Author Archives: Kat Winsryg

The sorcerer of the white lotus lounge

–Informant Info–

Nationality: Chinese American

Age: 27

Occupation: Student

Residence: Los Angeles, California

Date of Performance/Collection: 2022

Primary Language: English

Other Language(s): Mandarin

(Notes-The informant will GT be referred to as and the interviewer as K)

Background info: GT is a Chinese American student who was born and raised in California. Both his parents were born and raised in a small town in China, which is where he knows this story from. He told me this story in his home during the daylight.

K: So uh same questions. Name of the story, context of the performance, and uh…where did you hear it?

GT: Yeah, I remember. Its called 白莲山庄的巫师 or like…sorcerer of the white lotus lounge if I make it make sense in English. Uh so its another like fairytale I heard from my mom or like books and stuff

K: Ok neat, whenever youre ready

GT: Yeah ok uh so like…Uh, it starts with there was a very powerful sorcerer, who could use dark magic. He had pupils as he like taught them dark magic I guess. Anyways, he asked them to watch a covered bowl and to not uncover it but of course, the students did, and all that was in it was a little straw boat in clear water. They like messed with the uh boat, and it tipped over. The sorcerer came back and said he knew what they had did, even if they denied it. The next night he left them with an uh..a candle and told them to watch it so it doesn’t go out. They all fell asleep and it went out, and again they denied it but the sorcerer knew, and that like…scared the students. Later uh, one of them insulted him, so he turned him into a pig and sold him to a butcher who killed him like a butcher does to an uh pig. Anyways, that student’s dad found out so the Emporer arrested him and his family. As they were going up an uh…a mountain all of them, the soldiers and such, saw this huge tree with a giant mouth and eyes. The sorcerer said his wife could handle it, and she got eaten. He said his son could handle it and then he got eaten, then he begged to handle it, and then HE got eaten. The thing is, it was all a trick and the three of them got away scot-free. The end

K: Is there like…a moral to this story

GT: *laughter* you’d think huh? No, just don’t fuck with sorcerers I guess.

Interpretation:
This was an odd one. The fact that there’s no real moral, in fact, the “bad guy” got away with his deeds, was super interesting. Most other folklore and/or fairytales at least have the good guy succeeding, if not rife with moral teachings. I later asked for further clarification from the informant, and he told me that the sorcerer was part of the lounge of white lotus, as seen in the title. This lounge was, at least according to my research, a revolutionary society in China, so it makes sense that they’d go against the grain in who “won” in a fairytale. I also thought it was interesting that the sorcerer was meant be scary. The story did not shy away from making him the very obvious bad guy, at least by today’s standards. He turns one of his students into a pig and sells him to a butcher!

Radiator Ghost

–Informant Info–

Nationality: American

Age: 53

Occupation: Teacher

Residence: Los Angeles, California

Date of Performance/Collection: 2022

Primary Language: English

Other Language(s): N/A

(Notes-The informant will be referred to as DS and the interviewer as K)

Background info: DS is a mother of 1 who grew up in the southern area of the United States, moving to Los Angeles in 2020. She remembers both being told this story and experiencing it herself.

K: Ok, so what’s the name of the folklore, where did you hear it from, and what’s the context of the performance? Like uh…under what uh circumstances is the story told?

DS: Well, it doesn’t really have a title, does it! I suppose I would call it the radiator ghost as that’s where she lived. Uh I heard it from my momma originally when I was a girl but I met the ghost a few times. I tell it to scare my kids but also teach em that sometimes whats scary on the surface ain’t so much when you look into it.

K: Ok cool, whenever you’re ready.

DS: Well, it’s simple, ain’t it. In my home I grew up in there was one of them old fashion uh radiators that would burn the hell outta you if you touched it *laughter*. Uh, when I used to walk down the hallway at nighttime, cuz the radiator was right next to the bathroom, I used to get this REAL bad feeling when I go too close to it so I always avoided it. One day, when I was about 10 or 11, I hadn’t felt the bad feeling in a while. I realized at that point that uh..the ghost was protecting me till I wasn’t stupid enough to touch the radiator. *laughter*

Interpretation:
I liked hearing this more common ghost story, especially that it had a more happy ending! The idea of a ghost that is trying to help a child is really sweet, and it also makes sense for that culture. Southern culture is very stereotypically helpful and kind, so a southern ghost upholding those standards follows perfectly. Even if it’s something psychosomatic, meaning the informant’s mother told her about the ghost so she imagined it, the ghost and its personality make sense. I do want to note my personal bias here, in that I believe in ghosts so that affected my interpretation of the folklore and possibly the informants telling of it, as they could see my positive reactions as they were telling me.

Uncle Jake

–Informant Info–

Nationality: American

Age: 56

Occupation: Housewife

Residence: Los Angeles, California

Date of Performance/Collection: 2022

Primary Language: English

Other Language(s): N/A

(Notes-The informant will be referred to as FB and the interviewer as K)

Background info: FB is a mother of 2 who grew up in Southern California, where this story takes place. She did not witness this story and was told by her grandmother. She told me this story multiple times throughout my life, but it was over dinner this time.

K: Wait, wait, uh… what’s the name of the story, where did you hear it, and when do you tell it?

FB: Uh well I guess I’d call it uh the Uncle Jake story uh I always heard it from my mom just randomly, mainly when I’d ask about it.

K: Ok! Whenever you wanna tell it go ahead.

FB: Yeah ok so uh Uncle Jake lived on an uh old apple orchard os he had hundreds of apples he had no use for. So he decided to go down to a local uh convent with a bunch of nuns with a truck bed full of apples. So he went down there and found a bunch of uh starving nuns who basically launched themselves on the apples. He asked them why they weren’t eating, worried something had happened, and they explained the church wanted them to uh wait for an action from God to get them to eat, and if no one came it was their time, meaning time to uh die. So Uncle Jake went down to the uh Bishops office, which was decked out in a bunch of gold, and asked him what was going on. The uh bishop said the same thing and said jake was uh God’s action, so Jake went ape shit and tore up his office as he should have. When he went back to the convent after, they were healthy and eating regularly.

Interpretation:
This was cool to hear about! The informant did note that she was unsure about how truthful it was, as some major plot points changed for whoever was telling it, but she liked it anyway, to the point where both my brother and her son were named after Uncle Jake. I will note my and her bias, which we agreed on. Neither of us is religious, so the retelling of this story from DS directly is much less focused on the religious part of it, and how this one man was incorrect, and more so focused on Uncle Jakes’s revenge and how the religion as a whole is incorrect. Hearing how she told it to me definitely follows that train of thought.

Moxibustion (艾灸)

–Informant Info–

Nationality: Taiwanese American

Age:40

Occupation: Technition

Residence: Los Angeles, California

Date of Performance/Collection: 2022

Primary Language: English

Other Language(s): Cantonese, Thai

(Notes-The informant will be referred AM to as and the interviewer as K)

Background info: AM a Taiwanese American techint8ion who was born and raised in California to Taiwanese parents, which is where she learned of this folk medicine. She also practiced it as a child and continues to do so today with her own family.

K: Ok uh what medicine are you going to be telling me about, where did you learn about it, and why or under uh what circumstances were this medicine used?

AM: Yeah it’s called uh 艾灸 or I’ve heard it be called Moxibustion in English. Uh, my mom would take me to the doctor to have this done when I started getting menstrual pain or if my Qi was uh blocked.

K: Ok! Whenever you’re ready you can describe it

AM: Yeah it’s simple uh so you lay down and then these uh little mugwort things are placed on your body, they kinda resemble uh incense cones. So they’re burned, and then this really smelly smoke comes out and you just lay there breathing it in, and then your pain goes away. It’s also just really relaxing because of the heat.

Interpretation:
I wish I was able to hear about more traditional folk medicine because of how interesting it is. I wasn’t able to do much research on the actual scientific possibilities as to why this works, but the important thing is that it does help people. I believe at least that as long as folk medicine isn’t claiming to heal cancer (think of the fruitarian diet, for example), it’s incredibly useful and helps people. That is an important bias to note as well. Folk medicine is incredibly common in many East Asian cultures, and there are thousands of different traditions so it would be incredibly difficult to collect them all, especially (as the informant would later note) nearly every household as their own “concoctions” to treat common illness and pain.

Marie Laveau

–Informant Info–

Nationality: American

Age: 87

Occupation: Unemployed

Residence: Los Angeles, California

Date of Performance/Collection: 2022

Primary Language: English

Other Language(s): French

(Notes-The informant will be referred to as JW and the interviewer as K)

Background info: JW is a father and grandfather who was born and raised in New Orleans, moving to Los Angeles to follow his son, whom he now resides with. I was told this story in the evening in a room that JM made “purposefully spooky”

K: So whats the name of the folklore, where did you hear it, and when is it like told?

JW: *laughter* Well miss, it’s a true story about a voodoo queen named Marie Laveau. Everyone just knows it, some say that’s part of her magic still at work, that no one can forget her. *laughter*

K: *laughter* Ok so, whenever you’re ready! Go into as much or as little detail as you want

JW: You sure miss? It gets gruesome

K: Part of the charm of folklore

JW: *laughter* you right you right. Miss Marie Laveau was a voodoo queen *stretches out the word queen for emphasis*. She could do anythin under our God-given sun, even make herself live twice as long *smiles*. She was-she was said to curse those who had wronged her in the most brutal ways. I remember when I was a boy an uh…one of my friends told me that his great somethin grandma was cursed by Miss Laveau. She had stolen something from her shop, so Miss Laveau stole somethin from her…*long pause* her right hand! The one that did the snatchin! *laughter*. That’s the kinda stuff she did, so everyone with half a mind was smart enough not to cross her. It’s said that to this day if you visit her grave, you can get a wish granted if you leave her somethin nice.

Interpretation:
It was really interesting to hear a more well-known bit of folklore be told from an original point of view. What I mean by that is JM is from New Orleans, and although Marie Laveau is known from more popular culture like American Horror Story, this telling was drastically different than the one in the aforementioned television show. I also thought it was important to note the joy in which this story was told to me. JM was laughing regularly as he told me the story, even the more grisly parts of it. He set up the room I was speaking to him in a traditionally scary way, but when it came to the story it was as if he couldn’t contain his joy. The story obviously had lost its scare factor as people get older. He notes being scared by the version his friend told him when he was younger but laughed telling me it.