeze in response.

Chinese New Year Practices

During the Chinese Lunar New Year, one must keep all of the lights within the house on. This is for wealth and good luck. Also one eats spring dumplings, dumplings without meat. Red signs wishing good luck and prosperity are hung around the house.

C is an older Chinese immigrant who migrated to the US over 20 years ago. She still has very close contact with relatives in China and regularly participates in Chinese cultural practices.

Context: I interviewed C about Chinese cultural customs and beliefs.

I find this interesting because of the level of detail that goes into a new years celebration. Typically in American tradition, New Years is celebrated with watching a clock tick to the New Year. This is different to the Chinese New Year celebration in that there is more meanings to the events that occur in the Chinese New Year as well as a stronger emphasis on prosperity and wealth. The popular saying, 恭喜發財, “Gong Xi Fa Cai” Or “Wish you prosperity and wealth” actively wishes the person wealth. Overall, wealth is a strong goal in Chinese culture, where everyone’s goal is to become wealthy. Wealth as a goal is not seen as inherently greedy, more of something to attain through diligence, not ruthlessness.

For another version of Chinese New Year, see:
Lin, G. (2013). Bringing in the New Year. Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc.