Murphy Bytes

I grew up in a town that would be the cultural equivalent of Wonder Bread so one of the things I like about my job is that is that I get to know people from all over the world.   I was talking to one of my Chinese friends today and mentioned something about her recent marriage ( something she said made me think she was recently married ).  She corrected me saying that she had a college age daughter (which I already knew) and that I should infer from this that she had been married many years.  I responded that the daughter could have been from a previous marriage.  She replied she was old fashioned.  Then she said ‘When you marry a dog you become a dog. When you marry a pig you become a pig’.    I’m really not sure what sort of ancient Chinese wisdom she was trying to pass on but it does exemplify what I enjoy about interacting with people from other places.  Every so often I’m surprised by some idiom or custom like celebrating Maslenitsa or learning how to really insult someone in Tamil.