Text: Here’s a performance describing the folk proverb “Keep your door open slightly.”
Interviewer: Are there any family sayings that have been passed down or that you’ve heard?
Interviewee: Yeah, so my parents would always say growing up 门开紧, in Shanghainese that roughly translates into “Keep your door open only slightly” or “Only open your door just a little bit” and I think the closest equivalent to that in English is, like, “Keep a tight circle” or, like, “People don’t have to know everything about, like, your life.”
Context:
This excerpt is from a conversation with a college student studying Biology after a MMA (mixed-martial arts) practice. The student was raised in Walnut, California and has parents that are both Chinese immigrants. According to the interviewee, the proverb was used when his family was trying to communicate to him growing up that “you [should] keep to yourself and, um, like ‘Mind your own business’. It’s almost like you’ll stay on the straight path and people, like, can’t really like mess your life up.”
Analysis:
This proverb exemplifies family in-group and out-group wisdom. The folk speech effectively communicates that amongst people that are not within the family, you should not share too much personal information. This protects the family unit, and solidifies that unit in contrast to relationships with those outside of it. Also, when the interviewee tried to describe the saying, and express it in English, the interviewee used many folk expressions to try to relay the meaning, such as “stay on the straight path” and “mind your own business”. This explanation is interesting in that folk speech holds vernacular authority, so in order to translate the vernacular authority of a folk expression, the use of another folk expression is extremely useful. This pairing also illustrates how the same piece of wisdom is shared across American and Chinese cultures, even if they are worded differently.