Monthly Archives: May 2012

St. John’s Wort to treat depression

Nationality: American
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 3/22/12
Primary Language: English
Language: French

My informant, as a teenager, suffered from depression. He tried a few different kinds of pills, but they didn’t really work for him. His mom suggested he take St. John’s Wort, a plant. He started taking at in pill form and after maybe four weeks of use, he noticed the weight of his depression felt a little bit lighter and he had more motivation. This could have been a consequence of the placebo effect or something else that had happened in his event, but the timing did coincide with when the plant was supposed to start taking effect. Eventually, he told me, the depression did return to a place similar to where it had been before starting St. John’s Wort and he stopped taking it.. For a few weeks, though, the plant did seem to make him feel better.

He said he was amazed something so unproven could do what prescribed pills had been unable to do for him, even if the effects only lasted a few weeks. In a way, it gave him hope there could be solutions to his issue rather than to simply give in to the depression. I looked it up myself and there have been many studies done on the effectiveness of the plant against depression and anxiety but nothing conclusive because different studies have been in favor or against it. Possible side effects are said to include fatigue and sensitivity to light.

The fact that the plant could work shows how little we know about the brain and the way it functions. Only in recent years have conditions like depression begun to be recognized as real. Hopefully, in time, we will gain a better understanding of such conditions and be more able to treat them.

New Year’s Day Superstition

Nationality: American
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/20/12
Primary Language: English

Every year when my informant would celebrate New Year’s with her family, they would have a rule on the first day of the year. Nothing was allowed to leave the house. They couldn’t take out the trash, take an item to a friend, nothing. Her parents told her it was about not starting off the year with a loss; what has been accumulated in the last year should be preserved. If the rule is broken, it is said that the new year will go poorly and the family will have bad luck. When the family really needed to take something out of the house, though, sometimes they would allow it as long as something else was brought into the house first to balance it out.

My informant said she always kind of resented the rule because she didn’t see the point of it and it inconvenienced her. She followed it to please her family, though, and admitted sometimes it was fun because it was something the family all did. In that way, it was a bonding experience.

I’d never heard of the superstition before but I think it’s interesting how it gives special importance to the first day of the year, as if what happens on that day will affect the whole year. Also interesting is the idea that physically keeping items in the house will mean a preservation of less tangible accomplishments and gains made in the previous year.

“Mad as a cut snake”

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/19/12
Primary Language: English

Originally something he heard from his dad, this is a folk simile my informant sometimes uses. He told me his dad spent a lot of time in Australia, which is where he picked it up. It’s used to talk about someone who is angry or annoyed, comparing them to a snake that has been cut. I’d never heard the simile before, but it makes sense, since people always say to be careful around snakes and that disturbing them all could make them angry enough to attack you. Cutting them would provoke an even larger response then. It’s also clear why this came from Australia rather than America, for example; Australia is a place where dangerous snakes are more common.

My informant said he liked the saying because it’s different; he hasn’t heard other people use it really. It also reminds him of his father, a man he loves and respects. I heard him use it once when describing a bar fight which erupted after one man slapped another in the face. The man who had been slapped was embarrassed, since he took it as a shameful thing to be slapped, and he became very angry. My informant said he got as “mad as a cut snake.”

Teeth Falling Out in a Dream Means Deceit

Nationality: Chinese
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/19/12
Primary Language: English
Language: Chinese

My informant told me about a time when he was younger, maybe thirteen, and he had a dream about his teeth falling out. In the dream, his teeth began to feel loose and when he touched them they started to all fall out. He remembers being mortified and having a great sense of anxiety; the dream felt very real. When he woke up, he told his grandma, who lived with him. She got angry at him and told him the dream meant he had been telling lies; this was common knowledge in China. He tried to tell her he hadn’t been, but she wouldn’t believe him. His parents didn’t think much of the dream, though, and didn’t think their son had been telling lies.

He said he remembers the incident because the dream felt very real and it had disturbed him. He’d also been very upset to have his grandma angry at him when he felt he hadn’t done anything wrong. I could even see him become uncomfortable as he remembered the event.

I think it’s interesting to see that while his grandma put a lot of stock in this folk belief, his parents, the next generation, did not. This could reflect a changing attitude in the world and show how more recent generations are more apt to side with science and logic rather than trust old folk beliefs and superstitions. I also think it’s interesting to see that losing teeth became symbolic of telling lies, as if the lies had been so caustic that when they exited the mouth, they caused the teeth to fall out. Or maybe losing teeth in the dream was almost like a punishment for lying. I’ve heard the more modern belief that losing teeth in a dream represents a lack of confidence or feeling of insecurity. Because we use teeth to forcefully chew our food, they represent power, and seeing them fall out could reflect a sense that we have lost power in our lives. Another interpretation I’ve heard of the dream is that it indicates a family member will die, though I don’t know how that necessarily relates to teeth falling out, except maybe because people lose their teeth when they grow old and approach death.

Cow Feces

Nationality: Indian
Age: 45
Occupation: Housewife
Residence: Cupertino, California
Performance Date: 04/26/12
Language: Tamil

The informant grew up in Tamilnadu, India and has participated in several festivals and holidays. She says that a large part of many festivals and holidays include cow feces. For example, cow feces is often mixed with water and then this mix is used to wash out the front porch of a house. A white powder, which is also ground up and made out of cow feces, is then used to create decorations (folk art) to make the front of the house look good. The informant says that cow feces is very clean and she believes that it causes cleanliness. In some rural areas, cow feces is even used to clean dishes. She says that cow urine is often sprayed around the house the day of a festival so that the cleaned house can be even cleaner. She says that cow feces is also used in many rural areas to build mud huts and many people sleep around and even on it. On a side note of animal feces, elephant feces is also believed to have medicinal properties and if one places a wound in fresh elephant feces, the injury is said to heal faster.

It is interesting to note the complete cultural difference there is between Western culture and Tamil culture. While Western culture is often disgusted by the idea of feces and aims to separate and distances itself as far as possible from feces, the Tamil culture embraces cow and elephant feces. It is believed that these animals have pure feces because they are vegetarian animals and therefore, their feces is not toxic like human feces are. It is so pure that Tamil people use it in everyday form, from cleaning dishes, to the daily art on the front porch, to the infrastructure of the house, to using it to clean on days of festivals and holidays.