Author Archives: Mu Fan Shih

Hispanic Mating/Dating Practice “Ir a Caminar”

My informant says this about his background:

“My parents are both um…from Mexico… and then they moved to the uh…Sacramento, California in uh ’88 and had my sister and I was born shortly after that in ’91…um…we lived in a mostly Hispanic neighborhood until the time I was in third grade at which point my Dad’s career brought us to a point where we could move into a high income neighborhood elsewhere in Sacramento and I lived there since until I moved to Los Angeles this year for college.”

He was also raised in a Catholic family.

He provided the following exchange about this Hispanic dating practice “Ir a Cominar”, which means, “to go walking”. It’s a specific way of socializing with teenagers of the other sex in a specific environment:

“Informant: I guess the only way to put this is that it’s a sort of mating practice, in the sense, that uh, in the vil–small town where my parents grew up, La Pidad, there was a very specific way you would, uh, teenagers would, go around meeting each other–with the other sex. Um… in the plaza, they would always call it ‘Ir a Caminar’, to go walking, and basically, people would just go walking around in the park and the plaza and um…all the girls would walk around in the middle, talking to each other and would wait for the guys, who would sit on the outside and approach them and ask them to go walking. Um, I thought this was weird, because when my parents first talked to me about it, they, uh, they, treated it like a totally normal thing um, but this was [snicker] a specific environment where boy girl interactions would happen, in fact, that’s where my parents met.

Collector: Is this like going out?

Informant: No, no, it’s not going out, but just walking. It’s a very, a, this was a very odd way they,um, you know, every relationship starts like that! No matter where it goes, every relationship starts like that where they grew up. I haven’t heard about it elsewhere, outside of their town.

Collector: Why do you think they do this?

Informant: Um, to me, uhh..obviously you have no control what teenagers might do later in their relationship, but considering they grew up in a very very Catholic community, this seems like a very innocent, um, way of meeting people. But, there’s a certain level of tradition about it, with me, it always seemed old fashioned, um, it seemed like uh, because it’s so public–it’s out in the park–you want to display that modesty before the relationship is starting, um, and then uh, people experience a sort of private life from there.”

While there are many interesting dating practices existent in the folklore of other cultures, this one is specially interesting in how regulated the practice is and there’s a certain protective quality about this sort of regulation. The women are protected by each other in the inner circle and the guys have their guy friends, or what some might call “wing men”, around them. Each sex is supported by their friends as they mingle with the opposite sex and the practice becomes quite protective and innocent in nature.

The fact that my informant feels this practice is old fashioned might call into question the norm of dating in the United States as of now. While I may be over-generalizing, modern teen culture and dating practices seem to place an emphasis on sexual relations, or hookups/one night stands, instead of devoting effort to developing a nurturing relationship, losing or skipping the sort of modesty and innocence that my informant describes in the folk practice he observed. So, ultimately, perhaps this difference between dating practices suggests that teenagers these days are exposed to sexual relations way too early from the media and even propagated by their own folk circles–like a sort of leftover or lasting effect from the Free Love Revolutions of the 1980s.

Two Hispanic Jokes – Pablito

My informant says this about his background:

“My parents are both um…from Mexico… and then they moved to the uh…Sacramento, California in uh ’88 and had my sister and I was born shortly after that in ’91…um…we lived in a mostly Hispanic neighborhood until the time I was in third grade at which point my Dad’s career brought us to a point where we could move into a high income neighborhood elsewhere in Sacramento and I lived there since until I moved to Los Angeles this year for college.”

I would just like to add that he’s raised Catholic.

He told me the following when I interviewed him:

“So the last time I was in Mexican…’cause my family got around…now that a couple of us are grown up, we were at the table and couple of uncles were sharing Pablito jokes…uh, Pablito is like a national figure in some crass, crude Mexican jokes that are usually shared amoung young Mexican adolescents..um..usually involves swearing or some kind of sexual innuendo. One joke is, about Pablito, uh…going to sell vegetables at the market…so his mom sends him off and she says…I’ll say this partly in English and partly in Spanish so the puns make sense and she sends him out and says, mijo, I want you to go out and sell jalapenos, so he goes to the market walking around going ‘jalas, jalas, jalas…jalas, jalas, jalas… (song-like quality)…shortening jalapenos to jalas and she says, ‘no, no, no, miho,  they’re jalapenos, you have to say that and don’t shorten them next time! Tomorrow I need you to go sell melons’ and so he goes to the market and he goes ‘melos, melos, melos…. melos, melos, melos and he comes back home, he hasn’t sold anything and his mom says you have to say the whole thing…melones, you can’t shorten it again! Tomorrow, you’re going to go to the market again and you’re going to sell eggs, but you’re not going to shorten anything!’ So finally, Pablito goes to the market on the third day and remembering not to shorten anything, he said the entire phrase ‘jalasmelosjuevos, jalasmelosjuevos, jalasmelosjuevos’, which is basically, ‘pull out my testicles, pull out my testicles, pull out testicles’ so yeah, haha, it’s, yeah…a crude, dirty joke. And if anything, I remember hearing a variant of this in the…uh…elementary school back when I lived in uh…and in that context, just the whole…crude humor thing again, but I don’t quite remember this.’

Then I asked, “Why is the kid called Pablito?” To which, my informant responded:

“Pablito is just like a…a…it can be like…a…in the s-same way that uh…Americans usually use Bob as a default name, it’s like a little default name…uh for some reason, I’m not sure. And of course, ‘blito’ implies that he’s some small kid who’s involved in these crude situations…um another Pablito joke is, um…I’m trying to remember…Pablito has a problem with swearing, he swears a lot…he’s the stock joke boy. He swears a lot, he has a very dirty mouth for a young boy. So uh, he goes to a church, he’s also crippled…he’s arm is bent so that…permanently bent so that uh…he can’t extend it, so this obviously is not good and he sits down at a pew and he prays and prays and prays, ‘God, if you uh, cure my arm, I’ll never swear again, I promise, I promise’. And then, so he prays and nothing happens and then he walk out the church and the second he steps out, his arm extends and he says ‘Ay cabron! and his arm, uh, bends again.’

*Ay cabron is a swear word in Spanish, which is something like fucker*

I inquired further and said, “What’s the significance of this joke?” to which he answered:

“Um, it’s hard to say, but the Pablito, Pablito is very indicative of the every man, not the every man, but the every boy. My parents always told that in the context of the little town they grew up in, so he’s clearly not high income or anything like that…uh…he spends a lot of time on the streets, hence the crude humor, which is usually shared by boys at a young age. Um..usually, not older adolescents but younger people, boys at around ten or eleven, maybe younger….I think it’s just mostly reflective of everyday life of my people.”

While I think my informant hit on many of the important aspects of the joke, I just wanted to point out the emphasis on family and a more agricultural life in the first joke and the focus on Christianity in the second joke. Moreover, the second joke implicitly teaches the moral lesson that “God can take back what he gives, and because of this, we should keep our promises to him”. Lastly, I just wanted to reinforce how Pablito jokes are reflective of a much more impoverished and low class lifestyle (in the neutral sense).

For more Pablito jokes, visit this site (which is in Spanish): http://www.minichistes.com/tag/pablito/

Chinese Religious Folk Practice – Calling the Soul

This folk practice was collected from my Father. My father was born as a farmer’s son into a veteran’s family in Taipei, Taiwan. His father and mother ran away from China to Taipei during the Chinese Civil War. Many of his cultural practices and beliefs are taken from mainland Chinese culture. Because of his background, he is considered a “mainlander” in Taiwan (Chinese in Taiwan are divided into Mainland Chinese, Taiwanese or indigenous). My father graduated from Iowa University with an MBA. His B.A was obtained in Taiwan.

When we were having our regular telephone session, he told me the following recollection on the phone in Chinese when we were talking about a few strange police cases in the past:

(This is not a direct transcription or translation. It’s based off what I remember him saying)

” When a man dies or goes missing in the mountains or river, and the police can’t find his corpse, they’ll always resort to calling his spirit as part of the investigation, like a sort of last resort. The police will take a taoist sorcerer and the missing man’s family, along with some of his possessions such as clothes, into the mountains or river; anywhere, closest to where the man went missing. The Taoist sorcerer will then perform a ritual and ask the family to call out the man’s name while holding out his clothes;  this practice is called the “calling of the soul”…. The family usually continues this “calling of the soul” until the body is found. And usually, right after this ritual is performed, the missing man’s corpse will actually appear or the police will find the corpse somewhere in the next few days. You might think I’m joking, but I’m not. Many cases have been solved in this fashion! You see it on the news all the time.”

When I asked my father the significance of this practice, he said:

“There is a traditional Chinese belief that a person’s soul stays on earth for a week before it leaves. The police ask the taoist sorcerer and the family members of the deceased to perform this ritual because the police have faith in this belief.”

I believe my father is quite right in the significance of this practice. The police and the people involved truly believe in this folk practice and they actually perform the “calling of the soul” as a last resort, after all the help that modern science and technology can give, to find the body of the deceased/missing family member. While I am not in any place to judge whether or not the folk practice of calling the soul or this folk belief is true or not, the fact stands that it has worked before, which furthers the belief in this tradition. Moreover, the idea of this practice appearing on the news as something legitimate the police do reveals the deep-set beliefs in the supernatural and the particular idea about the afterlife that Chinese culture have. This item also shows that despite the modernization of China and Taiwan, there still remains a heavy belief in the supernatural superstitions, practices and beliefs that were passed down generation to generation.

Chinese Religious Folk Legend – Unjust Deaths and Vengeful Spirit Women

This folk legend was collected from my Father. My father was born as a farmer’s son into a veteran’s family in Taipei, Taiwan. His father and mother ran away from China to Taipei during the Chinese Civil War. Much of his cultural practices and beliefs are taken from mainland Chinese culture. Because of his background, he is considered a “mainlander” in Taiwan (Chinese in Taiwan are divided into Mainland Chinese, Taiwanese or indigenous). My father graduated from Iowa University with an MBA. His B.A was obtained in Taiwan. During one of our telephone sessions, he mentioned the following superstition that he learned in his childhood from his parents. I’m paraphrasing and translating it here to the best of my memory:

“When a young unmarried virgin dies an unjust death because of a man…like if they were attacked or if they commited suicide because a man rejected them or cheated on them… the women needing a soul to reincarnate, they…as spirits… sit at the riverside as ghosts and transform into seductive women who are brushing their hair to punish and entrap lusty men. The vengeful spirits wait at the riverside, of course, late night, for lusty men to come and flirt with them. When the lusty men do come, the spirits take the men to their spirit homes, drink wine, talk, and have sex. However, the men, waking up the next morning, find themselves next to a pile of bones, leaves or decaying forest matter…and because of this…the men usually get so frightened they fall into a great illness and die.”

When I inquired my father on the truth of this superstition and his own beliefs in it, he said that he wasn’t sure if it was true or not, but he definitely believed in the riverside spirits. Furthermore, he said that when he heard this story in his childhood, his mother cited several relatives of neighbors in her village who drowned to death because of these vengeful spirits and one neighbor in particular who passed away because he fell to a great sickness after meeting one such vengeful female spirit. But, ultimately, my father thinks that parents tell their children this story to warn them against being too lusty or perverted; however, he reiterates that he doesn’t doubt the existence of these vengeful female spirits. While the belief in the supernatural and the implicit moral lesson (control one’s lust) taught to children is important in this item, I think the values the item attributes to men and women are more important. The superstition portrays women as weak individuals who are unable to fend off sexual attackers or “evil” men and because of this, fall to their demise. However, they come back as strong, powerful and vengeful beings to prey on their previous attackers. This suggests a belief in some sort of latent evil or vengeance in women. On another note, the item portrays men as lusty sexual predators who are unable to control their instincts and who lose their lives because of an uncontrollable lust. That is to say, the item also suggests and attributes an animalistic or predatory quality to men. Yet, this predatory quality seems to be frowned upon based on how this story is put to use–it’s a cautionary tale that tells its audience to restrain their lust. So we can infer that perhaps, in Chinese culture, a more idealized version of man is one who is in control of their sexual tendencies.

Interestingly, the vengeful spirit women in this item seem alike to the Banshee of Irish folklore and even the La Ilorona of Chicano folklore.

Chinese Folk Belief and Folk Tale – Weasel the Trickster

This folk tale was collected from my Father. My father was born as a farmer’s son into a veteran’s family in Taipei, Taiwan. His father and mother ran away from China to Taipei during the Chinese Civil War. Much of his cultural practices and beliefs are taken from the mainland Chinese culture. Because of his background, he is considered a “mainlander” in Taiwan (Chinese in Taiwan are divided into Mainland Chinese, Taiwanese or indigenous). My father graduated from Iowa University with an MBA. His B.A was obtained in Taiwan.

During one of our telephone sessions, he mentioned the following story his mother had once told him in Chinese. I’m paraphrasing and translating it here to the best of my memory:

“Your grandmother once told me this story about tending cattle. There’s a big rat-like creature…um, a weasel. Yes, a weasel. It attacks big and small animals. So, back in the day, “cow” boys, who tend the cattle, would take the cattle into the mountains to graze and then bring them back after they’ve had their share of grass. And the weasel though it wants to eat the cattle… can’t–they are much too big. So the weasels, being as sneaky and clever as they are, would come around to the back of the cow and plunge its claws into the cow’s behind. Reaching in, the weasels would pull out the cow’s intestines and tie it to a tree. Feeling pain, the cow would run forward which would cause more of its intestines to be pulled out which would result in more pain which would result in the cow running faster. The cow would run and run until it collapsed…which is when the weasel comes and eats the cow. While I don’t really believe that weasels are able to do this, parents often tell their children this folk tale as to scare them into standing more alert and being more prudent when they are tending the cattle. This way, the children will be ready when real dangers, such as mountain wolves, appear.”

As we can see from what my father said, the implicit moral of this folk tale is to be extra prudent when tending the cattle. We can confirm it as a folk tale because it is not a story to be taken seriously. Although the tale is set in the real world, my father reiterates that no one actually believe weasels have the ability to hunt cattle like the tale depicts. Interestingly, the main character of this folk tale is a weasel. In his description of the weasel, my father describes the weasel as a sneaky and clever creature, but more sneaky than clever. This suggests that the weasel is the trickster character, similar to the fox in Western folklore, in Chinese folk tales.

I, the collector myself, have heard another folk tale featuring the weasel as this sort of trickster character. In this one, a chicken invites a weasel to dinner during Chinese New Year only to find himself the dinner of the weasel. I believe this attribution of the trickster character to the weasel is due to its small size, agile capabilities and carnivorous nature.