The Little Dog and the Panther

Nationality: Mexican-American
Age: 53
Occupation: Administrative Assistant
Residence: Bay Area, California
Performance Date: May 3rd, 2021
Primary Language: Spanish
Language: English

Main Piece: 

Un día un señor se decide ir al África a cazar animales. Entonces se lleva su perrito de estructura mediana, de común y corriente, no era conocido por ser bravo o atacar animales grandes. Entonces cuando llegan a la selva el señor se decide irse solo y dice, “Tu no me vas a poder ayudar ni a defender de los animales salvajes así que tu te quedas aquí.” Entonces se va el señor y de repente el perro empieza a buscar alrededor a ver que hay. Va caminando y desde a lo lejos viene una pantera negra. Y dice, “Esa pantera viene y seguro que trae hambre y me va querer comer.” Dice, “¿Qué hago, qué hago?” Entonces se dio la vuelta y al un lado del árbol había huesos de animal. Entonces corrió y se arrimó a los huesos y empezó a morderlos, y cuando se aproximó la pantera al momento que lo iba atacar, dice en voz alta el perro, “Mmm, que sabroso estaba esta pantera que me comí. Haber sabido me hubiera comido la otra que venía con ella. Mm mm deliciosa.”

Entonces la pantera cuando lo escucha le dice “¿Cómo este perro de ese tamaño– como pudo comerse uno de nosotros? Mejor me voy.” Y se fue. Entonces el perro dice, “Uy de lo que me salve.” Y encima de un árbol estaba un mono espiando, y que vio toda la escena y escucho todo lo que pasó. Entonces de chismoso, corrio con la pantera y le contó todo lo que escuchó del perro. Entonces la pantera muy enojada dice “Ahora si no se me va a escapar.” Entonces se viene la pantera hacia donde estaba el perrito con el mono trepado en su hombro y el perro los vio que venían y otra vez dice, “Ahora si viene la pantera derechito a comerme. Yo creo que no me creo nada.” Dice, “¿Qué hago que hago?” Entonces corrio otra vez a los huesos y los empezo a morder y se aproximaron la pantera y el mono y dijo, “Ay este mono tonto, ya tengo tanto tiempo esperandolo le pedi que me fuera a traer una pantera para comermela y no a regresado.” Entonces la pantera asustada y enojada se fue y se comió al mono. 

Full Translation: 

One day a man decided he was going to go to Africa to hunt animals, and he brought his little dog with him, who was medium build, a common mutt, and not known for his bravery or ability to attack large animals. So when they got to the jungle the man decided to go alone and told his dog, “You can’t help or defend me from wild animals, so you will wait here.” So the man goes, and then the dog searches around him to see what there was. He’s walking and all of a sudden, far off, he sees a black panther. And he says “this panther is coming and for sure will be hungry and will want to eat me.” he says, “What do I do what do I do?” So he turns around and on the side of the tree there are animal bones. So he runs and gets close to the bones and starts to bite them, and when the panther gets close and at the moment she’s about to attack, [the dog] says in a loud voice, “Mmm, how tasty this panther that I ate is! Had I known, I would’ve eaten the one coming near me. Mm mm, delicious!” 

So the panther when she heard that, said, “How could this dog so small have eaten one of us? I better go.” And she left. So the dog says, “Uy, I sure saved myself.” And above him in the tree was a monkey spying on him, and he saw the whole scene and heard what happened. So like a gossip, he runs to the panther and tells her everything that he heard from the dog. So the panther, very angry, says “Now he won’t escape me.” So the panther returns to where the little dog was with the monkey perched on her shoulder. And the dog saw them and again says, “For sure the panther is coming to eat me. I don’t think she believed me at all.” He says, “What do I do, what do I do?” So he runs again to the bones and begins to bite them, and the panther and monkey approach, and he said at that moment, “This dumb monkey, I’ve been waiting forever for him. I asked him to go and find me a panther to eat, and he hasn’t returned yet.” So then the panther, scared and angry, goes and eats the monkey. 

Background: 

My informant is my mother, who grew up in Mexico. She heard this narrative as a little girl when she was in school, and said that the lesson behind the story was to “not underestimate someone” or else it’ll backfire on you. It’s about using your imagination to your strengths, and learning how to use it to defend yourself, and finally “not being a gossip like the monkey.”

Context: 

This came up when I was asking my mother what kinds of folklore she used to hear when she was growing up in Mexico, and this was one that she heard at school. 

Thoughts: 

While this is a cautionary tale, I think another aspect of the story is to learn how to play to your different strengths. The dog is described as small and weak, and everyone underestimates him, including himself, until he realizes how to trick the panther. It’s about believing in your abilities and learning how to turn someone else’s maldoings towards you into something you can benefit from. That being said, I think this story was told to children on purpose because it seems reminiscent of how little kids can act around each other. Smaller kids are tended to be bullied the most, which leads to them being insecure, and children in general like to be tattle tales and spread rumors about each other. This story shows the consequences of what happens to those who unnecessarily snitch on each other, and to those who get picked on in school, gives them a hero (the little dog) to look up to and follow his example. 

The Three Brothers and the Pear Tree

Nationality: Mexican-American
Age: 53
Occupation: Administrative Assistant
Residence: Bay Area, California
Performance Date: May 3rd, 2021
Primary Language: Spanish
Language: English

Main Piece:

Tres hermanos que iban caminando por un campo llevaban ya varías horas de camino y traían mucha hambre, y mucha sed. Y todavía les faltaba para llegar a su casa. Entonces a lo lejo vieron un arbol de peras, con muchas peras. Entonces dice uno de los hermanos, “Ay vamos,” dice, “Ya veo un arbol de peras. Vamos a comerlas.” Y ya se fueron caminando. Entonces dijeron, “Vamos a acostarnos un rato.” Y entonces se acostaron y se empezaron a relajar, y los tres estaban mirando hacía arriba a esas peras tan grandes y tan jugosas. Y el hermano numero uno dijo, “Ay que bonitas peras.” Y el hermano numero dos dijo “Uy, quién las pudiera bajar?” Y el hermano numero tres dijo “Uy, quién las pudiera comer?” 

Full Translation: 

There are three brothers that were walking in a field, and had been walking for several hours and were very hungry and very thirsty, and they still had a ways to go before going home. So far off, they see a pear tree with lots of pears. One brother says, he says, “Ay, it’s a pear tree. Let’s go eat them.” And so they go walking to it. And then they said, “Well, let’s lie down for a little.” So they lie down and start relaxing, and they’re looking up at the pears, the very big pears, very juicy. And so the first brother says, “Ay what pretty pears,” and the second brother says, “Ooh, who could get them down?” And the third brother says, “Ooh, who could eat them?”

Background: 

My informant is my mother, who grew up in Mexico. This was a joke that she often heard from her father, who heard it from his father (my mother’s grandfather). When I asked her what the message behind the joke was, she said “the joke here is that all three are very very lazy. The first [brother] just admired them. The second asked who could get them down, and the third is so lazy he couldn’t even chew, that’s why he asked who could eat them.” My mother said that the moral lesson is that if you want something, you have to pursue it, and you can’t just let an opportunity sit in front of you without doing anything, which is what my grandfather always emphasized whenever he told her the joke.

Context: 

This came up when I was asking my mother what kinds of jokes she used to hear when she was growing up in Mexico, and this was one that was told frequently in her household. 

Thoughts: 

This is a joke that my mother occasionally told me when I was growing up, and I thought it was interesting to see how it’s been passed down through the generations in my family, although I’m not sure where it was first heard. I think this joke is a good way to teach the notion that laziness isn’t going to get you anywhere, and I liked that it set up three different levels of laziness. First there’s the brother that only admired the pears without, which could be seen as fantasizing over something you want. The second brother, instead of trying to pick the pear himself, wanted someone else to do the work for him, but still reap the reward, and the third brother was so lazy that he couldn’t even gather the motivation to pick the pears, much less eat them. This joke pokes fun at the characters’ foolishness, and each one could easily be compared to someone in real life who is exhibiting the same behavior as the brothers.

Timur and the Swimming Challenge — Turkish Joke

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Bay Area, California
Performance Date: April 30th, 2021
Primary Language: English
Language: Turkish

Main Piece:

But just there’s a guy [Timur], he’s another hero or something. And so this guy is again, think of it as a city— a modern city— and they live next to the beach. And so this guy is like, talking about how good he is at swimming and he’s like, “I’m such a good swimmer, I know so much about it.”

And then his friend next to him is like, “Alright, then go swim.” 

And they’re like okay, so they both go to the sea, and he starts swimming, and then his friend is like: 

“Hmm okay this guy can swim. Well, obviously I’m better than this guy.” So he’s like, “I can jump from a diving board into the pool. I know we’re at the sea but not only I can swim in a pool, but I can jump into it from a diving board.”

And so Timur is like, “Okay, let’s see you do it.” 

So [the friend] goes and jumps from a diving board, and [Timur’s] like:

“Well I can jump from a ten foot diving board.”

And he’s like alright— well his friend— is like, “Well go do it.” 

So [Timur] goes up ten feet, goes to the board, he jumps and he successfully lands! 

And [his friend] like, “What the fuck, what’s going on? How?!” And then he’s like: “Okay well guess what, Timur? I can jump from a two story building, and I’ll be just fine!” 

And Timur looks at him and he’s like, “Go do it, dude.” 

And [his friend]’s like, “Alright.”

So he goes up and he goes to the two story building. He’s looking down, and he’s like, “Alright, I’m gonna do this.” And he jumps… and he makes it! He’s perfectly fine. 

And Timur’s like “Huh? That’s B.S! I don’t know what happened there!” 

And he goes to his friend and he’s like, all mad and he’s like, “I don’t understand this. I can jump into a freaking wine bottle from twenty feet high!”

And his friend’s like, he just stands there for a second, and he’s like, “Do it.” 

And [Timur’s] like “Fine!” So he goes up twenty feet and getting ready and into position, and he jumps! And his friend is furiously looking at him, and as he’s jumping down, he looks at the bottle and he says, “I hope you freaking die!” And he kicks the bottle!

Background: 

My informant is one of my friends from high school, and is of Turkish heritage. Growing up, he often remembered hearing various Turkish sayings and narrative stories from his parents and extended family. This is another popular character he heard about, a guy named Timur, although my informant notes that Timur isn’t actually Turkish, yet he still appears in the stories and jokes. This was another of my informant’s favorite Turkish joke stories, and when I asked him what the lesson was, he said the point is to not be gullible like Timur, and not to be arrogant, or it’ll have negative consequences. 

Context: 

This came after my informant gave me another piece of folklore for the archive, and I asked if he had any other jokes, because I really enjoyed the first one he gave me, to which he then provided the above piece.

Thoughts: 

What I liked about this piece is that we once again see the way that humor is being used as a way to teach lessons to anyone listening to the story. The increasing absurdity of the challenges between Timur and his friend serve as a way to exaggerate the way that people in real life tend to try and make themselves seem bigger than they are, all out of arrogance and a need to be the best at everything. At the same time, it’s a lesson in learning how to be modest; if Timur hadn’t bragged about his swimming skills, he wouldn’t have met his unfortunate end, and his friend wouldn’t have turned on him. I think it was clever to see that these lessons were taught by heightening the comedic scenarios, because it makes us reflect on what we know is real and what’s not.  Additionally, the telling of this story— or at least the way my informant told me— shows that this joke can be rephrased in order to appeal to different kinds of audiences without losing the meaning of the lesson.

Nasrettin and the Villager — Turkish Joke

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Bay Area, California
Performance Date: April 30th, 2021
Primary Language: English
Language: Turkish

Main Piece: 

So there are a couple stories and jokes about [Nasrettin] and his interactions with others, so one of them is one villager comes to this teacher and he’s like, “I hate my house, it’s so tiny I can barely sleep. I don’t have enough room to go to my kitchen, it’s like next to my toilet— whatever.”

And so [Nasrettin]’s like, “Alright, well don’t you have a barn?”

And he’s like, “Yeah I have a barn.” 

And then he’s like, “Alright, take your chickens. Put them in your house, it’s gonna get better.”

So [the villager] takes his chickens and puts them in the house, and he comes back the next day and is like: “This is worse what’re you talking about?”

And [Nasretting] says, “Keep going. Don’t you have goats?” 

“Yeah I have goats.”

“Okay. Put them in the house.” 

[The villager]’s like, “Alright, fine.”

So he goes through the barn and he takes the goats, and puts them in the house. So now he has chickens and goats, and the next day he’s even more infuriated and he’s like: 

“Yo, what is this? It’s terrible, I hate my life!”

And then [Nasrettin]’s like:

“Alright, now take your cows and put them in your house.” So [the villager] takes his cows and he puts them in the house and he’s like, 

“I can’t even get in anymore!”

And [Nasrettin] says, “Alright, you feel all this crap?” 

“Yes, I do.” 

“Now, take [the animals] all out.” And [the villager] takes them all out. And then he says, “Now just go and enjoy your home.”

And the guy goes, “Oh my God, there’s so much space now!” 

And that’s the joke.

Background: 

My informant is one of my friends from high school, and is of Turkish heritage. Growing up, he often remembered hearing various Turkish sayings and narrative stories from his parents and extended family. This one features a popular character, a wise village teacher named Nasrettin. When asked about the lesson behind the joke, my informant responded, “the idea behind that is you won’t understand what you have until you lose it, so in this case the villager doesn’t understand that his house is actually not as bad as he thought once he literally had no space to go inside.”

Context: 

This piece came up when I was asking my informant about what kind of Turkish folklore he knew. I initially asked if he knew any proverbs, but he said that in his experience, Turkish culture had a lot of jokes in narrative form, and provided me with this one, which is one of his favorites to tell. 

Thoughts: 

Apart from being genuinely hilarious, I liked how this joke had both a narrative, and a lesson to be learned at the end. With jokes, I usually thought that they were only supposed to be entertaining at the expense of someone else without providing a lesson, but that’s not the case with this one. Based on what my friend told me about knowing more jokes than proverbs, I think it’s interesting to see how humor in his culture (or at least in his experience) is used as a tool for fun and for education. For younger audiences like kids, this narrative has a moral lesson at the end, but for older generations, I think it makes them more aware of how important it is to be grateful for what they have, lest they want to be turned into the butt of a joke. Furthermore, the way that embarrassment through humor can be used to condition peoples’ behavior is fascinating, because in many cases, it can be more effective than other methods because it relies on the impressions you make on those in your peer group, which can either lead you to be accepted by them, or ostracized. Lastly, while I haven’t heard anyone else tell this joke, I liked how we can tell that it’s being performed by someone from a younger generation, based on the slang that my informant used in his telling. It makes me wonder how an older person in the same cultural group would tell it, and in what kind of language. 

Ne Ekersen, Onu Bicersin — Turkish Proverb

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Bay Area, California
Performance Date: April 30th, 2021
Primary Language: English
Language: Turkish

Main Piece: 

Ne ekersen, onu bicersin.

Transliteration: 

Whatever you plant, you grow it.

Full Translation: 

It means like whatever you plant— [a friend] explained it better — it’s like whatever you plant, that’s gonna grow. So if you start a relationship bad, then you’re gonna end up with a bad relationship, or if you start a relationship good, you’ll have a good one in the long run. 

Background: 

My informant is one of my friends from high school, and is of Turkish heritage. Growing up, he often remembered hearing various Turkish sayings and narrative stories from his parents and extended family. When I asked him what he thought the meaning of this proverb was, he said that the “idea is being nice to others because they’re gonna treat you the same way.”

Context: 

This piece came up when I was asking my informant about what kind of Turkish folklore he knew. Coincidentally, us and some other friends were talking about a similar variation of the proverb a few days over, so this gave him the opportunity to share the version he’d grown up hearing in his family. 

Thoughts: 

The version of this proverb that my friends and I were discussing the other day was “you reap what you sow,” but it was still interesting to hear another variation of the same saying, and even more that it still kept to the symbolism around gardening and farm work. However, I think that this Turkish proverb had a different context than the other version I know about. The way I heard it, the context for “reaping what you sow” had to do with situational conflict— a scenario that was a consequence of the person’s own actions. Here though, we see that the conflict has to do with a person’s relationship to someone else, and I think it’s important to note how the meaning changes with the context. In the version I heard, I interpreted the proverb as a warning against being irresponsible and neglecting your responsibilities. The way my friend described his version though, it seems that the lesson here places a responsibility on having cordial relationships with others, and being considerate of how first impressions can affect your bond with someone going forward. Without having asked, I’m not sure if which values this reflects in Turkish culture, but it’s still interesting to examine how proverbs and their meanings can differ slightly based on the interpretations of different people.