Village Healer Meme

Title: Village Healer Meme (John Lass)

General Information about the Item:

• Verbal Lore, Joke
• Language: Kazakh
• Country of Origin: Kazakhstan
• Informant: Assel Uvaliyeva
• Date Collected: 11-1-18

Informant Data:

• Assel Uvaliyeva was born on February 25, 1995.  She is from Almaty, Kazakhstan, of Tatar and Kazakh origin. She currently works as a teachers assistant and studies at Dartmouth College as a graduate student. She speaks Russian, Kazakh, and English.

Contextual Data:

• Cultural Context: There is a large tradition of people visiting healers in Kazakhstan. Healers are traditional medical people who claim to be able to cure people with magic. The popularity of healers in this culture is why there is a long line into the healer’s hut. This meme is also about a cultural stereotype of Kazakh people that they are lazy and do not want to work.
• Social Context: This meme is a taken from a social media platform. These photos called memes are forums for people to share jokes and poke fun at things. Memes are visual representations of viral lore, that is understood by a large of group of people associated with the meme’s content, in this case the content is best understood by people familiar with Kazakh Culture. Assel finds this meme funny because it makes fun of a stereotype about Kazakh people that they are lazy. The slap is a Kazakh social practice which is supposed to essentially make the person go out and earn money and try to be a productive member of society.

Associated File:

Transcript/Translation:

• Title: Shapalaque Meme
• Photo 1:

Boy 1: In the city there is a healer who helps change and solve all problems! And my sister says it helped her.

Boy 2: Wow this really works! Taxi!

 

• Photo 2:

Boy: I have this problem: I have little money, and my wages are not high enough, can you help?

Healer: This is a common diagnosis “Pohojaia” it is necessary for me to configure your chakras. I will pump the energy from my arms to you and all your problems will be solved!

• Photo 3:

Healer: Work then! Boy that’s how you want to fix your problems!

 

Informants Comments:

• “The young man goes into the hut to ask the healer to cure his poverty, but instead the healer slaps him. This is supposed to make him want to get a job and stop being lazy because Kazakh people are often thought of as lazy.”

Collector’s Comments:

• This Joke is pretty different from US jokes because it makes fun a tradition not seen in the US anymore. I think the slap is something that crosses a lot of cultures as a stern way to make somebody start working.

Collector’s Name: John Lass

Tags/Keywords:

• Verbal Lore
• Joke
• Kazakh joke on healers