Author Archives: Maria Peltekova

When Tigers Used to Smoke

Interview Extract:

Informant: So I work in for a publishing company called Kaya Press, and it focuses on the Asian Diaspora, so it publishes Asian authors mostly. And well, it’s logo, you can find it online if you go to Kaya.com, and their logo is a tiger smoking a cigar, or smoking—I think originally it was supposed to be a pipe, but they updated it to be more modern. Although I think they should have kept it as a pipe because now it just looks like a joint.”

Me: “What does the tiger and whatever its smoking symbolize, or why is that the logo?”

Informant: “So we got the idea from the Korean mode of storytelling. Like instead of starting their folktales with ‘Once upon a time,’ like in the Western European tradition, they started ‘Back when tigers used to smoke.’

The tiger is just, I guess it some sort of culturally important image, and by invoking that image, it goes back to some mystical, legendary days. Yeah…I don’t know too much about it or about Kaya’s link to the tiger, but I suppose the idea behind the logo is that we celebrate literature and strive to pull from Asian culture, so it makes sense that we’d like, incorporate the beginning of folktales into our logo. And I think it does give it some legend-like quality or mysticism anyway, because you don’t like really see tigers smoking.”

Me: “Do animals typically smoke in Asian folklore?”

Informant: “I’m not really too sure. Like, I guess it was just limited to when they started their tales, but I don’t really know.”

Analysis:

“When tigers used to smoke” is quite the mystical beginning and would appropriately set the tone for any magical or supernatural folktale, as well as any that involved animals. It has an even more distant connotation than the Western “once upon a time,” because it personifies the tiger and allows him to do something very sophisticated. In a sense, there is a story within that opening itself, and it

Unfortunately, that Korean folklore may be lost to many people as they become more and more used to the typical “once upon a time.” The Kaya Press, which my informant mentioned, acknowledges this and helps to revive the smoking tiger with its logo and dedication to publishing Asian authors. This not only allows for increased globalization and spread of different cultures, but also allows the saying to remain intact, albeit through a visual form instead of a spoken or written one.

Also, Kaya Press is updating the phrase itself, by modernizing the tiger to be smoking a cigar instead of a pipe, as they had done so before. It’s documented proof of how a piece of folklore can transform throughout the years so it can reach a wider audience, although my informant did lament this fact. She claimed the tiger smoking a pipe would have been more impressive, although who knows, that may not have been what it was originally intended when the story opening was coined in the first place.

Gonggi

Interview Extract:

Informant: “Have you heard of gonggi? It’s a game we played as children, with these sort of like marble-ly things. They’re like round, and colorful, and they’re just like, made out of plastic and have little things inside to give it weight or something. But anyway, to play the game, you’d throw one in the air, and then try to catch it before it dropped to the ground. Then you throw two in the air and try to catch both the little ‘balls,’ I guess you can call them. Then you throw three, and catch them and so on.”

Me: “Did you play this game often?”

Informant: “Yeah, I remember our parents used to buy them for us, me and my brothers and my friends, like all the time. It was a really fun game to play.”

Analysis:

This was the first thing my informant thought of when she tried to remember something from her childhood. Evidently, she would play them all the time with either her brothers, friends, or even by herself, since it’s an easy game to learn and participate in. The gonggi pieces are sold in many cities here, probably in Koreatown shops, so my informant was able to play this traditional game while growing up in the Southern California area. Her parents didn’t seem to mind buying her multiple sets, either because she lost them or broke the pieces, because they still tied her to Korean culture. Since it appears that this was one of my informant’s favorite games to play growing up, if they continue to sell them here in the years to come, I’d imagine she would buy gonggi sets for her children as well.

The simplicity of the game is attractive, as well as the colorful balls, or pebbles, children use to play with. This makes it popular worldwide and a game that can no doubt make a lasting impression upon a young child. While gonggi is still only known to Korean children, there have been variations of this game that are known by other names, and there’s a possibility that this will allow gonggi to become more popular within other cultures and ethnicities as well.

The Sparrow Story

Interview Extract:

Informant: “Well, we have swallows in our house, like a nest on the side of our house, and the swallows come every year, for like four years now. And um, my dad told me this story about swallows, and basically, there were these two brothers, one very rich and the other very poor. The richer brother was annoyed by the poor brother ‘cause he was a um, he was a beggar and he’s always coming around asking for something and finally, like the rich brother, I think he was also the older brother, but the rich brother stopped giving him food and things.

Then um, the uh, poor brother noticed a swallows’ nest on his house, and saw a baby bird like, fall out and break its wing, so he took care of the bird. I think he just like, had nothing else to do.

Then like, all of a sudden, all these pumpkins start growing in his yard from a pumpkin seed, all this other good agriculture starts growing. And the poor brother was curious how he had all this food, but also he was very grateful. Then, uh, the sparrow got better, and it flew away. And then when the rich brother saw the good crops, he got jealous, so he tried to find a sparrow and break its wing or its leg so he could nurse it back to health so he could get good crops too. But of course, it didn’t work.

The sparrow only left a pumpkin seed on the poor brother’s garden because he was good and did not expect anything in return. So the moral of the story I guess, is when you just do good things, good things will happen to you.”

Me: “So is this a traditional Korean folktale?”

Informant: “Yeah, my dad told me about it just recently because we had birds next to our house, and we’re not supposed to kill nature, even though people would want to crush the nest because the birds can poop, you know, and make a mess, but apparently, it’s like special to have sparrows. They’re very symbolic in Korea I guess, so we keep the nest, and they just come back every year.”

Analysis:

Most of us would have heard stories similar to this one, where the younger or poorer sibling does a deed out of the kindness of their heart and is rewarded for it, while the jealous, richer, and usually older sibling will try to do the same but fail because of their avarice in some way. This theme, that the good-natured underprivileged character will prevail, is seen in Indian and European folktales as well and is extremely popular. People like to see the kind characters succeeding in the end and gaining the wealthy, happily-ever-after ending, especially when it doesn’t come true often in real life.

The sparrow was the equivalent of a fairy godmother in this story, and important to my informant because she saw the sparrows in her own house. They are also what spurred her father to tell her this story, a fact that she obviously valued since as a college senior, adults don’t usually relate fairy tales to her anymore. She clearly cherished the memory of her dad taking the time to tell the story, as well as the sweetness of the sparrows flying back to their house year after year.

My informant’s parents are from Korea, so they would have seen sparrows often, and it’s interesting that even though they moved thousands of miles, the same story is relevant because the same type of bird is found in California. My informant would not have heard the story if they lived in another state possibly, and neither would have I. This emphasizes how some folklore is spread throughout the world because of similar surroundings, and why some of is changed in order to adapt with any differences.

Gloomy Sunday

Interview Extract:

Informant: “Do you know about ‘Gloomy Sunday?’”

Me: “No, what is it?”

Informant: “It’s a song, I think by a Hungarian or a European composer. Yeah, Hungarian, because they also call it the Hungarian Suicide Song. And the composer, there’s a story about him, that after writing it, he killed himself and it goes that if you listen to the song for too long, you’ll commit suicide too because it’s like so sad.

Billie Holiday did like a jazzier version of it; it’s not so depressing, and no one obviously is scared of killing themselves from that one.”

Me: “Where’d you hear about it?”

Informant: “I heard about it in high school. Someone just like, played that song for us and a bunch of people freaked out But there’s been a lot of reports about people dying when they hear that song, or they’ll die like holding the sheet music or something like that. And I think the composer himself did jump or a building, I think because um, he had never achieved any greatness after that one hit he had with ‘Gloomy Sunday.’”

Me: “Were you ever scared of the song’s legend?”

Informant: “Not really. Like, I believed that people would maybe commit suicide after listening to it, but I think they felt like that before and they just sort of got pushed over the edge after listening to this sad song over and over again on repeat.”

Analysis:

The fact that song with Hungarian origins managed to travel all the way to a Chinese school playground proves that children love to scare each other. There is something tantalizing about hearing a legend such as this one, and it naturally creates a environment in which students would dare each other to listen to the song. Competitions could arise perhaps, to see who can withstand listening to the sad song for the longest period of time, or as was the case with my informant, students would just play “Gloomy Sunday” to others in order to frighten them.

If the background of the song was only that the composer had committed suicide, then perhaps its folklore would not be so scary. But as it spread around the world, “Gloomy Sunday” naturally accumulated urban legends that either existed before and became tied to it, or were invented along with the song. Once a person hears that many people have committed suicide directly because one eerie song, then it’s certainly terrifying. When my informant was telling me about it, she herself seemed to mystify the song, almost revering its power in a way. She may have been putting on a show to scare me, in which case it certainly worked, or she herself had some lingering fears from when she first heard about it. Either way, I became too nervous to play the song even though I had originally wanted to hear what exactly made it so depressing.

This Hungarian song isn’t the only song or object that has been claimed to have the power to make people suicidal. There have been pictures that supposedly have a influence on people similar to “Gloomy Sunday,” and even a whole forest, the Aokigahara forest inJapan, has that sort of sway. The forest is one of the most popular places for suicides, and this leads to many urban and ghost stories about the place. Yet one must wonder, does the forest, or the picture, or song actually force people to kill themselves, or are suicidal people drawn to these objects regardless? Most likely, as “Gloomy Sunday” and the Aokigahara forest draw more attention, they will be credited for more deaths, and the cycle will continue.

The way to break this seemingly endless sequence is indeed by lightening the mood. Either the song can be used as a playground game or it can be rewritten into a more cheery melody, the way my informant says Billie Holiday did. No one will link Billie Holiday’s adaptation to mysterious deaths, and that will limit the legends, and potentially, if they really are true, the suicides themselves.

Silly Pens

Interview Extract:

Informant: “One little thing that me and my friends used to do, like before every exam—and in China, every class stayed with the same students, so we all had the same tests at the same time—and what we would do was buy these ridiculous, feathery pens that were really brightly colored and had these puffy, feathery tops and ribbons, and we used them on our tests for good luck.

Our teacher would obviously look at us like we were weird, ‘cause our whole class had the crazy pens, but they made us feel like safe, and they were a good luck charm.”

Me: “How long did you do this for?”

Informant: “Um, in middle school we did it, so for like three years there, and then we stopped our first year of high school ‘cause then we outgrew them, I guess.”

Me: “Do you still wish you did it?”

Informant: “Um, I don’t know. It was our kind of rebellion I suppose, because we had to use blue or black ink on our tests, so we wrote in blue or black ink with feathers the most obnoxious pens ever. In China, like there were a lot of thrift stores that sold them, so we’d go there before every class to get them.”

Me: “Did you get a new one for every test?”

Informant: “Yes. They didn’t last very long, but they were cheap so it was like, whatever.”

Analysis:

It is clear why this silly pen tradition was important to my informant. They provided solidarity, a quiet way to rebel against school and authorities, an opportunity to keep secrets from adults, and perhaps most importantly, a way to simply have a laugh on an otherwise stressful occasion. While the students may have honestly believed that the fluffy, feathery pens bought them good luck on their exams, I think they continued this tradition for three or so years mainly because it did bring them together as a class. In my personal experience of test-taking, there is always a sense of jovial camaraderie within the class if everyone is doubting themselves or if everyone is worried over a particular question. This isn’t exactly a positive thing, and yet there is comfort in knowing that everyone else is in the same situation. The pens would serve as a physical reminder to the students that they are joined together against the institution, especially as they go on outings to buy the pens with their own money and then use them ostentatiously in class. There is even the added glee that the students were committing an act that wasn’t entirely within the school rules. They were following directions, but bending them slightly, and in such a manner that they couldn’t actually get in trouble.

It would be doubtful that anyone would abstain from using the silly pens, even if it was ridiculous or uncomfortable to write with them, simply because no young student would want to be left out. After all, I’d imagine they would provide an abundance of fond memories and laughter.