Author Archives: Chung Chan

“It’s Greeley!” – Folk Saying

“It’s Greeley!”

The informant said that when he and his friends would smell horse manure in Boulder, they would say: “It’s Greeley!”  According to my friend, the city of Greeley would always be blamed in some form by Boulder residents when there is a scent of horse manure in the air.

The informant first heard a friend in middle school mention Greeley.  He started using the saying himself when the saying’s blaming of Greeley was confirmed – He visited Greeley and it smelled of the same scent as the wind that would occasionally sweep over Boulder.

Greeley is a city that is approximately 50 miles away from Boulder, and has a lot of stables and horses.  Sometimes the wind is strong enough to carry the scent of the horses and their manure to cities as far as Boulder.

When the informant started using the joke itself suggests that some knowledge of Greeley is essential to understanding the joke.  In fact, the informant did not know what his friend was talking about at first when he mentioned Greeley.

The saying relies on the audience’s knowledge of Colorado’s cities, particularly Greeley, in order to be humorous.  While not explicitly used to distinguish Colorado residents from outsiders, understanding of the joke would determine whether or not you live in/know of Colorado, or of the city of Greeley.

According to my friends, other cities in the area know of Greeley’s reputation as well.  He does not know if they talk about the city in the same way.

七彩豬毛釘 (Rainbow pig-hair nail)

Phonetic pronunciation of 七彩豬毛釘: chut choi ju mo deng
My mother grew up in a working-class family in Hong Kong.  On one hand, my mother’s family was living in an industrialzing culture; on the other hand, her parents came from Southern Chinese villages.  So there’s a lot of beliefs and practices that they carried over from their village lives.

My mother learned a folk medicinal practice from her mother when she had a fever as a child.  Her mother used an old folk remedy, the 七彩豬毛釘, to cure my mother of her fever.

The 七彩豬毛釘 is made of rice flour, hot water, and an egg.  The preparation of the remedy is really simple – you heat some water and add the rice flour and egg to it.  There is no specified amount of each ingredient that you have to put into the remedy.  You just have to create the right consistency that lets you knead the mixture into a piece of dough.  While it is still hot, you roll the ball of dough along the back of the sick person.

The person who prepared the 七彩豬毛釘 then breaks open the ball.  If the treatment worked properly, there should be tiny hairs of all colors stuck in the dough (七彩 means “rainbow” in Chinese – the hairs are also described as looking like pig-hairs, 豬毛).  My mother attests that she saw her mother break the ball open and found rainbow-colored hairs inside.  After the treatment, her fever reduced.
My mother recreated the treatment for me (I was curious), but since I did not have a fever, she was unable to actually apply the remedy.

What I find very interesting is that the remedy has a visual confirmation associated with it.  The remedy’s power comes from contagious magic — the illness of the patient transfers into the piece of dough when it contacts the patient’s skin.  My mother didn’t particularly remember any explanation as to why the illness would turn into rainbow-colored hairs, she just knows that it reduced her fever.  Nobody is allowed to eat the dough after the treatment either, which would make sense since contagious magic has transferred what’s causing the illness into the dough.

Amor de lejos es amor de pendejos

My friend first heard this from her father.  The translation is “To love from afar is love for idiots.”

My friend initially interpreted this proverb as a criticism on being unable to act on emotions for another person.  To “love from afar,” as in, to love without actually confessing it to the person, is love for idiots.”  She’s learned, however, that the proverb is more often used in context of long-distance relationships.  So being geographically far from your significant other and choosing to continue to love them is foolish.  My friend doesn’t have a particular significance attached to this proverb, but she did think that it was rather interesting.

I agree with my friend’s understanding of the proverb, though I wonder if other people beyond her do think of the proverb in the same sense that she originally thought of it (with “love from afar” being similar to “love within the mind”).  I find it interesting that  this proverb discourages love if it’s from a distance.  It suggests that there is a belief that a relationship is only wise or legitimate if it’s grounded in physical reality.  I’m not entirely sure why that would be the case, but perhaps love was often presumed to be associated with marriage.  So a real relationship should be properly consummated, either through sex, marriage, or person-to-person interaction.

This proverb has also seemed to regain some significance with the advent of the internet.  Maybe the idea of a “long-distance relationship” through webcamming is still considered unwise by most people in this community.  If that’s the case, then this Mexican proverb affirms that the idea of physicality is essential to romantic relationships (as a college student in the United States, I hear comments about the futility of long-distance relationships often, and a proverb like this seems particularly fitting for that situation), and that this way of thinking is important to multiple cultures.

The Rock (and other rocks) at Northwestern University

My friend at Northwestern University says there’s a tradition of painting particular rocks on campus.  There’s one massive rock at the center of a few campus buildings, and there are rocks scattered along the coast of Lake Michigan (Northwestern is situated along Lake Michigan).

The rock at the center of campus is often used to promote student organizations, and is known as “The Rock”.  My friend is not entirely sure how the tradition of painting The Rock began, but she knows the rules surrounding the rights to painting the rock.  Should a student organization want to paint the rock, they have to have at least one member guarding it for 24 hours straight.  After the 24 hour period has passed, the organization is allowed to paint anything they please on the rock.  Most of these paintings cover the entire rock and promote the organization itself.  Although the exact origins are unknown, my friend knows that The Rock’s been painted on for quite a long time (she hears many people joke “I swear it was way smaller before,” which hints at the number of times The Rock’s been painted over).   She has not guarded The Rock herself, but knows of friends who have stayed the night by The Rock on behalf of their groups.  Sometimes the progression of  The Rock’s multiple exteriors is documented on a bulletin board.  It’s a popular hangout spot (which I think is partially because of the traditions surrounding it) so it’s good advertising space for campus groups.  Part of becoming a Northwestern student is knowing where The Rock is on campus and knowing the ritual you must perform to win the rights to paint on it.

There are other rocks along the Lake Michigan shore that students can choose to paint.  People can personally reserve rocks but there are no guarantees the paintings will not be painted over.  People who paint the rocks are often couples or graduating students.  My friend and her friend have already looked for a rock and are planning to paint it as seniors.

I think that The Rock and the rocks along the lake are popular spots for painting because rocks are often thought of as enduring objects.  I’ve seen the rocks along the lake myself – these rocks still contain writing from people who have graduated several years ago.  The idea of “leaving your mark” on the college you go to is put in a very physical form through this tradition.

To paint The Rock and the other rocks is a sort of ‘initiation’ into being recognized as a Northwestern student.  Once you’ve been able to carry out these practices you’ve made your impact on the campus.

La Llorona

My friend spent part of her childhood growing up in Mexico, and she would hear this story of La Llorona from other kids.

“La Llorona was a beautiful young woman, as every young woman is in stories, uh… who, like, married this man, and uh… had like beautiful children and… I don’t know, there were like six or something, and…then… he cheated on her, and she got super angry, and killed the kids by drowning them in a river.  And, uh, the legend goes that if you’re a bad child, or if you, like, don’t do something that you’re supposed to do, uh, when you’re a kid, like… the threat of La Llorona is that… um, she’ll come and like, steal you away or something, and there’s like, this legend that she’s still wandering around in riverbeds going like ‘mi secos, mi secos!’”

My friend didn’t believe in La Llorona as she grew up.  Her friends often did, however, and would cite the danger of being caught by La Llorona as reasons to not cause mischief.  I think there’s a different effect when kids tell the stories their parents tell.  I often think of stories such as this as cautionary tales created by parents to warn children to be on good behavior.  For my friend, hearing that other children believed in it made her think the stories were rather silly.  My friend points out that “La Llorona was a beautiful woman, as every young woman is in stories”… I think that she notices there’s a motif in which someone/something beautiful becomes spoiled.  And this ruination of somebody causes them to somehow haunt this world.  I do agree with her; I think La Llorona is not the only ghost story that involves ghosts somehow beginning beautiful and ending as abominations after their actions.  The ghost of La Llorona also hangs around riverbeds, which makes me believe that her existence as a ghost comes as a form of punishment for drowning her children.  It’s interesting that the story that my friend knows of does not really emphasize on the husband.  Instead of a tale of infidelity, La Llorona ends up as a ghost story about a homicidal mother that intends to scare children into compliance.  On the other hand, there might be something more about the husband in other versions – other than the elements my friend finds kind of silly or fascinating, she doesn’t remember too much of a specific narrative.