Thursday, April 23, 2009

Chinese Proverb of the Day


What Taiwanese Mothers Teach their Children






"To show thanks to the farmers, eat all your rice.
If you don't, you'll marry an ugly husband."






15 comments:

Don said...

Hey, my mom told me to clean my plate because of all the hungry children in China. I cleaned my plate out of sympathy... if the girls do it to avoid an ugly mate? (Why do the boys clean their plates?)

Always enjoy your posts. You make me laugh!

Don

Geeta said...

Haha, whaaat?! I have to say, I agree with the first part! I eat way too much here... the concept of being "full" after one serving doesn't seem possible I guess. So I have to finish all that's on the plate... and say yes to more! I'm going to need a serious running regime once I get home...

as to the ugly husband part...what is that, a scare tactic!?

the girl in stiletto said...

that's not as cruel as how my mom/grandma always told me:

"finish your rice or your pet/someone in your family will die"

i always tricked my dad to finish my meal ahaha. i told him, if he doesn't finish my meal, it's his fault that he let someone in the family die. LOL.

Deeptesh said...

ha.Hilarious.Well I'll go out 2moro 4 a trip 2 d hills for over two weeks n will remain offline.Sorry that I can't chk ur posts till then.bye.

floreta said...

yeah, i was definitely of the 'finish your plate' persuasion growing up. maybe its an asian thing? i'm trying to un-learn that...

80% full.

[it helps with longevity]

Sebastian Anthony said...

Curiously, my dad was brought up to always leave a bit of food on his plate, just to prove that they could afford more.

Or it was to leave a bit for the slaves.

Something like that :)

RazzberryMomma said...

Ummm, wow! That's definitely one way to do it, huh? LOL! Whatever works I suppose...

Rachel said...

I use to be a big sushi eater - but I never really dug the rice, so my plate always had a big pile of used rice at the end. No wonder the love of my life is a Jack Russell Terrier...

Samantha said...

Haha. I'm going to steal that and use it for my future children. Thanks, Taiwanese mothers.

The Write Girl said...

This is an interesting quote. I guess this only applied to the daughters. Why would sons care about ugly husbands? Pretty funny.

Andhari said...

Famous Asian superstitions. Here is finish all your rice or when you die, the rice will hunt you in the after life. Pretty creepy, no? Well I barely eat rice anyway. Gasped?

Chase said...

May I just point out that this isn't exactly gender specific...
@don, maybe boys are given the same warning?

@writegirl, the thing is, if this is directed towards boys, I'd think they might just lick their rice-bowl clean in fear. That fortune could really, reorientate, their plans.

@Geeta, definitely a scare tactic. Tackful parenting.

@stiletto, I love that this worked better on your father than you.

@Floreta, stay hungry! :P

@Sebastian, I was told coming here I should keep some rice on my plate to say the meal was adequate. Otherwise they shovel (chopstick?) more food down you

@Razzberry, use it on your two! give it a shot!

@Rachel, your puppy thanks you for the rice.

@sam, they said to tell you "no problem"

A said...

Well, coming from a Chinese family - the girls were only ever told this (how unfair!) and the reason was that if you left rice on your plate, your husband's face would be full of pockmarks (one for every grain of rice leftover).

Chase said...

girls have it rough, amy.

But really sucks is the fact that us guys are growing pockmarks because some chick doesn't want to polish her plate!

SuzANNE said...

CARBS BOOO! Maybe I'll skip marriage. ;)