Frere Jacques, Frere Jacques, the tigers are here
Cut them
If there’s one problem with adult poetry, it’s that it makes a little too much sense. I mean, most of the time. If you’re not Meng Jiao.
Nursery rhymes suffer no such limitations. Imagine you were a Chinese poet pondering an extremely catchy tune about waking up a lazy monk. The religious connotations might not work in your country, but the theme of waking someone up is quite universal, so you could always…
…ditch everything and make it about mutilated tigers running for their lives? Yes. That’s obviously the right solution.
两只老虎 liǎng zhī lǎohǔ 两只老虎，两只老虎， liǎng zhī lǎohǔ liǎng zhī lǎohǔ 跑得快，跑得快！ pǎo de kuài pǎo de kuài 一只没有耳朵， yì zhī méi yǒu ěrduo 一只没有尾巴， yì zhī méi yǒu wěiba 真奇怪，真奇怪！ zhēn qíguài zhēn qíguài TWO YOUNG TIGERS Two young tigers, two young tigers, Off they tear, off they tear! No ears on this one, No tail on that one, Silly pair! Silly pair!
Dall-e refused to believe that I really wanted a tiger missing body parts, so I had to carve them up myself using another AI picture editor. This was the best I could manage:
Here’s a typical kids TV version of the Chinese, with the obligatory rictus grin presenter:
Whooohooo!!!