Author Archives: Cullen Burt

Playing ”balances.”

B is a 21-year-old Korean male originally from Busan, South Korea. B is currently a college student in Los Angeles, California.

B taught me to how to play the following Korean game while we were taking a break from studying in a college dorm.

B: The game is called “balances” and you have to pick one of the two options I say. And you can’t say “neither,” even if they are both bad.. you still have to pick one laughs. It’s a really popular game in Korea.

Interviewer: Ahh so it’s like “would you rather?”

B: Yeah! It’s similar to that. Like…. “Would you rather eat a tomato that tastes like vomit or vomit that tastes like tomato?

Reflection: After playing and recording my brief game of ”balances” with B, he told me that the game is actually called 균형 게임 (gyunhyeong geim) or ”balance game” in Korea. The game is practically identical to “would you rather,” especially regarding how much of game derives from the idea that both options are a form of opposites and yet equally terrible choices. Despite the sameness, I found it interesting that B insisted that the games are different. In relation to polygenesis and folklore, people understandably want to stake claim in folklore they perceive as theirs, even if the same or highly similar folklore developed on its own elsewhere.

Devil in disguise.

C is a 49-year-old Hispanic-African-American female originally from Tucson, Arizona. C is currently a full time homemaker to two daughters in Phoenix, Arizona.

C performed this folklore during a phone conversation. I asked C if she had any folklore she would be willing to share with me.

C: A big dance was happening and a very handsome man came in. All the girls wanted to dance with him. He was the best dancer and girls were fighting over him, and men wanted to fight him because wives and girlfriends were going crazy to be the next dance partner. At midnight while he was dancing both legs turned into rooster legs. It was the devil in disguise.

Reflection: I wish I was able to get more context about this folklore from C, but there is enough content in the story to make some base assumptions. In my opinion, the story seems like a reverse version of the beauty and the beast template. Instead of a beast hiding a handsome man within, a handsome man is hiding a beast within. With this in mind, the legend could be a cautionary tale that not everyone is who they appear to be. This would make sense within the context of C’s Hispanic heritage given that courtship is taken very seriously in Hispanic culture, and potential suiters are must be carefully evaluated beyond outward appearances before they are allowed to marry.

Giving babies ”Ojo.”

A is a 59-year-old Hispanic American female originally from La Junta, a small town in Southeastern Colorado. A currently works as a background detective in Phoenix Arizona.

A informed me of this folklore over a dinner discussion. We were on the topic of family superstitions, and I asked A if she had any superstitions that she remembered her family believing in.

A: I was thinking about this a few days ago. I remember Nana and my aunts talking about giving a baby “ojo” by looking at them and falling over how cute they are it makes them sick if you do it too much. And then I read about it and I laughed because this is exactly what I remember hearing them talking about it, when I was little. I also remember in order for them to come back from the baby getting that, when you’re born they put a little bracelet on the babies made out of coral. I will call Nana to make sure but that’s what I remember. To help babies ward off the evil eye or “ojo” the babies would wear a little string with a piece of coral red coral. And then the mothers would put an egg in a cup of water near the bed to help them heal from the evil if they got it laughs.

Reflection: This folklore seems to be associated with the idea that too much of a good thing is a bad thing. It brings greater context into my own family, as I remember my grandmother scolding my cousins for fawning over a baby, and I never knew quite why. I find it interesting that specifically coral and eggs in water act as deterrent. Perhaps they both have an absorbent property that draws evil away when placed in the immediate proximity of a baby.

“You can’t fix a human.”

B is a 21-year-old Korean male originally from Busan, South Korea. B is currently a college student in Los Angeles, California.

B informed me of this folklore while I was visiting him in his college dorm, which he shares with four other students. B recited the following saying to me after getting in a verbal argument with his messy roommate, who refused to clean his hair out of the shower drain.

B: You know, we have an old saying.. like, “you can’t fix a human.” You know you might give someone a second chance.. after they do something wrong, but they will still revert to their status quo even after a while. And it’s true most of the time.

Reflection: According to B, he did not know how to translate the exact Korean saying to English, as the full meaning does not transfer very clearly across languages. I can at least make an assessment based on the rough translation of “you can’t fix a human” and the context of its usage. It seems to be a direct reference to the idea that human nature is unchangeable, and people will make certain decisions regardless of outside influences. The saying is cynical and direct in nature, given that it assumes “broken” people are incapable of being ”fixed.” Or in other words, the hair will never be cleaned from the shower drain.