Monthly Archives: May 2012

Blonde, Brunette and Redhead on the Run

Nationality: Spanish American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: USC
Performance Date: April 25, 2012
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

There’s a blonde, brunette and a redhead. And they’re trying to.. um… break out of jail. So they all jump over, like, the big wall. But then once they’re over they this fence, they see a security guard coming towards them. And then so this see this line of trash cans, and they’re like alright, we can each fit in one of them. And they’re all hiding in the trashcans and the security guard comes over and hits each trash can with his baton. And the first one he hits has the blonde in it, and she goes meow meow meow. And the security goes “looks like just a cat”. And he hits the one with the brunette in it and she barks and he got son “looks like a cat”. And then he hits the one with the redhead in it, and she says “I’m a weasel.”

 

This is funny because redheads are dumb!

 

The person who told me this is gay, lower income, and went to an art school. Therefore, I believe that this is an attempt to flip the traditional blonde joke to represent something a bit more marginalized, as he feels.

Those who persevere get food.

Nationality: Filipina
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Philippines
Performance Date: April 2012
Primary Language: English
Language: Filipino, Spanish

My informant is an international student from the Philippines. She says that in the 1920s, the national language of the Philippines was Tagalog. However, in 1935, the Commission of the National Language decided to change some words of Tagalog to make the language more accessible to people who spoke different dialects. They called this new language Filipino, and made it, along with English and Spanish, one of the official languages of the Philippines. Filipino  is now taught though culture classes, in which students memorize and are tested on Filipino folklore.

 

The following is a Filipino proverb that my informant learned and has heard used, as well as used herself.

 

“Ang may tiyaga may nilaga.”

 

Those who persevere get food.

 

 

This proverb is about the importance of dedication and hard work. It is similar to the English proverb of the early bird catching the worm, in that it implies that an amount of commitment is necessary for success. My informant says that this proverb was often used as a reminder to those perceived to be lazy, and to those who conceded defeat easily.

 

 

Haldi waalo Dood

Nationality: Indian - American
Age: 48
Occupation: Occupational Therapy
Residence: Diamond Bar, California
Performance Date: April 2012
Primary Language: English
Language: Hindi, Kutchi

My family is from the Kutch region in India. Kutch is the desert area by the Indian border with Pakistan. It used to be its own state, but merged with the state of Gujarat after Indian independence in 1947. Although my family is Kutchi, my mother was born and raised in Mumbai.

 

At the first symptom of sickness, my mom makes a drink called “haldi walo dood”. That translates to milk with turmeric (Kutchi does not have a written language). This healing drink has been used by innumerable generations of my family.

 

Haldi Walo Dood

Mix 0.5 teaspoons of turmeric with 1 cup of milk. Microwave for 2 minutes. Add 1 heaping teaspoon of sugar. Stir, and microwave for another minute. Drink as hot as possible.

 

It is optional to add 2 cloves.

 

Annotation: Recently, scientists have been exploring the healing properties of turmeric, in an example of bioprospecting. This spice was profiled in a NPR segment, “To Cut The Risk Of A High-Fat Meal, Add Spice.”

 

http://m.npr.org/news/Health/148304942?singlePage=true

It’s like carrying wood to a forest

Nationality: Vietnamese
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Hanoi, Vietnam
Performance Date: April 2012
Primary Language: Vietnamese
Language: English, FInnish

Although she is from Vietnam, my informant attends college in Finland. When I interviewed her, she was at USC for a semester abroad. Even though she has been living in Finland for the past few years, the folklore she is familiar with is very strongly influenced by her Vietnamese upbringing.

 

Below is one of the folk similes that she says her family regularly uses. (picture of text in Vietnamese attached)

 

Translated, it means “It’s like carrying wood to the forest.”

 

This simile’s message is one of redundancy. A forest is already filled with wood. It would be pointless to bring more.

 

My informant also gave me a hypothetical situation in which this simile would be used. “My mom has a seafood store. If I was to go to the beach, and bring food from the ocean, she’d use this expression, because we already have plenty of sea food, and I don’t need to bring more.”

 

I asked her why this particular folk simile centers on wood as being abundant, and if Vietnam is particularly forested. She said it wasn’t.

 

This simile is similar to the English simile of, “It’s like carrying coals to Newcastle.”

 

The Legend of Saint Giong

Nationality: Vietnamese
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Hanoi, Vietnam
Performance Date: April
Primary Language: Vietnamese
Language: English, Finnish

Although she is from Vietnam, my informant attends college in Finland. When I interviewed her, she was at USC for a semester abroad. Even though she has been living in Finland for the past few years, the folklore she is familiar with is very strongly influenced by her Vietnamese upbringing.

 

The following is a legend she recounted to me over dinner.

 

“A long time ago, there was an old married couple living in a small village. They were married for a long time but still did not have any children. The woman did not have pregnancies. One day the wife got up and went to the rice fields to work and then she saw a huge footprint on the ground. She was curious, and she tried to put her feet on the footprint to see how many times it was bigger than her foot, and then after that she came back home and she got pregnant the day after. Then 9 months were over, and nothing happened. After 12 months she gave birth to a boy. He was strong and grew quickly, but did not speak, laugh or cry. The parents did not know what to do, so the neighbors usually let their children come play with him, but he did not laugh or speak any words. When the boy was 3 years old, there was an invasion happening in the country, and they destroyed all the villages. The king sent someone, a messenger, to the village to call for help to go to the army. When the messenger came to the village and declared the king’s words, the little boy sat up and told his mother that he wanted to serve the country. The mother was surprised to hear her son’s first words. She invited the messenger to come to her house, and the little boy told him, “Come back to the king, and tell him to give me an iron horse, iron stick, and iron armor, and I’ll push the An invaders back to their homeland.” The messenger left for the capitol hurriedly, told the king about the little boy’s orders, and they prepared everything he wanted. So, since the messenger left the village, the boy ate too much, so that his parents didn’t have enough food for him. He grew so quickly that clothes that had just been worn for a short while became too tight. His neighbors, and all the people living nearby, brought rice and clothes to him. He grew with the help of the people around, and after some days he looked like a 20 year old man. So when the messenger came back to the village, the little boy had become a strong man. He wore the armor, took the stick and bowed his head to his parents and all of the people as a goodbye before riding the horse to go out to battle. He rushed into the aggressor, used the iron stick to beat them. His horse breathed fire to kill enemies. Suddenly, the iron stick was broken. He pulled out a clump of bamboo trees, and used it as a weapon to continue fighting. So the enemy was too scared and had to run away. After pushing the enemy back to their homeland as he had promised, the hero and his horse went to the top of a mountain named Soc. He bowed his head to say goodbye to his parents and village and all people again. After that he rode his horse to fly up to heaven, and nobody saw him again. The bamboo used in the battle now has special yellow stripes on its body as a mark of the fire which the horse blew when fighting against the enemy. Many ponds were left as marks of the horse feet. They use the name of the village he was born to call him Saint Giong.”

 

This legend has spurred the creation of a festival, which is held annually in the village of Giong, on the outskirts of Hanoi.  My informant has never been to this festival, but she has read about it in the news. Although a lot of tourists attend the Giong Festival, it still remains primarily for locals, in which they reenact the story of Saint Giong.

 

The primary message of this legend is one of self-sacrifice for the country. For a country that has been attacked by invaders multiple times in its history, this message is particularly poignant. The legend of Saint Giong is now taught in schools, and is an integral part of the Vietnamese identity. I think the Vietnamese government is using this legend to instill a sense of national pride in a shared hero, and thus and create national unity.