Monthly Archives: November 2018

Friends and Rubles

Leave a reply

Title: Friends and Rubles

General information about item:

Verbal folklore, proverb
Language: Russian
Country of origin: Russia
Informant: Amanda Durfee
Date collected: 10/31/18
Informant Data:

Amanda is a senior at Dartmouth College. She was raised in Wisconsin, but attended a Russian camp during the summer when she was in high school, which is where she learned the proverbs she shared. She has also studied abroad in Russia, and is majoring in the subject at Dartmouth, where she is currently taking coursework in the language.

Contextual Data:

Amanda learned this proverb while at Russian camp in high school. She is also currently taking classes in Russian at Dartmouth to fulfill her major in Russian.

Item

Не имей сто рублей, а имей сто друзей.

Literal translation: “It’s better to have 100 friends than 100 rubles.”

Meaning: Friends are more important than material things.

Associated file: 

Transcript: “‘Верный друг лучше сотни слуг.’ And that translates to, roughly, ‘It’s better to have 100 friends than 100 rubles.'”

Informant’s comments:

Amanda commented that while 100 rubles would not be worth very much today, when the proverb originated this would have been a much more significant sum. She thinks it emphasizes the importance of building friendships rather than focusing on money, and of the value that friendship adds to one’s life in general.

Collector’s comments:

This proverb, like other Russian proverbs I collected, emphasized the importance of friendship, in particular, over other aspects of life. It also reinforces the idea that money is only of so much value, by directly dismissing a large amount of money as inferior to friendship. This suggests a generally collectivist mindset, emphasizing that one person cannot survive on their own without the help of the community.

Like many Russian proverbs I collected, this one follows a two-part structure in which one thing is directly compared to another, with the first one being considered superior. It also uses a large quantity (a hundred of each item) to emphasize its point. I did find this interesting, given that 100 friends is so large as to be considered almost abstract, compared to the power of naming a single friend.

Collector’s name: Zachary Benjamin

Business and Friendship

Leave a reply

Title: Business and Friendship

General information about item:

Verbal folklore, proverb
Language: Russian
Country of origin: Russia
Informant: Katarina Nesic
Date collected: 11/9/18
Informant Data:

Katarina is a junior at Dartmouth College. She is 21 years old and was born and raised in Serbia. At 16, she attended boarding school in Switzerland and came to Dartmouth after.

Contextual Data:

Katarina learned this proverb while studying abroad in St. Petersburg in the summer of 2017. She is also currently taking classes in Russian at Dartmouth to further her study of the language.

Item

Дружба дружбой, а служба службой.

Literal translation: “Business is business and pleasure is pleasure.”

Meaning: The needs of a friendship are different than the needs of a business relationship, and attempting to conflate the two is likely to end up hurting at least one of them.

Associated file: 

Transcript: “‘Дружба дружбой, а служба службой.’ It translates to, like, don’t mix business and friendship, or don’t mix business and pleasure.”

Informant’s comments:

“The one about, like, ‘don’t mix business and pleasure,’ like, uh, started being a thing in the Soviet Union. … The one about, the ‘don’t mix business and pleasure,’ I heard, like, every other day in St. Petersburg.”

Collector’s comments:

The proverb follows a kind of parallel structure — one thing is affirmed to be itself, as is the second thing. This serves both to make the proverb pithy and memorable, and also to emphasize the importance of keeping the two ideas separate.

I found it interesting that this proverb first became popular during the Soviet Union. Ostensibly, communism is about attempting to lower class divisions and make business for and by the people. Yet this proverb contains a clear distinction between personal relationships and business ones — an attitude I would normally have associated with capitalist sensibilities.

Collector’s name: Zachary Benjamin

An Old Friend

Leave a reply

Title: An Old Friend

General information about item:

Verbal folklore, proverb
Language: Russian
Country of origin: Russia
Informant: Katarina Nesic
Date collected: 11/9/18
Informant Data:

Katarina is a junior at Dartmouth College. She is 21 years old and was born and raised in Serbia. At 16, she attended boarding school in Switzerland and came to Dartmouth after.

Contextual Data:

Katarina learned this proverb while studying abroad in St. Petersburg in the summer of 2017. She is also currently taking classes in Russian at Dartmouth to further her study of the language.

Item

Старый друг лучше новых двух.

Literal translation: “An old friend is better than two new ones.”

Meaning: When meeting someone new, you should not fully trust them until you get to know them better.

Associated file:

Transcript: “‘Старый друг лучше новых двух.’ An old friend, uh, or one old friend, is better than two new ones.”

Informant’s comments:

“[It’s] pretty standard. … When you meet new people and you’re kind of, like, unsure about them, you would use, like, the ‘an old friend is better than two new ones.’ That one I heard more than the other ones.”

Collector’s comments:

This proverb, like other Russian proverbs I collected, emphasized the importance of prior relationships. In particular, it seems related to the idea of building trust capital. An old friend is better not just because they are older, but because new people have not yet had the time to fully establish themselves as deserving of one’s trust. Thus, loyalty is not just benevolent, but also self-interested.

Like many Russian proverbs I collected, this one follows a two-part structure in which one thing is directly compared to another, with the first one being considered superior. It also uses a disjoint in quantity (one vs. two) to emphasize its point, which came up in other Russian proverbs as well.

Collector’s name: Zachary Benjamin

A Loyal Friend

Leave a reply

Title: A Loyal Friend

General information about item:

  • Verbal folklore, proverb
  • Language: Russian
  • Country of origin: Russia
  • Informant: Katarina Nesic
  • Date collected: 11/9/18

Informant Data:

Katarina is a junior at Dartmouth College. She is 21 years old and was born and raised in Serbia. At 16, she attended boarding school in Switzerland and came to Dartmouth after.

Contextual Data:

Katarina learned this proverb while studying abroad in St. Petersburg in the summer of 2017. She is also currently taking classes in Russian at Dartmouth to further her study of the language.

Item

Верный друг лучше сотни слуг.

Literal translation: “A loyal friend is better than a hundred servants.”

Meaning: It is more important to have someone who values and respects you than to have possibly disloyal followers.

Associated file: 

Transcript: “‘Верный друг лучше сотни слуг.’ A lawyer friend- a loyal frie-friend — oh my God — is better than a hundred servants.”

Informant’s comments:

“[It’s] pretty common … I [didn’t hear it] so much … I learned [it] in class.”

Collector’s comments:

This proverb, like other Russian proverbs I collected, emphasized the importance of existing friendships over new ones. It also reinforces the idea that money is only of so much value, and that it is strong social relationships that should instead be cultivated. This proverb was in use before the advent of the Soviet Union, but an attitude of trusting one’s peers rather than one’s inferiors also seems like it could strike a note there.

Like many Russian proverbs I collected, this one follows a two-part structure in which one thing is directly compared to another, with the first one being considered superior. It also uses a disjoint in quantity (one vs. a hundred) to emphasize its point, which came up in other Russian proverbs as well.

Collector’s name: Zachary Benjamin

The Whole Person

Leave a reply

Title: The Whole Person

General Information:

  • Verbal lore, Proverb
  • Informant: Shawn Morris
  • Location: Via electronic communication to Lebanon, NH
  • Date: November 13, 2018

Informant Data:

Shawn Morris is an optometrist in the Upper Valley. He is a lifelong Catholic, attended Catholic school, and went to Villanova University for his undergraduate degree. He then attended optometry school. He lives in the Upper Valley now with his wife, Meg, their young daughter, and their dog Rey. He is originally from New Hampshire and is currently a part of the Aquinas House community at Dartmouth (where Meg works).

Contextual Data:

Social Context:

Shawn heard this proverb from his high school football coach at a Catholic high school. Their team had lost 24 games in a row, and spirits were low. That coach said the proverb had been passed down from a Notre Dame football coach to his players in times of difficulty.

Cultural Context:

This proverb is a reminder to never judge someone by their best or worst interaction with you, or at the most extreme ends of what you can see. There is always something more beneath the surface, and a person is worth more than just one day or one experience. People are a collection of days throughout their lives, and in order to see them for how they truly are, you have to consider that. Catholics value the dignity of the whole person (this is a tenet of Catholic social teachings) and believe that the least among us will be first, and that people can always change. This proverb is used in Shawn and Meg’s life as a reminder to always value each other and the people they meet in life for more than just one moment, and to view them as a whole.

Item:

Orally transmitted proverb:

“You’re never as good as people say you are when you win, and you’re never as bad as people say you are when you lose.”

Audio Recording:

Collector’s Comments:

This is a two part proverb, with parallel structure. Each half of the proverb again has two parts, that parallel with the previous half. The image is reflective, and the message is that you have to see beyond someone’s worst or best to tell who they truly are. This is one of two Catholic proverbs that doesn’t explicitly use a metaphor to the faith (i.e. sainthood, Christ’s sacrifice) but instead heavily relies on the morals and values of Church teachings to give advice and wisdom.

Collector:

Alexandra Norris, 20
3305 Hinman, Hanover, NH 03755
Dartmouth College
Russian 13
Fall 2018

Tags:

  • Proverbs
  • Catholic Proverbs
  • Relationships

Chopsticks in Rice

Leave a reply

Title: Chopsticks in Rice

General Information about Item:

  • Customary Folklore: Korean Superstition (Bad luck)
  • Language: English
  • Country of Origin: Korea
  • Informant: A.A.
  • Date Collected: November 10, 2018

Informant Data:

  • A.A. was born in Seoul, South Korea where he lived with his grandparents in the middle of the country. When he was three years old, J. moved to Tijuana, Mexico, before eventually immigrating to the United States and settling down in the Los Angeles, California area. Currently, J. is Junior undergraduate student at Dartmouth College. He is double majoring in Psychology and Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies.

Contextual Data:

  • Social Context:

    Whenever J. and his family would get together for dinner, one of the foods that they would consume often is rice. As J. finished his meal, he put down his chopsticks and placed them upright in the bowl in front of him. His mother, who noticed this, quickly grabbed the chopsticks out of the bit of rice left in the bowl and placed them on the table. She scolded J. for his actions and told him to never put his chopsticks in his rice bowl in the upright position. Confused, J. asked his mother why she did that. She explained that by putting the chopsticks upright, he was attracting ghosts and other unclean spirits into the house because it is reminiscent of incense that gets laid out for the dead. Frightened, J. never puts his chopsticks in a rice bowl in the upright position.

    Cultural Context:

    Korean cultures focus a lot on life after death and the soul of a person. This superstition is one that is true to belief as many Koreans still believe this today. Koreans believe that even after death, spirits and ghosts have the ability to come back to earth and live amongst living humans. Incense is one of the ways that spirits can come back to the world and communicate with people.

Item:

  • One is cursed with evil ghosts and spirits as a result of putting chopsticks in a bowl of rice in the upright position. This is thought to be symbolic of incense, which is used to attract spirits and ghosts back to the world. By doing this improper action, the person is inviting unclean spirits and ghosts into their home, and causing bad luck to themselves.

Associated file (a video, audio, or image file):

Chopsticks in a Rice Bowl

Collector’s Comments:

  • The superstition of the evil eye is the most common Korean superstition that is still believed and practiced today. It resembles a deep spiritual belief in the afterlife. This is also an example of magic superstition.

Collector’s Name: Clay Han

Tags/Keywords:

  • Korean. Superstition. Chopsticks. Rice Bowl. Magic Superstition.

Face Place

Leave a reply

General Information about Item:

  • Customary, Practical Joke
  • Language: English
  • Country of Origin: United States
  • Informant: Jack Kinney
  • Date Collected: This data was collected during a one-on-one interview in the library of Dartmouth College with Jack Kinney on October 28th, 2018.

Informant Data:

  • Jack Kinney ‘19 is a male student studying Environmental Science and Geography at Dartmouth College. He is originally from Seattle Washington. Jack participated in a hiking trip before the start of his Freshman year at Dartmouth as part of the First Year Trips DOC program. Since then, he has led trips every year.

Contextual Data:

  • Social Context
  • Jack Kinney encountered this joke, during this own trip. Later he has made played joke himself on each of his trips.
  • This joke is typically played by upperclassmen or students leading trips on their first-year tripees. As the objects of the prank, the new freshmen are supposed to be initiated and bonded together as a new class by going through the embarrassment of this prank together.
  • Cultural Context
  • This joke occurs on first-year trips, which close to 95% of every incoming class at Dartmouth College participates in. Trips are used as a way to welcome each new class to Dartmouth and to break down whatever misconceptions they might have. Accordingly, jokes on trips are used often as they offer a great way to subvert expectations and to make everyone have a good time. Typically, the practical joke is played once the members of the trip and the leaders have left Dartmouth’s campus and are together somewhere in the surrounding wilderness of New Hampshire/Vermont. In this way, practical jokes like this one are very common to the Trips setting as they serve to bring everyone closer together through group humiliation/embarrassment.

Item:

  • During First Year Trips each year, Trip leaders will talk to their Trippees about Dartmouth traditions and way of life. Since Trips is the first introduction to Dartmouth for many of students, they are eager to learn from them. Trip leaders will share many parts of Dartmouth folklore and slang with their trips to integrate them into the Dartmouth community.

Transcript:

  • Gordon: Hi Jack, could you talk a little bit about yourself and your time with the Dartmouth Trips?
  • Jack: Yeah, so I’m Jack Kinney am a senior at Dartmouth and have been involved with Trips either a trippees or a leader my entire time here.
  • Gordon: What kind of pranks were played on you, and did you do any on your trips?
  • Jack: I thoroughly enjoyed Trips. They were one of the best experiences I had here at Dartmouth, I wanted to share this same experience with future students. One of my favourites jokes was this one about Dartmouth lingo.
  • Gordon: Nice, what was it?
  • Jack: Well, while we told them about all the different slangs we have we told also gave them some wrong ones. For example, we told them that First Floor Berry was called “Faceplace” by Dartmouth students.
  • Gordon: Great, so what happened?
  • Jack: When they got to campus, they were confused about what we meant. It was funny hearing them talk about  Faceplace.
  • Gordon: Thank you sounds, like a great joke.

Informant’s Comments:

  • “I remember when this same joke happened on my trip. It was the I liked the most. Some of our trippees actually still talked about Faceplace as their one inside joke.”

 

Collectors’ Comments:

  • This prank wasn’t played on my trip. However, I heard about it from friends from went on other trips. I think that it’s a great way to introduce students to Dartmouth folklore and slang.

Collector’s Name: Gordon Robinson

Tags/Keywords:

  • Joke. Pranks. Practical Jokes. Trips. Dartmouth.

Crow vs. Magpie

Leave a reply

Title: Crow vs. Magpie

General Information about Item:

  • Customary Folklore: Korean Superstition (Bad luck vs. Good luck)
  • Language: English
  • Country of Origin: Korea
  • Informant: Sunglim Kim
  • Date Collected: November 5, 2018

Informant Data:

  • Sunglim Kim was born and raised in Seoul, Korea until the age of 17. Her family origins are Korean. When she was a junior in high school she moved to the United States, and went to high school in Seattle, Washington. She then went to UC Berkeley for her undergraduate degree, went back to work in Korea for a few years, and then came back to the United States to get her masters degree at the University of Kansas, and then went back to Berkeley for her PHD. Currently, she is a professor of Korean Art and Culture, in the department of Art History at Dartmouth College. This is her 7th year teaching at Dartmouth College. She is a mother of two children.

Contextual Data:

  • Social Context:At a very young age (around the age of 6) Sunglim Kim’s friends told her about this superstition. This was a commonly held superstition that all of her friends also believed in. When she was younger she said that she used to believe in these superstitions, and if she saw a crow in the morning going to school it would give her a nervous pit in her stomach that something bad was going to happen. However, she says now that she does not believe in these superstitions. But she will still say that it is a good omen when she sees a magpie.
  • Cultural Context:This folklore is widely held in Korean culture, although our informants did not know when this originated. This folklore originated in Korea. However, there are others cultures that associate the crow with folklore. In India for instance, the crow represents their ancestors, so it is not a bad omen. In Japan and America however, the crow is also associated with a bad omen, but not necessarily bad luck. There is also other folklore tied to these birds in Korean culture as well, Sunglim Kim described. For instance, there is a story about a boy saving a magpie from a snake. The snake then got mad at the boy and tried to attack him, but the magpie got involved and sacrificed itself for the boy. This story represents the magpie as the weak yet good person that doesn’t harm anyone else.

Item:

  • If you see a crow cawing it is considered to bring you bad luck, however, if you see a magpie singing, it is considered to bring you good luck and possibly will bring good guests to visit your house.

Associated file (a video, audio, or image file):

Transcript of Associated File:

  • “There are two black birds. Crow is Bad Luck, but Magpie will bring good luck, or good guests will come to the house.”

Informants Comments:

  • The informant said that she believed in this folklore when she was a kid, however, she no longer believes in this folklore.

Collector’s Comments:

  • This folklore was interesting to me because Sunglim Kim did not still believe in the bad luck and good luck associated from seeing these birds, yet she admitted that she would still have positive thought associated with magpies and negative thoughts associated with crows. This shows how folklore will engrain an idea into peoples heads, even if they are not conscious of this belief. This piece of folklore is a Sign Superstition, which means if A, then B. So if you see a magpie, it brings good luck. Whereas if you see a crow, it brings bad luck.

Collector’s Name: Kipling Weisel

Tags/Keywords:

  • Korean. Superstition. Crow. Magpie. Good Luck. Bad Luck. Sign Superstition.

No Greater Gift

Leave a reply

Title: No Greater Gift

General Information:

  • Verbal lore, Proverb
  • Informant: Caroline Petro
  • Location: Via Phone Call to Massachusetts Area
  • Date: November 1, 2018

Informant Data:

Caroline Petro is a Dartmouth alumna who graduated in June 2018. She is 22 years old. She was born and raised Catholic, though she attended private school instead of Catholic school. She lives in Norwood, Massachusetts, and she currently works on the cape of Massachusetts as an intern for a museum fundraising and marketing department. She has three siblings, one of whom is in training to become a Catholic priest, and her mother recently earned a degree to become a theologian.

Contextual Data:

Cultural Context:

Caroline knows that this proverb originated from somewhere in the Bible, though she doesn’t know where, and says that her family has updated it to apply to their lives. As her family is entirely Catholic, it’s not unusual to her that this would be a statement of deep meaning, and she says that it has become more of a colloquial phrase.

Social Context:

This proverb relies on the metaphor of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross to allow all humans to enter heaven, and compares that to laying down our own lives for the good of our friends. It is a reminder to be selfless and giving for a greater meaning in your relationships. Caroline said that she doesn’t often repeat this whole proverb in a serious manner directly to her friends and family, but that it’s mentioned in times where she might need advice on a difficult situation, or when her family is discussing the importance of relationships.

Item:

Orally transmitted proverb:

“There is no greater gift than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”

Interview Audio:

This portion of the interview starts at 9:44. Caroline’s background starts at 0:00.

Collector’s Notes:

The formula is a “than” comparison proverb, as suggested by Dundes. The image is serious at first glance, but colloquially and in true usage is softened. The message uses a callback to Christ’s sacrifice on the cross, and compares that to the love between friends. This is one of just a few overall proverbs that we collected that took religious imagery and turned it into a colloquial phrase that conveyed something more than just the original meaning.

Collector:

Alexandra Norris, 20
3305 Hinman, Hanover, NH, 03755
Dartmouth College
Russian 13
Fall 2018

Tags:

  • Proverbs
  • Catholic Proverbs
  • Friends
  • Relationships

Fake Emergency

Leave a reply

General Information about Item:

  • Customary, Practical Joke
  • Language: English
  • Country of Origin: United States
  • Informant: Malcolm Robinson
  • Date Collected: This data was collected during a one-on-one interview in the library of Dartmouth College with Malcolm Robinson on October 28th, 2018.

Informant Data:

  • Malcolm Robinson ‘22 is a male student studying Russian Area Studies and Geography at Dartmouth College. He is originally from London. Malcolm participated in a canoeing trip before the start of his Freshman year at Dartmouth as part of the First Year Trips DOC program. He has 2 older brothers (Austin Robinson ‘19 and Gordon Robinson 21′), who attend Dartmouth, but Trips were his first true introduction to life as a Dartmouth student.

Contextual Data:

  • Social Context
  • Malcolm encountered this joke, which is not specific to the caneoing section of trips and is actually quite common when he was a tripee during August of 2017.
  • This joke is typically played by upperclassmen or students leading trips on their first-year tripees. As the objects of the prank, the new freshmen are supposed to be initiated and bonded together as a new class by going through the embarrassment of this prank together.
  • Cultural Context
  • This joke occurs on first-year trips, which close to 95% of every incoming class at Dartmouth College participates in. Trips are used as a way to welcome each new class to Dartmouth and to break down whatever misconceptions they might have. Accordingly, jokes on trips are used often as they offer a great way to subvert expectations and to make everyone have a good time. Typically, the practical joke is played once the members of the trip and the leaders have left Dartmouth’s campus and are together somewhere in the surrounding wilderness of New Hampshire/Vermont. In this way, practical jokes like this one are very common to the Trips setting as they serve to bring everyone closer together through group humiliation/embarrassment.

Item:

  • During First Year Trips each year, Trip leaders carry a first aid kit for an emergency.  This is because the College Grant, the wilderness area where trip sections go is very isolated area several hours from the College and any serious medical care.  Trip leaders inform their trippees of the importance of helping each other if one has an accident. At a certain point during the Trip, one of the leaders will pretend they are having a medical emergency. They will tell their trippes that they need to find the first aid kit and help the leader. When the trippees find the kit they will open it, where they will see a pie from Lou’s. This local eatery in Hanover, is a student favorite.

 

Transcript:

  • Gordon: Hi Malcolm, great to be with you again, as you mentioned in our last conversation your leaders played multiple pranks on you guys?
  • Malcolm: Yeah, so besides the Robert Frost Ashe’s they also played this other joke on us..
  • Gordon: Great, so could you tell me a little bit about that joke?
  • Malcolm: Yeah so my trip leaders were great and liked playing jokes on us. After Robert Frost’s ashes, they had another joke for us. One day while we unloading the canoe one of our leaders pretended to have an asthma attack. The other one told us to quickly find the emergency kit in their bag, while he called for help on his phone.
  • Gordon: What happened?
  • Malcolm: My friend quickly found and we all opened it. Instead of a medical kit, we saw a box from Lou’s. I looked inside and there was a cherry pie from Lou’s. We realized that it was all a joke.
  • Gordon: What a great joke!

Informant’s Comments:

  • “We were all worried for a little. When we saw the box from Lou’s, we all started to laugh. Eating the pie was great, especially after the bland food we on the trip so far.”

 

Collectors’ Comments:

  • This prank is a great way to reinforce how everybody on the trip must work together. Lou’s is also a favorite of Dartmouth students, and this is a great way to introduce people to this great local institution.

Collector’s Name: Gordon Robinson

Tags/Keywords:

  • Joke. Pranks. Practical Jokes. Trips. Dartmouth.