Author Archives: apasztor

Hungarian 1st of May

GP’s family is from Hungary. His father is a first generation American, and his aunt collected Hungarian family traditions that she then passed on to GP. They are no longer practiced by anyone in the family, in fact, they stopped practicing most of them after World War II. However, the stories of the traditions and customs are still passed down to family members, and collected by GP’s aunt.

“On the first day of May at midnight the young men cut down lilac branches and attach colored strips of paper to them. Then they take one and put it on the roof or chimney of a marriageable daughter.”

This is a ritual coinciding with spring and fertility, as the young men court the marriageable women. I haven’t heard of putting flowers on the roof of a girl in other rituals, but it sounds like it is part of a general celebration of spring as well.

Hungarian Harvest Dance

GP’s family is from Hungary. His father is a first generation American, and his aunt collected Hungarian family traditions that she then passed on to GP. They are no longer practiced by anyone in the family, in fact, they stopped practicing most of them after World War II. However, the stories of the traditions and customs are still passed down to family members, and collected by GP’s aunt. One involves a harvest celebration.

“Around the middle of October a big Harvest Dance is always held.  The hall is decorated–hanging from the ceiling across the entire hall are strings to which clusters of grapes, pears and apples have been tied. There are boys and girls dressed in Hungarian costumes–it is their job to try and catch someone stealing one of the fruits while they’re dancing.  If they do they take them to a special table and they are told how much they have to pay for the fruit (usually a dime in those times). This money went to help out the school and church.”

This is another festival that falls in line with the seasons and the natural harvest of crops, celebrating the bounty. The hanging fruit is a fun twist, especially as a fundraiser that supports the local community and strengthens the community and traditions.

Hungarian Corpus Christi Feast Tradition

GP’s family is from Hungary. His father is a first generation American, and his aunt collected Hungarian family traditions that she then passed on to GP. They are no longer practiced by anyone in the family, in fact, they stopped practicing most of them after World War II. However, the stories of the traditions and customs are still passed down to family members, and collected by GP’s aunt.

“On the Feast of Corpus Christi, which falls in June and is celebrated on a Sunday, the people of a parish decorate about 3 shelters made of branches of fresh bloomed trees, inside they place a table to make an alter, these are usually right on the parish grounds. During the Mass the priest places the host in the monstrance (which is consecrated) for the adoration of the faithful.  First a group of small girls, in their white dresses and veils with baskets of fresh flowers, leads the procession out of church–altar boys follow with one swinging incense, the priest carrying the monstrance under a canopy supported by four poles and carried by men–the faithful all leave the church singing on their way to the first shelter. A special service is held and they proceed to the next shelter–after the last shelter they go back into church and services are concluded. After Mass they have booths set up outdoors and they sell “Maces Kolocs,” a large cookie that has a colorful paper figure put on with frosting that is shaped like Christ, Mary, Heart etc., which is only sold at this time. In the afternoon and evening they have outdoor dancing and food and it usually lasts all night. This is the first Sunday celebration, after which each Sunday all summer in all the towns and cities they hold their own feasts.”

Catholicism was a very important part of their heritage, and the detailed preparations and processions surrounding the feast attest to this. There is food made only for this event, and then celebrations, making it a very unique celebration of a Catholic event that is also associated with their Hungarian roots.

Film Company Hazing

SS interned at a production company, and experienced occupational folklore in the form of hazing. When someone at her company messed up as bad as she did, they would be forced to coil cables indefinitely.

SS: Once upon a time when I was a wee lassie, young, naive, full of enthusiasm for the art of filmmakimg, I in my ignorance accepted an internship at a local prod. company in Tucson, Arizona. The production company was supposed to train me in grip and electric work on film sets in addition to giving me a better understanding of how film industry worked. one evening, the most useful work they could put their intern to do was to go through the email of the previous owner of the company. This owner never ever understood how technology worked. This man is a modern dinosaur. It was astounding he could even turn on the computer. So when I was given the task to clean out this guys email (had had it for 10+ years), tidy it up, and find contacts I knew it would be daunting, but never knew it would be impossible. As I ventured to the abyss of this inbox, I realized there were over 15,000 unopened emails in which I have to find any important filmmaking connections. So I’m going through and trying to set up a system. I learn this guy’s entire life, lots of personal details just by going through his email. My boss comes in and says ‘Hey if you find any pics, download those as well.” So sure enough I find a few emails with pictures and try to download. It doesn’t work. I keep clicking download, download download. The I realize the computer is frozen. Completely overloaded and overworked. Ok, just gonna take a step back and give it some time to breathe. An hour goes by. The little rainbow wheel of death is still spinning. The boss comes in and asks “Are you done yet?”

“Fuck no, also the computer’s frozen.”

“Turn it off and back on.”

I leave work at 5 o’ clock usually. Clock hits 5, gotta go, man. I think it might just need to figure itself out overnight. Later, I realized what I had done was download 6,000 copies of this picture to the desktop. The next Thursday, I get back to my internship. No one is speaking to me. This guy goes “Hey do you know what you did to the computer? Well, you completely destroyed that computer.” Whoa danger zone, unprotected. Long story short, they had to take computer into apple store, because it wouldn’t respond for 3 days. Took some cray diagnostic.

“We aren’t going to let you do anything on the computer today, instead we have a different assignment for you.” They’re obviously pissed.

Keep in mind, it’s a casual 100 degree day in Tucson, Arizona. My new job: go outside and recoil a bunch of massive cables that were coiled counterclockwise. I had to recoil them all over, in clockwise direction.

They told me that “we know you’re not really good at coiling cables, so we thought this would be good practice.”

It was ACTUALLY ABUSIVE I went home and listened to music people picked cotton to I felt like I could relate for the first time in my life to slaves. I couldn’t move for 2 days. It’s the heaviest cable that exists. Also, I still can’t coil cord.

Pan Gu opens up sky and earth

“A long long time ago when sky and earth were still one and everything was in chaos sleeps a giant named Pan Gu, and he has slept there for 10 million years.

One day, Pan Gu suddenly woke up. He sees that it is all dark around him, so he picks up a huge axe and swung towards the darkness, and with a loud bang, he divided land and the sky. But Pan Gu was fearful that they are going to stick together again, so everyday he keeps his head up towards the sky and face against the land to make sure that they stay apart. After countless amount of time when the sky and land finally stuck to its shape, PanGu is so exhausted that he fell and died of exhaustion.

Since then, his breath turned into the wind and cloud of the four seasons; his voice turned into the sound of rolling thunder and his eyes turned into the sun and the moon and his limbs turned into the four directions, where his skins turned into land, and his blood turned into running river.”

CM learned this as a child, growing up in China. It’s similar to the Greek myth of the titans. It’s a creation myth, with his body turning into different parts and explaining why they came to be. This includes the seasons and weather and the directions of the earth.