Tag Archives: marriage

Peels for The Initials of Your Spouse

Main Content:

M: Me, I: Informant

I:OOOoooo, I don’t know if you want this but there’s a lot of um you know like when you are peeling potatoes, you throw the peel on the floor and it’ll name the initials of who you are going to marry

M: I did not know that

I: There’s a lot of them. That was a thing,  ugh again my grandma, I swear she is a crazy *laughs*. Or or apples if you are peeling anything, you do it in one peel as far as you can get, and if it breaks apart that’s just more letters for you and then you throw it on the floor and it’ll—-

M: Cool, cool!

Context: She learned this growing up cooking with her grandma, who is old fashioned. This was a practice she really enjoyed even if the answer changed from time to time but was also a bit nerve racking. The context brings an added element here as this practice is done in the kitchen, traditionally a place that is deemed for women. Thus this practice is much more used amongst the women.

Analysis: This practice definitely is more geared towards women as I said in the context piece because of where it takes place, but if we dig deeper and see how it reflects the portrayal of women and how while they cook in the kitchen, they wish for their future husbands; it comes across to directly chain domesticity to females and further pushes the age old view that a woman wants to get married and looks forward to finding herself a spouse. Through this way, the older and wiser women encourage the younger and more naive girls to be excited for their domesticity. Especially because of the prevalence of fruits in this practice, which in folklore tends to represent the fertility and virginity of a woman, which is often linked to their marriage.

Norwegian Tailed Woman (Huldra)

Main Content:

I:Informant, M:Me, R: Roommate

I: We had a lot of, another like woman kind of figure, which is I think its supposed to, I think traditionally she a beautiful woman but she has like a trolls tail. And like her sole mission is like to seduce man and trick them into marriage and I think she eats them.

R+M: *laughs*

M: So is she, is she beautiful and then and then she’s like really but on the like what she really is is ugly and so she tricking them or… how?

I: I think she’s  like all around just beautiful they only tell us that she has is this tail and she will like, I think there’s like some magic kind of supposed to be going on, like she will like um… um… um… oh you don’t have a word for that.. enchant? I suppose? Like The man and they will become lost in the magic that they don’t realize she has a tail because everyone knows to watch out for that tail. And then they be like too enchanted and then they’ll you know get eaten or whatever she does.    

   M: Oh okay that’s cool, a tailed lady

Context: The informant was taught this folklore as a child and was told to be weary of beautiful women and to always check for tail. This is a well known legend throughout Norway- one of the top two most known female figure legends.

Analysis: One hinderance we ran across was a slight language barrier in the last quote of the informant as there wasn’t an exact equivalent of a Norwegian word in English, so he chose the closest thing he could think of which was enchant. While this one word did not make an extreme impact on my collection, it definitely demonstrates how folklore can be lost in translation. Additionally, the woman figure is depicted here as alluring and trickery. The comment that men can be ‘tricked into marriage’ says a great deal about their views on marriage and to remember not to be hasty into big decisions. This is further displayed in their average marriage age which is just below 40 for both men and women. While America and Norway both have marriage ceremonies, they have very different meanings each country and that is expressed through the Norwegian warning of the Huldra.

For another version of Huldra, see

“Huldra – Mythical Creatures Guide.” Mythical Creatures Guide, www.mythicalcreaturesguide.com/m/page/Huldra. 

Sitting at the Corner of the Table

Main Content:

M: Me, I: Informant

Corner of the Table 

I: Never sit in the corner of a table if the table is square because um because if you are in the corner you won’t get married, things like that.

M: Oh no, that’s really good! How come? What was the background of that? How come?

I: Oh, I don’t know

M: you can’t sit on the corner of a table

I: Yeah I don’t know what the background was, that’s just what they always told us.

M: Is it only for unmarried girls or is it for unmarried boys too?

I: It was just, well it was only told to us girls. I don’t remember it being told to the boys

M: Gotcha. Did you believe that? Did you believe that one?

I: Um.. you know because we were growing up in the United States, not so much, and at that age I really wasn’t interested in getting married. *Laughs*So. But I remember her saying it

Context: She was taught this by her Peruvian family, but she had immigrated to the U.S. so she didn’t really believe this one as her new environment affected her beliefs.

Analysis: While she herself may have not believed it, others in her family did. This is reflective of the views of marriage and gender. This was geared towards girls as back then much value came from being married and thus the fear of not getting married was prevalent, which is why some of the people in her family didn’t sit in the corners of tables, ‘just in case.’ Additionally, there may be some phallic reference (protrusion of the table) here as marriage and loss of virginity are often very linked and that’s possibly a consideration as to why this was only geared towards girls. With the phallic imagery, this folklore could also be a result of the culture’s importance of virginity; if the corner of the table was the phallic symbol and represented a deflowering prior to marriage, that would be the reason why she won’t get married later.

黄历 – The Yellow Calendar

Main piece:

You have to get married on a certain date, and it depends on your birth time, your birth year, your birth hour. There’s a thing called a “huang li,” which literally translates to yellow calendar, and it details for each zodiac person. You research it, and it’s a book that’s like a quarter inch thick and you look up your birth time and dates and you figure out which day is the most auspicious to get married. And it also tells you who to get married to––like, which zodiac animals. And that’s why I got married to to my husband on Saint Patrick’s day.

Background:

The informant, HK, was born in New York but has parents who are from China. She married and has three children. She now lives in texas.

Context:

HK now lives in Texas––I collected this story over a Zoom call. She has been one of my mother’s closest friends since college, and often, they would commiserate together with all of my other Chinese aunties about certain things their Chinese parents would make them do, or general annoyance over Chinese tradition. This was one of those calls.

Thoughts:

I had never heard of the huang li before, and I think it’s interesting because the day which you get married can be so nebulous in American culture––people generally want to get married in June (which we talked about in class), but sometimes it takes years for people to finally work up the energy to get married. I think it goes to show how much more relaxed people are in America not just about the actual wedding day, but just about marriage in general. The divorce rate in this country is something near 50%, whereas when my dad’s parents got divorced (both from China) it was a really big deal and most people couldn’t even believe it. In Chinese culture, usually even if you don’t like the person you’re with, you’re supposed to just stick it out (or at least, that used to be the rhetoric). The huang li is just one example of the traditions that make Chinese marriage more rigid, maybe even more of a commitment, thand American marriage.

Indian Wedding Traditions – Stealing Shoes

Background: 
My informant, NS, is an eighteen year old student at Tufts University. She was born and raised in Southern California. Her mother was born and raised in the Philippines, and her father is Indian but grew up in Scotland and Southern California. While her mother is the only member of her family to have moved away from the Philippines, much of her father’s family, including his father, siblings, and nieces and nephews, are also in Southern California, meaning lots of family time between NS and her extended family, especially her cousins. Her father’s side of the family continues many traditional Indian and Hindu practices in day to day life, and NS is also greatly influenced by her heritage.  (I’ll be referring to myself as SW in the actual performance).

Performance:
NS: At Indian weddings, the youngest bridesmaid..ok so..have you ever been to an Indian wedding?

SW: Nope.

NS: Oh. Well the bride and groom…they do a thing where they walk around a fire 7 times, and each time represents, like, the first one might be commitment, or the second one represents love. They walk around 7 times, and then the youngest bridesmaid will steal the shoes from the groom-

SW: The groom’s shoes?

NS: Yeah, so she steals the groom’s shoes, and it’s always expected, like, Indian men will take out cash, like over $100, before their wedding day because they know they have to pay for their shoes back. And basically, it’s like a sign of wealth. The groom shows that he has the money to buy his shoes back, even if he doesn’t need to. It’s supposed to be, like, a way of showing that he can support his wife and family, financially. 

Thoughts: 
I’ve never been to a wedding before, and talking to NS, my best friend, always makes me want to go to one, especially an Indian wedding. They seem to be a big affair, with hundreds of people there, including extended family and friends. Walking around the fire reminds me of a more symbolic way of reading out your vows, which I like. NS also mentioned that she’s been to a few weddings where her Indian cousins marry someone who is not Indian, and because they’re not Indian, they don’t quite get all the Indian traditions that make up the wedding. So NS, often being the youngest bridesmaid (as she is the youngest cousin), has dealt with the family of the groom being less than understanding. She’s had people she hardly knows get angry with her and tell her to return the shoes, or the groom will give her $10, clearly not understanding the significance of the custom. It makes me sad that so many people won’t even consider trying to understand a culture different from their own.