Tag Archives: Joke

Butthole Hair (Korean Joke)

Nationality: Korean
Age: 50
Occupation: Business Owner
Residence: Texas
Performance Date: ~2003
Primary Language: Korean
Language: English

Background Info/Context:

Both my mom and dad would tell me this silly Korean expression, that I truly believed as a child, whenever I would cry and then start laughing. They used this phrase to make me laugh harder after crying, most likely to help me feel better or to just poke fun at me. They used to say it in a sing-song manner, implying that this is something that people would say to each other as a joke. This is a saying that my parents’ friends used to say to each other as kids.

 

Piece:

Korean:

울다가 웃음은 똥꼬에 털난다!

 

English Transcription:

Ool da ga oos uhm myun ddong go aye tul naan dah!

 

Transliteration:

Cry and then laugh then butthole hair grow!

 

Translation:

“If you cry and laugh, your butthole will grow hair!”

 

Thoughts:

This little saying is probably not true, but I think that it can be interpreted as more than a joke. Even though this phrase is usually told in a playful way, it has some serious implications in its underlying meaning. It seems like a light-hearted way of telling someone that they should not be so fickle about how they feel. Crying and laughing can be considered opposites to each other, as crying implies sadness, while laughing implies happiness. So at the most basic level, it does not really make sense for those reactions to occur one after the other. Growing butthole hair could be viewed as a “punishment” or a repercussion to having almost “bipolar” reactions. 

Eating While Laying Down

Nationality: Korean
Age: 50
Occupation: Business Owner
Residence: Texas
Performance Date: 2008
Primary Language: Korean
Language: English

Background Info/Context:

As a child, I liked to eat snacks or meals while laying down, whether it be my parents’ bed or on the floor in front of the TV. My dad used to scold me, saying that it was bad for my digestion, but I never felt sick or nauseous. I had seen him do it a lot, so why would it be bad if I did it too? So he told me this Korean saying to try to prevent me from further eating while laying down.

 

 

Piece:

누어서 밥먹으면 소된다

 

Transcription:

Noo uh suh bap mug uhmyun soh doen dah.

 

Transliteration:

Lay down while eating cow become.

 

Translation:

“If you eat while laying down you’re gonna turn into a cow!”

 

 

Thoughts:

My dad probably said this to scare me into doing as he asked, and to prevent me from developing bad habits. Even though I never truly believed it, I did stop eating while laying down, just in case. I think this saying functions in a similar way to the belief of “If you eat the seeds of a watermelon, a watermelon will start growing inside you!” Although it’s not true, and there isn’t a real punishment for eating while laying down or eating watermelon seeds, they both seem to be things that people tell children to see if they are gullible or not.

 

Newton’s Law “Dad” Joke

Nationality: American
Age: College age
Occupation: Student/Athlete
Residence: Los Angeles
Primary Language: English

KO: Ok uh, do you know what Newton’s Law is?

VG: Yes.

KO: Do you know what cole’s law is?

VG: No.

KO: You don’t know what thinly sliced cabbage is?

 

Background:

Location of riddle: N/A

Location of Performance – Classroom, Los Angeles, CA, late morning

 

Context: This performance was done in a group of 3-4 people after a class in response to a question about potential high school traditions, festivals, jokes, or riddles. KO was the first among the students to offer this joke as performance. KO and I are classmates.

 

Analysis: After my initial recording, KO classified the joke as a “dad joke,” which prompted many others. Therefore, it is apparent that this is a popular genre because everyone was commenting on the tradition of dad jokes and even had a collection of these themselves. I wish I would have questioned KO about how she discovered this joke and the genre of dad jokes as a whole because I am curious to see if these are actually jokes that are sourced from fathers or father figures. My assumption is that this genre rose out of children utilizing these jokes to critique their parental figures and practice rebellion in a relatively harmless way. 

 

“America versus Yogurt” Joke

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Philadelphia, PA
Performance Date: April 19, 2019
Primary Language: English

Context: The informant is a 19-year-old student from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and he is currently an Art History major at USC. I asked him if his family is one that passes around a lot of jokes, to which he immediately replied, “Oh yeah. My family is really into humor and comedy.” I asked him if he could tell me a joke that a family member tells often. He said, “Here’s one that my dad says like all the time, especially to foreigners, and especially when we’re in another country.”

Piece: Q: “What’s the difference between America and a cup of yogurt?”

A: “If you leave the yogurt alone for long enough, it’ll eventually develop a culture.”

Analysis: This joke is a variation of the common “What’s the difference between…” joke format. A pun on the word “culture” is used to deliver the punchline as the word refers to both bacteria cultures and human culture. This piece is playing off of the common stereotype, or blason populaire, that Americans have no culture. This is a viewpoint that a large number of foreigners, and few Americans themselves, hold against the country, as many think that Americans are lazy, entitled, greedy, and gluttonous. We certainly do live in a society that glorifies excess; however, many would argue that the culture of America is one of the richest in the world since the country is a melting pot of many different cultures, ethnicities, nationalities, races, and religions. This stereotype may have also stemmed, in part, from the fact that the country is relatively new compared to many of the world’s other nations and quite separated from a large part of the Earth.

“A frog walks into a bank” Joke

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Montclair, NJ
Performance Date: April 20, 2019
Primary Language: English

Context: I asked the 20-year-old informant from New Jersey if there were any jokes, pranks, or games that hold a certain significance in his family. He told me that there was one joke that his grandfather always tells at family gatherings. The joke is especially told if there is a guest at the gathering who has never heard it before. The informant also mentioned that in recent years, he and his father have started to recite the joke more and more.

Piece: “So, one Tuesday afternoon, a frog walks into the local bank to take out a loan. He walks up to the bank teller, her name is Mrs. Patty Whack. Frog sees her nametag and says, ‘Hi Mrs. Whack. I would like to take out a loan today.’ And Mrs. Whack is thrown off because, you know, usually humans are the ones who take out loans, not frogs. So Mrs. Whack says, ‘Umm…This is peculiar, but, you know what, you’re talking, so let’s just get this over with. If you want a loan, you must really be something. So, tell me about yourself. What’s your name? What’s your background?’ The frog responded, ‘Well, my name is Jerry and actually, you wouldn’t believe this, but my father is Mick Jagger.’ And Mrs. Whack says, “Oh! Well I guess he’s kind of got a froggy face, so it makes sense that he would, like, carry over to you. Maybe he’s a frog himself.’ And Jerry says, “Oh no. Don’t say that about my dad. That’s not a nice thing to say about him.’ And then Mrs. Whack says, ‘I’m so sorry. Well, let’s see. Can I have some form of collateral for this loan?’ And Jerry takes out a little pink elephant, a special elephant, and he says, “Hey, you know, this is kind of ironic. Elephants are usually larger than frogs, but here I am with like a really tiny elephant in my hand.’ Mrs. Whack chuckles and says, ‘Ok, haha! Let me take this. It’s not the greatest collateral, but I’ll take it. And let me speak to my manager in the back.’ So she goes to the back of the room, and she says to the manager, ‘You know, I’ve got this frog who wants to take out a loan. And for collateral, all he has given me is this like little pink porcelain elephant. Do you know anything about this little pink elephant? Is it valuable or whatever?’

And the manager says to her, ‘It’s a knick-knack, Patty Whack. Give the frog a loan. His old man is a Rolling Stone.’

Analysis: Upon hearing this joke, I immediately recognized a connection to another subgenre of jokes: “A blank walks in a bar…” jokes. These types of jokes also often have an anthropomorphized animal as the main subject. It’s often a horse or a duck, and, in certain examples, I have also seen people use a frog as a subject of the joke. Those jokes often usually begin with a confused bartender asking the animal how they are able to walk and talk or why they have even come to the bar. The punchline of this particular joke is a play on a well-known line from a popular British nursery rhyme, “The Old Man.” In this nursery rhyme, the most famous line is, “With a knick knack paddy whack, give a dog a bone. This old man is a rolling stone.”