Tag Archives: frog

The Frog in the Well

CK: “So there’s a lot of folklore and children’s stories that I read when my mom was teaching me mandarin at home. There’s one that I like a lot and it’s pretty well known, like I feel like all Chinese people know it, it’s called: The Frog in the Well / The Frog at the Bottom of the Well. From what I remember, basically, there’s this frog and he lives a content life at the bottom of a well. He has company (fish and whatnot) and food and whatever you need to be comfortable. One day a turtle comes by the well and tells the frog that he should come out of the well and the frog is like ‘why would I do that lol my life is awesome and I have everything here I need, I have a beautiful view of the whole sky!’ 

Eventually, he’s convinced to hop out of the well and once he does he sees how vast the sky actually is. He realizes how much of the world he doesn’t know about and how much he hasn’t experienced. Yeah, moral of the story is about being open-minded, venturing out of your comfort zone, in general broadening your worldview, making the effort to learn, and discovering opportunities. 

There’s some idioms that come from it.  

井底之蛙 – jǐng dǐ zhī wā – “frog at bottom of well,” you might call someone this if they are close-minded

坐井观天 -zuò jǐng guān tiān – “gazing/looking at the sky while sitting in a well,” same use case as first one but the act of being close-minded

Oh, and a lot of Chinese idioms are 4 characters it’s like a whole thing.””

context: The informant is a Game designer who studied at USC and recently graduated as of 2025. She is a first generation Chinese American and grew up with a lot of Chinese traditions. Her family is from Southern China, and her parents put a lot of effort into teaching her about her culture’s food, language, rituals, etc.

Analysis: Looking at this children’s folktale through a functionalist lens, its meant to enforce a moral function within children. Its advice on how to go about life, and a warning to avoid being close minded. It also pushes children to get out of their comfort zone in order to gain new life experiences. This is further pushed through the multiple proverbs and idioms that come from this specific tale. the phrase “Frog at the Bottom of the Well” is also esoteric language between Chinese people, since they know the meaning behind the phrase due to most Chinese children growing up hearing this story.

Finer than a frog hair split four ways

Age: 19

Text: Finer than a frog hair split four ways

Context: My informant said she heard this saying in rural Texas. She had asked a stranger how they were doing to which they responded “Honey, I’m finer than a frog hair split four ways.” She remembers the person being very upbeat and happy, and they seemed to be having a great day. My informant is from Austin, TX, and claims that she has never heard this saying other than this one time. 

Analysis: I am from Texas myself and have noticed that many Southerners, especially people from the rural south, use many sayings that add emphasis to their speech and attempt to capture the extent to which they mean what they are saying through exaggeration. Not only was this person fine, but they were finer than a frog hair split four ways. My initial reaction to hearing this saying was wondering “Do frogs even have hair?” A quick Google search has confirmed that frogs do not have hair. The comparison of how fine someone is to something so physically fine that it doesn’t even exist is a humorous, nonsensical way of suggesting that the person must be doing extremely fine. This saying exaggerates this even further by splitting the nonexistent thing into four different parts.

Frog in a Blender

Nationality: American
Age: 52
Occupation: Clerical
Language: English

Joke: “What’s green and red and green and red and green and red?” Answer: “A frog in a blender”

“So back around middle school age, when children are most obnoxious, there was a series of jokes going around. The one I remember is ‘What’s green and red and green and red and green and red?” 

“ A frog in a blender” 

There was also other ones where I do not remember what the colors were, but it was the same format, you know, red and some other color. One of them was a dead baby in a blender, um, and some other things in a blender. But the frog’s the one I remember.

Analysis: An example of gross humor, this joke follows the format of a question that could be a riddle and searching for a sincere answer. It subverts that by the next line as the teller reveals the answer is a frog in a blender, and that the red is of its blood. Interestingly, this joke uses some common tools- namely repetition and the rule of threes- to make its point. In the script, the informant remembers three repetitions of “green and red”, both mimicking the bits of frog circling around a blender and creating more interest for the joke. Not only is it green and red, it repeats in a seemingly alternating pattern. The informant also recognizes that this would often be told in a series of similar jokes with varying punchlines, likely meant to trip the individual up on the first few repetitions but then quickly becoming formulaic. In this, it would likely lose its shock or humor to the individual. This may explain why, as the informant says, this joke ‘went around’ in a wave; people started hearing it, telling it, and stopped telling it among their age group as their peers already knew the answers.

Green Frog

Nationality: American
Age: 18
Occupation: USC Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 2/21/23
Primary Language: English
Language: Korean

Text:

Original script: 청개구리

Roman script: chung-geh-goo-ri

Transliteration: Green frog

Full translation (according to performer): Expressing your frustration by calling someone a contrarian

Context:

This saying is inspired by a Korean folktale that explains why frogs croak when it rains. A disobedient frog regrets how burdensome he was when his mother dies. To finally follow her wishes, he buries her near the riverside and cries out for her in fears that she’ll be swept away. In a less tragic light, CL says that her mother often recites this to her when she “didn’t do what she asked for certain things.” An example CL provides is when she pulled an all nighter instead of sleeping, even though her mother advised her to rest. As usual, her mother was proven correct when CL “complained about feeling like I did bad on the test the next day.” Thus, CL’s mother said “청개구리” to express her frustration.

Analysis:

Minor genres can act as forms of discipline or advice. By taking from culturally significant knowledge, the dite holds extra weight than if it were a stand alone saying. Almost like an “I told you so,” certain sayings can reflect broader knowledge that exists outside intimate relationships. A mother’s advice appears much grander when it is connected to a cultural tale or traditional story–the saying exceeds her and carries the weight of the “wisdom of the masses.” The saying universalizes personal experiences, thus considering disobedience an expected aspect of child development. Folklore doesn’t necessarily illustrate how to live life–it can also be used to discourage behavior and tell a cautionary tale. Thus, this saying is applicable to a multitude of situations: its moral and disciplinary motive can be used for various situations of disobedience or hypocrisy. Furthermore, it reinstates the mother-child dynamic and confirms the mother’s superior level of experience and life knowledge. However, the tale that inspires this imposes restrictions as to who can be the performer and who can be the audience: it can only be told from a mother to a child, not vice versa. Otherwise, the moral implications would fall short. Motherhood is prevalent in various forms of folklore–symbols, characters, and metaphors immortalize the mother-child bond. Even when their relationship appears ruptured, mother and child are eternally united through folklore.

North Dakotan German-Russian Proverb

Text

“You can’t pull hair from a frog”

Context

The country of Germany as we now know it is of course a relatively modern sovereign state. Prior to the unification of the German states in the late 19th century, Germany existed as a myriad of different “mini-states” all with their own governing bodies and economic models. Unfortunately, this led to many Germans becoming demoralized due to religious, economic, and political hardships, and many emigrated to Russia in the 18th and 19th century. To make try and make the historical background as succinct as possible, many of these Germans living in Russia were eventually forced to leave Russia, with many settling in the northern plains of the United States.

This was the case for my ancestors on my mom’s side of the family, with my great-great grandparents settling in North Dakota. In North Dakota, there’s a heavy concentration of German-Russians living within the state, who through a combination of their prior ethnic and national heritage, as well as an amalgamation of their new American life created a unique culture and folklore.

According to my informant, she first heard this proverb uttered by her siblings, but also occasionally heard it from other family members including her mother and aunt. This particular proverb is one my informant says she rarely uses personally, but still hears every once in a while when with friends or family members. Her analysis of the proverb is basically that one shouldn’t waste time bothering themselves with fruitless tasks. Like the proverb implies, there’s no hair on an amphibian creature like a frog, and thus one’s only wasting their time trying to “pull hair” from one. My informant said she often heard this proverb being by family members in regards to other persons. If a person was being difficult or steadfast in a particular view or belief, it was often said that “well, there’s no use pulling hair from a frog” or “you can’t pull hair from a frog.”

My Analysis

My analysis of this proverb mirrors my informant’s. There are times when it’s simply impossible to get through to another person. While it would be nice for everybody to see things through one’s own personal perspective, that’s not always possible, and thus as the proverb goes “you can’t pull hair from a frog.” The wording of this proverb is similar to other German-Russian North Dakotan proverbs in its relative uniqueness and bizarreness, both in terms of the subjects of the proverb (frogs and hair) as well as the sentence structuring of the proverb itself.