The frog replied: “Go where? This is the world.” The exasperated fly told the frog to jump. The frog did so, toppling the shell. He discovered that there was a world beyond his own.
“A frog that wants to be an ox,” is katak hendak jadi lembu. He’s too big for his boots. He has lofty dreams. Regardless of his talents, he cannot fulfill them because they are unattainable.
“Like an owl that misses the moon” = Pining for your lover.
A swooning teenager writes this old-fashioned expression in a letter to the girl he adores. Youths say it in jest to lampoon a pair of lovers.
“Tame pigeon” = A coy person, especially in courtship.
A woman beckons a suitor, but flutters away when he approaches. After a while, she gestures again. The ritual repeats itself.
The expression also refers to arranged marriages, which were common in Indonesia until the 1960s. Jinak-jinak merpati is a woman who agrees to the arrangement, but laments it in her heart.
The complete saying is Jinak tetapi jinaknya merpati (docile, but only as docile as a pigeon).
Pigeons are depicted as lovebirds. Merpati ingkar janji (when a pigeon breaks its promise) refers to a spouse who commits adultery.
“Monkey love” = Puppy love. An adolescent crush.
Indonesians think monkeys are as foolish as starry-eyed lovers. People mimic the sounds and gestures of monkeys if they want to act stupidly. On television, comedians launch into monkey sounds to make someone look stupid.
Monkeys mesmerize onlookers in street shows, sometimes riding miniature bicycles. The animal usually answers to a common male name, Sarimin, and wears a cheap, glittery skirt. The handler bangs a small drum and calls: Sarimin pergi ke pasar (Sarimin goes to the market). The monkey mimics a woman putting on a hat, carrying a basket and taking produce from a seller while handing over money. Sometimes Sarimin passes the money back and forth with its owner or onlookers, making it look as though it is haggling over the price.
Lutung Kasarung is the nickname of a prince who fell under a curse that transformed him into a big, black monkey.
A Sundanese folktale from West Java begins with the prince’s mother fussing about how long it was taking him to find a bride. He joked that he could find no one as beautiful as her. She said: “Do you wish your mother to become your bride? That’s a despicable act. You’re like a big monkey.”
The gods agreed, and struck her son with a bolt of lightning. Black fur sprouted from his skin, and he turned into a monkey (lutung). A booming voice in the heavens said the boy was doomed to wander the forests (kasarung means “being lost somewhere”) until he found true love. Only then would he recover his original form as a handsome prince.
During his travels, Lutung Kasarung met a princess who had been banished by her eldest half-sister in a power grab in a nearby kingdom. The older sister had cursed her sibling, transforming her into an ugly, deformed girl. The lutung fed the exiled princess, gave her a potion to restore her beauty and helped her regain her kingdom. His loyalty won her heart.
Another bolt of lightning flashed when she introduced the monkey to her family. The lutung turned back into a prince. The couple married.
A song from this story was a favorite of Indonesia’s first president, Sukarno. Decades later, some Indonesians complained that the tale implied that a woman always needs a man’s help to get out of a jam.
“However deftly the squirrel jumps, once in a while it falls down” = Even maestros make mistakes.
“A barking dog won’t bite” = All bark and no bite. All talk and no action.
A widely told story in Indonesia explains why a dog’s nose is always wet. During the Great Flood, a dog tried to secure passage on Noah’s Ark, but turned up late for boarding. There was only room on the open deck, and the shivering hound caught a cold. The dog’s offspring and descendants inherited the sniffles.
“Like a dog that barks at the elephant’s tail” = Like banging your head against a wall. A fruitless exercise.
This expression can refer to someone who lacks responsibility or credibility, and has little sense of value. The person tries in vain to impose an opinion or achieve a goal.
Other expressions about futility are menggarami laut (putting salt in the ocean); menjaring angin (netting the wind); and bagai mencincang air (like chopping water).
“A germ across the sea can be seen, an elephant in front of the eyelid can’t” = It’s easy to spot the mistakes of others, but not your own.
“Can a dead elephant be hidden by a flat woven basket?” = You can’t hide a bad deed.
Or, “No matter how well you wrap it, a rotten thing will smell right through.”
Sepandai-pandainya membungkus, yang busuk berbau juga.
“When two elephants collide, the mousedeer between them dies” = When leaders fight, the little people suffer. Caught in the crossfire.
The tiny mousedeer is a cunning survivor. A staple of Malay folktales, it outsmarts bigger, ferocious creatures such as the tiger and crocodile. It’s like Brer Rabbit, the “catch me if you can” protagonist of folktales that originated in Africa and were collected in the American South in the 19th century. Another equivalent is the crafty coyote of Native American tradition, and the mischievous Anansi the Spider, which dodges the fish and falcon in Ashanti tales from West Africa.
The mousedeer has big, piercing
