Monthly Archives: April 2012

Flip Tag

Nationality: Thai-American
Age: 18
Occupation: Student (Fine Arts)
Residence: Northridge, CA
Performance Date: March 2012
Primary Language: English
Language: Thai

I was in my informant’s dorm room chatting to her roommate after class, and when I turned around, I found that my informant had flipped my backpack inside out, so that the straps and front pocket were now on the inside.

My informant learned this practical joke in middle school. She first observed the joke when it was done to her, and she subsequently performed it on others. She told me that this joke is typically played as a game of tag, so that when someone flips your backpack, you are now “it” and have to flip someone else’s backpack. The person who is “it” turns the victim’s backpack inside out, puts the contents of the backpack back inside, and zips it up. In another variation—the more annoying one, according to my informant—the entire backpack is flipped inside out and stuffed into the front pocket of the backpack. In this version, all of the contents of the backpack and the front pocket have to be removed since they won’t fit inside, and are left in a pile by the zipped-up backpack packet.

The flipping often occurred in class or at lunchtime, said my informant. Students played the game because it was a way to entertain themselves during the school day using the materials available to them. Everyone carries backpacks in middle school, so everyone is a potential victim. The goal, presumably, is to flip someone’s backpack without them catching you in the act. It probably takes skill to flip someone’s backpack quickly enough that they don’t notice, so this could be a way of impressing friends. Also, it could be a team effort to flip someone’s backpack, with someone distracting the victim while someone else flipped the backpack, turning the game into a “bonding against the outsider” scenario, with the victim being the only one who isn’t in on the joke. Because the flipping sometimes occurred during class, the flipper also had to be careful not to attract the teacher’s attention. The game is therefore a way of defying authority. The flipper also gets to go through the contents of the victim’s backpack, so part of the appeal of flip tag could be that it is a way to satisfy curiosity or invade someone else’s privacy under the pretext of a game.

Korean-American Joke: Sausage

Nationality: Korean-American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student (Architecture)
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Performance Date: April 2012
Primary Language: English
Language: Korean

“So there were these four brothers, and they came to this cliff, and there was a genie. And this genie said, I can turn you into anything you want to be, so the first brother said, I want to be a cow so I can work really hard. So the genie turned him into a cow. The second brother said, I want to be a bird so I can be free. So the genie turned him into a bird. The third brother said, I want to be small and hide and be secure, so he became a rat. Now, the fourth brother had always been jealous of the other three, so he said, I want to be all three. So the genie turned him into a sausage. Because in Korean, cow is so, bird is se, and rat is ji, so-se-ji, sausage.”

My informant learned this joke from another Korean-American friend. Only a Korean-American (or someone who knew both Korean and English) would understand this joke without needing to have it explained to them, since the joke is told in English, but the punchline is delivered in Korean. The joke therefore strengthens Korean-American group identity.

Chinese historical legend: Xiang Yu wang

Nationality: Chinese
Age: 23
Occupation: Student (Communications)
Residence: Shenzhen, China
Performance Date: April 2012
Primary Language: Chinese
Language: English

“At the end of the Qin Dynasty, there were a lot of uprisings because people got tired of having to leave home to work on the emperor’s construction projects, and Liu Bang and Xiang Yu were two rebel leaders. So after the Qin Dynasty got overthrown, they have to fight each other to see who would rule China. And there were a lot of battles, but finally Xiang Yu got defeated. Liu Bang knew Xiang Yu would pass by this boulder by this river, so he wrote Xiang Yu wang, death to Xiang Yu, on the boulder in honey. And because there was honey, ants swarmed over the words, so it looked like the ants were forming the words. And when Xiang Yu saw it, he thought it was a message from the gods that he should die, so he committed suicide and Liu Bang became emperor and founded the Han Dynasty.“

My informant thinks he learned this story from his father, who is interested in ancient Chinese history.

This legend is built around real historical events. Xiang Yu did commit suicide after his defeat, although the truth value of the part with the ants and the honey is uncertain. The legend shows that Xiang Yu was honorable and faithful to the gods’ will, which is partly why Xiang Yu is now commonly viewed as a tragic historical figure. The legend also portrays Liu Bang as being an adept manipulator—he won by using his understanding of his opponent’s motivations—and the Chinese value cleverness over physical force.

Riddle: If a rooster…

Nationality: Chinese-American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student (Environmental Sciences)
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: April 2012
Primary Language: English

Q: If a rooster lays an egg on a roof, does the egg roll down the left or the right side?

A: Roosters don’t lay eggs.

My informant learned this riddle in elementary school from a classmate, and it became her favorite riddle when she told it to her parents and they couldn’t answer it correctly.

The structure of the riddle is a familiar one that leads the audience to focus on the question (which way does the egg roll?) rather than the subject (the rooster laying the egg), because they have been conditioned by past experience with riddles to expect either a play on words or for the answer to be in the question. The answer subverts both expectations. This could be considered a catch riddle, since both a “left” and “right” answer would show that the audience had missed the point of the riddle.

The reason my informant liked the riddle so much as a child supports the theory that much of children’s folklore exists to empower children or to undermine the control of authority figures. That roosters can’t lay eggs is common knowledge, even for children, and children are delighted when people who are supposedly more knowledgeable than them fail to notice the obvious impossibility of the riddle.

Chinese tale: Cowherd and Weaving Girl

Nationality: Chinese
Age: 23
Occupation: Student (Communications)
Residence: Shenzhen, China
Performance Date: April 2012
Primary Language: Chinese
Language: English

牛郎织女

Nui Lang Zhi Nu

Cowherd and Weaving Girl

“There were seven goddesses in the Sky Temple, maybe the know Chang E. And they’re the daughters of the mother queen of the Sky Temple, so the king of the Sky Temple is their brother. And these seven, they’re bored so they fly to earth and take baths on earth. I don’t know why, I guess they can’t take baths in the Sky Temple. So every month, they go to earth to take baths in a pool. And normally, no one’s there, they put their clothes by the side of the pool, and they swim and play in the pool. And one day, a lucky guy, Niu Lang, a cowherd, he comes across the seven naked women, and he, he’s a pervert I guess, he takes a set of clothes, and the clothes turn out to be the oldest sister’s. And when the sisters are done with the bath, they go back to the Sky Temple. Because they have to go back, or their mother will find out they escaped from the Sky Temple. So six of the sisters fly back, but the seventh one, Zhi Nu, can’t, because the clothes have some sort of magic power that let you fly. Wait, they should be able to fly by themselves because they’re gods. So maybe the oldest sister just doesn’t want to fly naked? Or maybe she just wants her clothes back. Anyways, six of them go back, and she stays. And this cowherd, Nui Lang, comes out, and he says, Hey woman, I have your clothes. You have to say with me and I’ll give these clothes back to you. And, I don’t know what happened, I don’t want to say, but she falls in love with this guy. I don’t know why, maybe she’d never seen any men before, but they fall in love. And you know, time passes differently on earth than in the sky temple, one day in the Sky Temple is a year on earth. So after a few days the queen of the Sky Temple, she finds out that her oldest daughter is lost. She uses her magic and found that her daughter is married to this human being and they have children. She commands the daughter to come back. The daughter refuses. The daughter had her clothes back, but she just didn’t want to go back.

The daughter had become a mother and a good wife and didn’t want to be separated from her family. The queen was very angry and sent an army to get the daughter back. But Niu Lang and the daughter beg the mother, and they say, kids shouldn’t grow up without a mother, and the queen thinks, yeah, I guess the children need a mother and she shows some mercy and allows the couple to meet once a year. But you know, according to the time rules, I guess that means she has to go every day, and Niu Lang only sees her once a year, so I don’t know how that works.

The queen mother uses the Milky Way to separate the couple. And every year on Qi Xi, Chinese Valentine’s Day, the queen sends some birds to form a bridge and Niu Lang brings their kids, and meets his wife Zhi Nu on the bridge one time a year. “

My informant can’t remember where he learned this story, but he thinks that the appeal of it is in the forbidden love. He said that until recently, and even still in some parts of China, people weren’t allowed to marry freely. He compared the story to Romeo and Juliet, two lovers who defied rules and their parents to be together. The fact that this tale is associated with the Qi Xi Festival, sometimes referred to as Chinese Valentine’s Day, supports this theory.

Annotation: The main character in the 2010 remake of The Karate Kid attends the Qi Xi Festival and sees a shadow play of this story.