As the Lunar calendar restarts for another twelve cycles, Happy Year of the Rooster, everyone! Or is it the Chicken?
Linguistics aside, it’d take another entire article to dissect why we should say rooster instead of chicken.
Miley doesn’t even know
In Chinese culture, the rooster/chicken symbolizes resourcefulness, honesty, and is genuinely instinctive by nature. Locals would say that people born in this year inherit those exact same qualities.
In Western culture, though, chickens are often ridiculed and used as the butt of over simplistic jokes.
Regardless, let’s take a look at some of the more famous fowl we find throughout Western culture…
Chicken Little is a well-known children’s folk tale, orginating in Europe, also going by the name Henny Penny or Chicken Licken. It’s plot is a common one, teaching us all not to give in to paranoid mass hysteria. Very relevant even today.
An acorn falls on this little chicken’s head and he cries, “The sky is falling! The sky is falling!” As he believes the world is about to come to an end, he spreads his rumor far and wide. This phrase and this story has passed into the English language as a common idiom indicating a hysterical or mistaken belief that disaster is imminent.
There are many books about Chicken Little (many available on Taobao) and a few movies, too! In fact, the recent animated feature film, paints the protagonist as someone who actually predicts the end of the world and somehow saves everyone.
Stream online in China by searching for
四眼天鸡 sì yǎn tiān jī
Chicken Little Trailer《四眼天鸡》预告片
Another longtime favorite rooster in the cartoon world is Foghorn Loghorn. You may remember him from the Looney Tunes gang during the Merrie Melodies shorts from Warner Bros.
He was created by Robert McKimson and writer Warren Foster, and starred in 28 cartoons from 1946 to 1963. The character of Foghorn Leghorn was directly inspired by the popular character of Senator Claghorn, a blustery Southern politician from The Fred Allen Show, a popular radio show of the 1940s.
By the way, a leghorn is a breed of chicken, and a foghorn describes the character’s loud, overbearing voice.
He’s really known for his over-the-top one-liners, which dads everywhere still use at the worst times:
“That boy’s about as sharp as a bowling ball.”
“That boy’s about as organized as a plate of spaghetti.”
“That’s a joke, ah say, that’s a joke, son.”
Another example of a cartoon chicken is Ginger from the 2000 stop-motion animation, Chicken Run.
The plot centers on a band of chickens who see a smooth-talking Rhode Island Red named Rocky as their only hope to escape from certain death when the owners of their farm decide to move from selling eggs to selling chicken pot pies.
They must come up with an amazing escape plan.
This actually went on to become the highest grossing stop-motion animation film of all time and we admit that we’ll still watch this with our friends sometimes.
Any fan of the hit TV show Breaking Bad《绝命毒师》jué mìng dú shī, will recognize this rather infamous logo from the series. The villainous Gus Fring managed a branch of this fictional fried chicken chain and Walter White would often stop by to ruffle some feathers.
To watch Breaking Bad in China, check out this link:
【电视剧】Where to stream foreign TV shows in China (中英字幕)
We considered putting KFC in this list, but their logo doesn’t even include a chicken, just ol’ Colonel Sanders! Hmph.
“A rubber chicken always gets a laugh.”
Here we have the everpresent rubber chicken, a running gag in old vaudeville skits as well as comedy acts today.
The origin of the rubber chicken is obscure, but is possibly based on the use of pig bladders, which were inflated, attached to a stick and used as props or mock-weapons by jesters in the days before the development of plastic and latex.
In English, the term “rubber chicken” is also used disparagingly to describe the food served at political or corporate events, weddings, and other gatherings where there are a large number of guests who require serving in a short timeframe. Often, pre-cooked chicken is held at serving temperature for some time and then dressed with a sauce as it is served. Consequently, the meat may be tough or “rubbery.”
Sick.
One of the best insults that kids sling at each other is the poetic use of “chicken” to denote that the other person is too scared to complete a certain task or somewhat dangerous situation.
The classic 80s movie Back to the Future used this insult to the extreme, as Biff Tannen screamed it at Marty and George McFly throughout the trilogy. And let’s just say, nobody calls Marty McFly a chicken and gets away with it.
Link: 5 Predictions from Back To The Future | 5个关于电影《回到未来》的预测
The “Chicken Dance” song is accompanied by a polka routine requiring a group of two or more people, and it goes as follows:
- At the start of the music, shape a chicken beak with your hands. Open and close them four times, during the first four beats of the music.
- Make chicken wings with your arms. Flap your wings four times, during the next four beats of the music.
- Make a chicken’s tail feathers with your arms and hands. Wiggle downwards during the next four beats of the music.
- Clap four times during the next four beats of the music while rising to your feet.
- Flap or twirl around with your partner during the bridge.
- The dance repeats, progressively getting faster and faster, until the music stops.
Here’s a video that might help explain it better:
Costumes not required.
It’s just one of those dances that EVERYbody knowns. Whether you’re at a high school prom, a wedding reception, or even a skating rink, at some point throughout the night, this song will most likely come on and everyone will automatically know the routine.
And finally, one of the quirkiest and most unique situational comedies of all time, Arrested Development《发展受阻》fā zhǎn shòu zǔ, also features a much more nuanced version of the chicken dance.
HAVE YOU GUYS EVER EVEN SEEN A CHICKEN!?
Anyone out there born in the year of the rooster/chicken?