"Don't put the cart before the horse" "A stitch in time saves nine." "Rome wasn't built in a day." These are common proverbs you may have heard people say. You probably know what they mean, too. But, have you ever wondered what they can tell us about the cultures they come from? Proverbs are traditional sayings which are concise in form and are usually expressed in clever, witty, or memorable language. In content, they tend to offer advice or make some kind of moral comment on how we should live our lives. Perhaps thanks to their simplicity, proverbs have been handed down from generation to generation, surviving the test of time. Thus, each proverb can shed light on the unique culture of the place it originated Around the world, people use proverbs for a variety of purposes. Sometimes they are used as a way of saying something in a veiled way. They are also used to carry more weight in discussions. By enlisting the traditions of ancestors, people can support their positions. Furthermore, proverbs can be used to merely make a conversation or discussion more lively and interesting. In many parts of the world, the use of proverbs is a mark of being a good speaker. In spite of common stylistic features and purposes, proverbs reflect the specific cultures and tradition of their places of origin.

Examine the Korean proverbs below, and guess what aspect of Korean culture they may represent. After losing a cow, one repairs the barn. A needle thief becomes a cow thief. One doesn't know the first letter of the alphabet even while looking at a sickle. It is dark beneath the oil lamp. Wheat hangs its head deeper as it ripens. An empty cart rattles loudly. Someone else's rice cake always looks bigger. Do these old sayings tell us anything about the way Koreans lived in the past? The answer is an obvious "yes." The proverbs are closely related to how things were on the Korean peninsula hundreds of years ago. Korea used to be a farming society where most peasants owned a cow (an extremely valuable family asset) and a barn for keeping it. They usually worked in the field using sickles and other farming tools during the day and burned a small oil lamp for light at night. At harvest time, they noticed the heads of wheat and rice plants hang low. They used carts to transport their harvests and made rice cakes to celebrate a variety of special occasions. This short description doesn't capture everything there is to know about the past. However, it does reveal significant truths about Korea. With such background information, it is easy to guess why cows, barns, sickles, wheat, carts, rice cakes, and other items appear in old sayings that are still used today. If people lacked this knowledge, they would have difficulty understanding the true meanings of old sayings. The task of understanding any culture is by no means easy. Yet old sayings offer one important window to the perplexing world of culture. So when you come across a proverb, don't just be amazed by its clever wording. Remember there is culture in old sayings, too.