Let us get one thing straight – no matter where you are on this planet – Lisbon, Langfang, London, or lounging in your own living room – someone is about to drop a proverb right now. To prove a point.
In Portugal, for example, you could be having a normal chat about buying a second-hand car, and suddenly someone will say, “Quem espera, sempre alcança” (He who waits always gets there). Which is encouraging, unless the car does not start.
Portuguese proverbs are comforting, you see, but they are also strangely passive-aggressive. They sound poetic till you realise you have just been told that you are impatient, lazy, or too optimistic. Possibly all three.
Here, if you dare to act impulsively, some neighbour, shopkeeper or medical practitioner will shake their head and recite a proverb so wise that you will instantly forget what your argument was all about in the first place.
However, in Asia, proverbs become not simply part of speech, they are the speech. Asians do not just have proverbs, they have entire battalions of them, ready to march into any conversation. “Do good deeds and forget them,” they will say sagely, and then follow it up with six more sayings about karma, orange blossoms, and black cats that have nothing to do with anything.
If, for instance, one asks a Chinese friend, “Should I text my ex- boss?” one might get a response like, “When the snake is dead, why waste the stick?” And suddenly one is not sure if the suggestion is that one’s previous employer has now become dangerous or that one must immediately call the pest control service.
England, on the other hand, is a nation that excels in turning anything mildly exasperating into an entire worldview. The English love their proverbs almost as much as they love queueing. So, “every cloud has a silver lining,” they will mutter, which is British for, ‘this is terrible but let us all pretend it is character-building’.
They claim to have a proverb for every misadventure, social faux pas, or minor weather-related tragedy. Also, they are the masters of polite despair.
You could tell an Englishman you have lost everything in a fire, and he will nod gravely and say, “Well, mustn’t cry over spilt milk.” No one is entirely sure what that means in the context of charred belongings, but the tone suggests you should move on and make a cup of tea.
English proverbs are also delightfully contradictory. “Many hands make light work,” until “Too many cooks spoil the broth.” Meanwhile, “The early bird catches the worm,” but “Good things come to those who wait.”
Of course, the best part is how universal these sayings are while still being completely contradictory as one minute you must “Look before you leap,” and the next, “He who hesitates is lost.”
But ultimately, the truth is, we all use proverbs because they give us the illusion of sounding wise while ending arguments with poetic flair. We reach for them when life gets too complicated because, in every culture, they are the world’s way of saying, ‘we have seen this nonsense before but here is a rhyme about it’.
“You said something?” my spouse asked as he knocked our car over a speed bump this morning.
I took a deep breath and held my peace.
“A proverb a day keeps the awkward silence away,” he prompted.
“Better late in this world than early in the next,” I concluded.
