Author Archives: Austen Le

Tet- Vietnamese New Year

Informant is from San Jose, California, a city with a very large Vietnamese population.

“So in addition to the regular January 1st New Year that everyone in the US celebrates, my family and I also celebrate the Lunar New Year, which is called Tet in Vietnamese. Basically, it is usually in late January or early February, and is when the new lunar cycle begins, which marks the beginning of the year in many Asian countries like Vietnam. During Tet, there are a few superstitions and traditions that everyone follows to have good luck for the next year, and there is a ton of food and gathering around with family.”

Tell me about some of the traditions.

“Well, my parents always told me that whatever you do on the first day of the year, you will do for the rest of the year, so you’re supposed to practice good habits and be clean and all that. Uhh… Oh, also, you aren’t supposed to work or do any cleaning around the house, as people believe that you will sweep away any good luck. One of the big traditions, and my favorite tradition, is giving out red envelopes with money to all of the children, which is supposed to be a sign of fortune and good luck. Other than that, there is a lot of good food, and there are Tet festivals in San Jose and I think in Orange County too.”

 

Collector’s Comments:

The Lunar New Year is commonly celebrated in many Asian countries, and this is a variation of that celebration. Some of the traditions seem to be the same across the cultures, such as giving out the red envelopes and the feast. However, the no-cleaning rule is very interesting, in that it seems to imply that luck can be brought in and out of the house, which is something that I haven’t heard before. This is a holiday that is familiar, yet unique, to many different peoples.

Vietnamese Coin Remedy

Informant is my cousin, who lives in San Jose, California, an area with the second largest population of Vietnamese immigrants in the world outside of Vietnam. This is a form of folk medicine that was used on him before.

“So my grandma, who was born in Vietnam, really believes in using the coin treatment for when anybody is sick or is in pain. Basically, you take a large coin, like a quarter or something, and you rub it on the sick person’s back and neck and other skin areas really hard. It’s supposed to break your blood vessels, so it looks like you’re bruised everywhere, but apparently it also helps you to recover quicker and numbs your pain.”

Have you ever tried it yourself?

“Yeah, my grandma used it on me when I was really little once, when I had come down with a cold. To be honest, it hurt like hell, and afterward my cold didn’t feel much better, but now I was also in a lot of pain from the marks on my body. It seems like this is a pretty common Vietnamese treatment for many people though, as a few of my friends have told me that they used the same thing.”

 

Collector’s Comments:

This is a story that is near and dear to my heart, as our grandma used to use this same kind of remedy when we were sick. In Vietnamese, the name of the treatment translates to “scraping wind”, which relates to how the word used for a cold is “catching wind”. This treatment was believed to help release the symptoms, but it is very painful. However, it is long time tradition of Vietnamese medicine, and is still used today, both in Vietnam and in parts of Asia and the rest of the world with Vietnamese people.

Wong Fei Hung- A Chinese Legend

Informant is a Chinese American student at USC from Houston, Texas. Her parents were born in China, but she was raised in the United States. This is a story that she was told when she was younger.

“So, uh, this is one of the stories that my dad used to tell me about when I was younger. It’s about a person called Wong Fei Hung, who was a legendary Chinese martial artist who was born sometime in the late 1800’s. So it was actually a real person haha. But there are many stories about how he was the greatest kung fu martial artist of his time, and had mastered many of the kung fu styles, including one that he had made famous, called the Hung Gar style or something. One of the stories goes that he helped to save parts of China from the Imperial Japanese Army by teaching the local farmers kung fu so that they could fight back, and then leading them against the Japanese troops to save their lands. He’s a pretty big deal in China, so I guess its pretty cool because he was a real person and not just a myth. I’m not sure if all the stories I heard were completely true however.”

Did you ever do kung fu?

“Oh no not me hahaha. But this is a famous story for a lot of Chinese people, so you don’t have to be a kung fu student to have heard of it.”

 

Collector’s Comments:

This is an example of a legend about a person who actually lived in real life and did important things, but the stories told about them may have been exaggerated or made up to make them seem like an even bigger deal. I have also heard about this story from my Vietnamese dad, so it is a very popular tale in Asia.

 

For another modern version of this story, see the movie Rise of the Legend (2014), a Chinese film on Netflix that tells about the Wong Fei Hung legend and how he rose to fame and saved his town.

 

Bloody Mary

Tell me who Bloody Mary is.

“Bloody Mary is a story that was really really popular among my schoolmates back when I was in elementary school. Basically uhh…, she was like a ghost or phantom or something that was the Virgin Mary with bloody eyes. And you could conjure her in a mirror through a ritual, and she would kill you. I don’t know why it was so popular looking back on it, cause it was basically asking for a death sentence if you did the ritual. But yeah, we used to tell it to each other and dare each other to do it, especially if there was someone who said they didn’t believe in ghosts. It’s especially fun to do at sleepovers, which is what my friends and I used to do.”

How is the ritual performed?

“You go into a room alone with all the lights off, and there has to be a mirror inside obviously. You stand in front of the mirror and you chant ‘Bloody Mary’ three times. After the third time, Bloody Mary is supposed to appear in the mirror, where she will slit your throat and you will die. I actually have tried it before, but nothing really happened which is good cause I really didn’t want to die. It was super scary though, and sometimes you even feel like something might happen, especially when you’re in the dark standing in front of the mirror and have said it twice already.”

 

Collector’s Comments:

This is perhaps one of the most famous ghost stories out there, and one that I have heard multiple times before. One very interesting thing that I noticed is that the informant describes the ghost as a bloodied Virgin Mary. In the versions that I have heard, Bloody Mary is another woman entirely, with no relation to the Catholic Mary, so this makes me wonder if the fact that the informant heard this story at Catholic school had affected the telling. Another point that is interesting is that the informant had actually performed the ritual, and while nothing happened, the fear that he felt was very real, making the context and the setting a large factor in his belief.

 

For another version of this story, see the horror film Paranormal Activity III (2011), which has a scene where the characters recreate the Bloody Mary ritual.

The Nuns and the Indigenous People

Informant is a sophomore at USC majoring in Computer Science. He attended Catholic school from Kindergarten to 8th grade. This is a story that he heard during this time.

“This is a story that I heard from a priest when I went to Catholic school in elementary school. So two of the most faithful nuns were sent from the Vatican to a foreign country to spread the word of God, and when they arrive, they got lost. These nuns had brought nothing but their Bibles and the clothes on their backs, and had no food and water. They couldn’t find the village that they were looking to convert, so they wandered around lost and hungry for three days. Finally they ran into an indigenous person, who asked them why they are there. They said that they were there to spread the word of God to the villagers, to which the person said that he would help lead them to the village. So, they started walking to the village, which was multiple days away, and as they’re walking, the indigenous person showed them plants that they could eat and the plants that were poisonous. After the first day of travelling, they take a rest. The next day, the person tells them that they are only one day away, but that they must trek through wetlands in which there are no edible plants. And, um, the nuns say to gather all the food in the area, to which the indigenous person responds that if people before had taken everything, then they wouldn’t be alive today. They all argue over taking some or all of the food, and the nuns decide to go with their plan. One of the nuns reaches to a bush to grab a berry, when suddenly lightning comes down and strikes the bush, killing all the food on it. At this point, the nuns realize that the indigenous person was being more Christian than they were. Basically, the point of the story is that by coming to the indigenous land, the nuns had brought Christianity to these people without even trying.”

Do you remember how you and your classmates reacted to the story?

“Well I had to hear it basically every year, so I got real tired of it by the end. Plus, it seems super unbelievable, but apparently it’s a true story and a miracle. Either way, it’s something that they told a lot in my Catholic school.”

 

Collector’s Comments:

“This is a story that is supposedly true, but is within a religious context so its validity is questionable at best. It is very interesting in that it shows Catholicism in the context of indigenous conversion, although it is very watered down in that it omits much of the violence that went into the conversion of indigenous populations. However, this story is very much geared towards believers of the Catholic faith, as it would be most believable if the audience believed in the miracles of God.