Text: “Don’t watch the mule go blind, load the wagon.”
Context: K is a 21 year old junior at USC. He is from Palmdale, CA and is majoring in Computer Science.
He says he’s never really used this proverb, but that it came to mind when asked if he knew any. He also noted that he remembered it because he found it funny.
This is one his grandpa used to say, and he warned me before telling me that it “wasn’t very cultural” – he seemed to expect that it should be because it came from his grandpa.
Interpretation: When asked what he thought the proverb meant, K simply said “stop wasting time doing stupid things,” to “just do the work.” The implication of the proverb is that you would rather sit and watch a mule go blind rather than do necessary work. Upon further thought, the proverb seems to also mean that you shouldn’t worry about things you cannot control when preparing for something, to just do what you can. It’s also relevant that this proverb was told to him by his grandfather, as it falls into the apparent trend that proverbs are for older people. This one in particular seems like a kind of warning from someone further in life to someone who still has a lot of time – to not waste that time on things that are either meaningless or out of our control and to instead focus on the task at hand.
CONTEXT: HL is a second year student at USC, originally from Maryland. HL learned this practice from her grandparents, who she lived with until moving to Los Angeles. HL’s grandparents are both from Korea, which is where they learned this practice. HL’s relationship with this is that she does not believe it had any effect on her health and strength, but appreciates that her grandparents wanted that for her.
TEXT:
HL: So for some reason – in Korean culture – my grandparents would always have one of their siblings visit Korea and come back, and when they came back the would bring this syrup/juice thing that was made up of crushed up deer bones or some kind of big animal. It was the most bitter disgusting thing I had ever eaten in my entire life and I always knew when they opened the big red box that it was in there. So then I would have to drink this pouch of the crushed up bone juice, and they were like, “oh its so that you grow up to be healthy and strong” and stuff. So it’s a common East Asian herbal medicine thing. Yeah that was a tradition I grew up with. It would happen once or twice a year – whenever someone would go to Korea on vacation and come back. Probably from when I was about four to when I was ten. They prioritize it more for kids, and you can find these boxes with the pouches in HMART, like here I’ve seen them. They’re hidden away in a special area on a special shelf near the alcohol section. They’re like 100 or 200 dollars for a box of these pouches. I thought it was bullshit but I did it because they forced me too, or sometimes if I did it they would give me money. To specify, the pouches were actually red ginseng, other root things, and deer antlers, but I swear my grandpa told me it was bones.
ANALYSIS: This is an example of folk medicine, also related to life cycle, as it is primarily given to children. Red ginseng is native to Korea, as are deer, so both could be part of folk traditions going back many years. I do not know of the health benefits of either, but as with other folk medicine there could be medical benefits derived from them. HL said the mixture did not taste good, which can invoke a feeling that if it doesn’t taste good, but someone is drinking it anyway, then it must have some other benefit, such as health. It is a marker of life cycle, as HL said that this is mostly only done until 18. This folk medicine practice also serves as a way of passing down family practices and cultural heritage related to being Korean, as HL’s grandparents insisted she participate, which connects her to something they learned while growing up in Korea, while she was growing up in the US.
కానీ (pronounced Kaani) is the Telugu word that literally translates to “but,” however, the Informant said that the word takes on an extended meaning in her family. When she was little, the Informant and her little brother would often stay at their grandparents and, in typical sibling fashion, they fought a lot. Whenever the two were caught fighting, their grandparents would shout “Kaani!” which, to them, means “let it be.”
The fluidity of language is fascinating. We spent so much time in education simply learning the rules of language only to spend our entire lives blatantly ignoring them, bastardizing spelling and grammar. A language is supposed to be a shared method of communication, but I wonder if another Telugu speaker would understand this altered meaning of Telugu until told by the Informant. This is seemingly a folk definition.
Informant “J” is a 19 year male old college student at the University of Southern California, he is studying Neuroscience and is a Sophomore at the time of this interview. He was born in Danville, California to a Jewish father and as a result J has regular exposure to Jewish traditions and customs. Though he does involve himself with Jewish traditions, he does not practice Judaism and considers himself non-religious.
“J: One thing my family and I like to do during our Passover Seders is that we have this, at the end of the Seder, we have this dinner and we all like to sing our own song which is called “The Fishman Seder” song, I don’t know exactly how it goes, because we have always had the sheet but it started…
“Wouldn’t it be greater than to be at Fishman Seder, or a Fishman Seder on Meeesssaaa ” (audio attached)
J: And it’s really fun and we’d pound the table and everything and it’s just something that we’d do after every single Seder dinner, which we like to have a lot of our, a lot of our kind of traditions, based on a kind of Jewish Holidays. Granted we tend to go off of my Mom’s religion, we tend to go off Protestant, but a lot of the things we do as families we do during Hanukkah or Passover.
…
Me: Alright… um, the Fishman song, do your Grandparents, or do any other previous generations sing that, or did you guys originate that?
J: So I think it was actually my Grandparents who came up with it, beacuse the first time we sung it, it was with our Grandparents and they pulled out a piece of paper and they said “we came up with this new song”. They came up with it with my uncle and aunt as well. They all liked it so they were the first Fishman to sing the song.
Me: How long ago was that?
J: I don’t know, before I was born I know.
Me: Do you guys sing it when your Grandparents aren’t around?
J: No it’s sort of only when we’re all together, not unless they’re at Seder with us.”
Analysis:
Although “J” informs me that the tune is a familiar one and not a Fishman original, I am not sure of the origin of the song. I welcome anyone with any idea where the tune might be from (from the audio clip above) to comment on this posting. The Fishman Seder song seems to act as a celebration of the family as a whole, and acts as a way to celebrate being part of the Fishman family (“…be greater than to be at Fishman Seder”) as well as their coming together. The family working to build the tune together, as “J” mentions happened before he was born, as well as the families continued insistence to sing the song during Jewish Seder supports this conclusion. As Seder is a Jewish Passover tradition, and as the family is unified during this event, it can help to both reinforce their Jewish identity and its connection to their shared experience as a Family.
As the event is sung at the end of Seder, it may also act to transition from one Passover event to another, or to transition into the end of the evening. Either way the event seems to act to transition during a liminal period of the event while also reinforcing the sense of community the Seder dinner builds, as if to sort of epitomize the event they are concluding.
