The Proverbial Blog Post
My laziness finally caught up with me... a little. Basically, for the first time in a long time I've been asked to do something. (By the way, I haven't been to another assembly since the first one. No one's mentioned it and I'm not nearly stupid enough to bring it up.) I have to make some posters that teach proverbs and laminate them. It's pretty easy, and I'm actually really excited about the laminating machine. I never got a chance to use it when I was younger and it always had this air of authority and officialness.
I'm making proverbs because there was a challenge (vaguely) about proverbs that went like this:
Arrange these letters to form a well known proverb:
A N T S A O
O N T T W
T N W E
I know what you're thinking, it's just "Stan ate own TNT. Ow." Piece of cake, right? Wrong. Apparently in Malaysia, there's another one that uses all the same letters and is much more popular. But it turns out none of the students could figure it out (possibly because they're not used to reading the letters in a block... ) which stands to prove that they don't know their English proverbs from a fish ball.
So whenever there's something that needs to be taught in the Malaysian school system all you have to do is just print it out on a piece of colored paper, laminate it, and tape it to a wall. Since it's pretty, visible, and semi-permanent it's just gotta do the trick.
Oddly enough, the scramble wasn't "Ant teat won't snow" either.
So I had to look up some proverbs to put on the pretty pieces of paper. I came across this Chinese gem.
"An old woman is always uneasy when dry bones are mentioned in a proverb."
That is one post-modern proverb. It breaks down the proverbial 4th wall ironically admits that old women will probably be very uneasy when they hear this proverb. I think it's much sadder if the author was actually trying to help out old women.
Imagine a youngin' is talking about something unsavory to his grandmother and then catches himself since she's clearly uncomfortable, and says the proverb. Which would totally make things worse.
Turns out the proverb was "Stanton at ten. Wow." It references a famous news story about the beloved character actor Harry Dean Stanton, where he talks about his passion for eating fish heads in Malaysia. It's meant to reference a foreigner coming into Malaysian culture and assimilating, albeit as an oddity.
Now if you'll excuse me, I really should be getting back to work. As the saying goes: "Want to snot wet? Tan."
I'm making proverbs because there was a challenge (vaguely) about proverbs that went like this:
Arrange these letters to form a well known proverb:
A N T S A O
O N T T W
T N W E
I know what you're thinking, it's just "Stan ate own TNT. Ow." Piece of cake, right? Wrong. Apparently in Malaysia, there's another one that uses all the same letters and is much more popular. But it turns out none of the students could figure it out (possibly because they're not used to reading the letters in a block... ) which stands to prove that they don't know their English proverbs from a fish ball.
So whenever there's something that needs to be taught in the Malaysian school system all you have to do is just print it out on a piece of colored paper, laminate it, and tape it to a wall. Since it's pretty, visible, and semi-permanent it's just gotta do the trick.
Oddly enough, the scramble wasn't "Ant teat won't snow" either.
So I had to look up some proverbs to put on the pretty pieces of paper. I came across this Chinese gem.
"An old woman is always uneasy when dry bones are mentioned in a proverb."
That is one post-modern proverb. It breaks down the proverbial 4th wall ironically admits that old women will probably be very uneasy when they hear this proverb. I think it's much sadder if the author was actually trying to help out old women.
Imagine a youngin' is talking about something unsavory to his grandmother and then catches himself since she's clearly uncomfortable, and says the proverb. Which would totally make things worse.
Turns out the proverb was "Stanton at ten. Wow." It references a famous news story about the beloved character actor Harry Dean Stanton, where he talks about his passion for eating fish heads in Malaysia. It's meant to reference a foreigner coming into Malaysian culture and assimilating, albeit as an oddity.
Now if you'll excuse me, I really should be getting back to work. As the saying goes: "Want to snot wet? Tan."
Comments
I think I should use this as the new title of my blog.
Take care,
Steve