Monthly Archives: April 2020

Dalgonaa Coffee

Nationality: Korean
Age: 24
Occupation: Barista
Residence: Seoul, Kora
Performance Date: 14 April 2020
Primary Language: Korean
Language: English

Original Script: 달고나커피

Main Piece:

The following is transcribed from a conversation between the informant and the interviewer. It was conducted in Korean, and was since translated.

Informant: Dalgona coffee is a new viral recipe. Dalgona is the name of popular street candy in Korea, and the coffee is named after that because of the similar taste and color to the candy. So the recipe was first made in Korea, but you see people everywhere make the thing now.

Interviewer: Can you describe the recipe?

Informant: You mix sugar and instant coffee power, about the same ratio. You add a spoon of hot water, and blend everything. This is the key point, you have to like, really mix it. Some say it’s about 400 whips, but it’s more like 4000 if you’re using no electric utensils. Anyways after you mix it for like 10 fish minutes, the mixture’s gonna be really thick and have this beige color, which is the dalgona color. You pour a glass of milk, and drop that mixture on top. You mix the two and drink it.

Interviewer: Where did this recipe originate?

Informant: It wasn’t a thing until like, this year, once the stay at home order started. Koreans were just bored, and was looking for something to do I guess. It’s kind of the perfect thing to make in quarantine. This recipe requires a lot of manual labor, that’s the kind of stuff you need to distract yourself. And the coffee is delicious, so there’s that.

Interviewer: Why do you think the recipe became viral? Dalgona isn’t a widely known candy anywhere outside Korea.

Informant: I think it’s because everyone’s bored everywhere right now. No matter what nationality, people just want something to do. And with stuff like TikTok and Twitter, anything can be viral globally now.

Background:

The informant is a barista in Seoul, Korea. The recipe preexisted in different cultures, most notably in Macao. But around January of 2020, the recipe became a viral trend amongst Korean Twitter users, and it has since spread all over the world under the name ‘Dalgona Coffee’. On social media apps like Tiktok, making this coffee has gotten viral- under hashtag “dalgonacoffee” there are 280 million views on Tiktok, as of April 2020, and recreating this recipe has since become a viral challenge. Many cafes in Korea have since started actually selling this coffee, including the very cafe that my informant works at.

Context:

The conversation took place over the phone, and the informant was alone in his apartment during the talk, in a comfortable environment.

My thoughts:

I think this recipe had all the perfect elements to go viral. It’s extremely easy to make, and there’s just the right amount of mundane labor to keep you distracted, but not enough to tire you out too much. It’s a delicious coffee too, so it only made sense that people around the world took part in this challenge.

The Return of a Dead Friend?

Nationality: American
Age: 55
Occupation: Film
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 2/7/20
Primary Language: English

Main Piece: 

The following is transcribed from a story told by the informant, DH.

DH – So when I was 16, I lost one of my best friends in car crash. And every time my friend and I would drive by the place of crash we would say “we love you (*name*)” and look up to sky. So a year had passed and it was the anniversary of his death. We were driving on that same road, and I had a cassette tape playing. It just so happened to be playing his favorite song. Right when we approached the exact spot of the crash, the favorite line of the song was playing. My friend and I said, “we love you (*name*)” and all of a sudden the tape made a static sound and the cassette popped out of the player.  We pulled over and looked at each other and started to cry. We also looked at the cassette tape, and there was no crease or anything that would have caused it to pop out of the cassette deck.  We put the tape back in and rewound it, and it played just fine.  We think this was definitely a sign from him, as everything had lined up perfectly.  The location, the song, the line from the song, and then the tape popping out.

Background: The informant of the story says to have experienced this first hand when she was 17 years old. She often tells it because it was the craziest occurrence in her life and often thinks about it when she returns to her hometown in northern California. She is also reminded of it when that song happens to play on the radio. 

Context: The informant had told me this story when we drove past the exact spot on our way home from the Bay Area. 

My Thoughts: Personally, this piece of lore creeps me out. I’m not sure wether I believe it or not, but yet again I don’t see why her or her friend would make it up. If anything, this story really makes me believe in ghosts, because there is no way this happened by coincidence. It also makes me wonder if only certain people are able to experience ghosts. This same informant has had many different occurrences like this, and I have another friend who has as well. I, however, have never experienced a paranormal activity like this before. It is also interesting to think about why ghosts would come back and show signs like that. Are they trying to pass a message? Why can’t they just talk? It is an interesting topic to think about for sure.

Candomble

Nationality: Brazilian
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Florida
Performance Date: 4/24/20
Primary Language: English

Abstract: The festival of Candomble is one week that seeks to spread and glorify the goddess of the ocean for the Brazilians. This glorification comes with a few dances and activities to glorify the deities of Brazil which are a combination of gods and catholic states after Catholocism intervened in Brazil. This blending came due to the religious intervention during the slave period of Brazil which the religious bringing up was meant to reduce the suffering due to slavery. The deities are known to them as orishas and have been innovated over the years to incorporate catholic and Brazilian traits such as the Ocean goddess. 

Background: MC is a Brazilian currently living in Florida and is a student at the University of Southern California. She’s an advocate for Brazilian culture and expresses it by speaking highly of their myths and legends and even partaking in the semi-religious activities such as wearing bracelets with powers to grant wishes to the wearer. She describes one of the few stories heard from parents when she was younger and details it below.

Transcript: 

P: let’s hear about one of the most famous deities from your recollection

MC: Ok so the one who I enjoy the most due to the influence is the goddess of the Ocean known as Lima Jow and we celebrate her with this festival known as Candomblé where we do a few things like for one, we would toss white flowers into the ocean as a method of good luck and a way for her to calm the water. So the festival stems from this whole religious movement but the cool thing is even people who aren’t Candomblen I guess still partake in the celebrations of the deities. 

P: There are more gods then?

MC: Yea there are but I just mentioned the water goddess because that’s the one I’m most familiar with. There are other gods and also did I mention this takes place during the new year and the roles are separated by gender so the women wear white and have some white paint on their faces. One random thing which I’m not sure if this is practiced but I heard women have to wear new underwear when the celebration happens on New Year’s eve and start the new year with a new pair of underwear. 

Interpretation:

This is a very interesting festival because it seems as though it originated with these Brazilian deities known as Orishas which consisted of characteristics which were held important by the people of Brazil and those characteristics were altered to favor the catholic religion and destroyed a piece of history important to Folklore studies and to the people of Brazil. The traditions are also unique and it seems like women played a big part in the ceremonies such as throwing white flowers into the ocean would be a symbol of purity and the white clothes may have some connotations to virginity and giving their purity to their goddess. On top of this, the ceremonies performed such as dances and celebrations are sung with the idea of thanking their deities for keeping them safe and plentiful with crops and necessary resources. The final bit of information involving the new underwear could be an act of leaving your past self behind and start anew similar to how each year in America people create new goals to achieve. This seems like a fun festival and interesting take on Catholicism in another group and how its influence greatly changed the ceremony to include saint and catholic references in their celebrations.

Quarantini: the social-distanced Martini

Nationality: American
Age: 22
Occupation: Student/Engineer
Residence: Las Vegas, NV
Performance Date: 3/12/2020
Primary Language: English

The following is a transcribed interview conducted over a video chat between me and interviewee, hereby further referred to as NC.

NC: Let’s have this conversation over some quarantinis. 

Me: Quarantinis? What are those?

NC: It’s just a saying for video chatting with your friends with drinks. Basically any drink that you make while you’re drinking at home by yourself or while cyber “drinking with friends” is a quarantini.

Me: What does that stem from?

NC: Well, because we’re in quarantine and can’t go out for martinis, we’re just gonna have to settle for our indoor social-distanced drink, the quarantini of your choice made with whatever you have on-hand or that isn’t sold out of your local grocery store. 

Me: Fair point. So just to be clear, any drink that you’re drinking is considered a quarantini?

NC: Well, other than like beer and wine. It’s basically any mixed drink but it doesn’t really matter what it is since no one can see what you’re drinking anyways!

Me: And where did you pick this up?

NC: Oh, everyone is just saying it. I’m sure it started out as a meme and spread from there.

Background: 

Interviewee is a friend of mine who has been picking up on a lot of slang from other friends and classmates. She is a senior at an East-Coast University, but has since moved back to the west since COVID-19.

Context:

This piece of folklore was collected during a video call between me and interviewee during the Coronavirus Pandemic. I have known the interviewee for many years, so the conversation was casual. 

Thoughts:

I think that people are doing what they can to get by during the stay-at-home orders and one of those things seems to be regular alcohol consumption. According to the news sources, alcohol purchase and consumption is up during the quarantine. Further, people are finding ways to socialize, even in social distancing. This was not the first time, nor the last that I heard the term “quarantini” to refer to a drink made at home during this time. The term is now fairly common and I have been also seeing quite a few memes about it as well.

“And That’s the Night That the Lights Went Out In Georgia”

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Unemployed
Residence: Jacksonville, FL
Performance Date: April 13,2020
Primary Language: English

MAIN PIECE

“And that’s the night the lights went out in Georgia”

“This is a saying that I’ve found is common among mothers and older Southern women.  When someone does something that will get them into massive trouble, other people will say, “And that’s the night the lights went out in Georgia.”  People use it very sparsely, like in big dramatic situations, not common small things.  It’s kind of like the equivalent of saying, “he’s a dead man.””

BACKGROUND

This informant, HA, was born in Pensacola, FL but has lived in a few different parts of the American South for awhile, specifically the Floribama coastal area.  His family has stayed in the south for as far back as he can remember.  He has learned this saying from listening to his mother and remembers it from a time a church board member sent a scathing letter about the priest to the congregation and his mother said it.

CONTEXT

I talked to HA by inviting them onto a zoom call with a few other friends we both knew from summer vacations where I used to live in Panama City, Florida.  After the call I asked if he could stay and chat and we shared stories about our lives while I asked him questions about sayings and activities he remembered from his childhood.

THOUGHTS

Looking into it, it seems  as if the saying comes from a popular country song by Vicki Lawrence that was later popularized in the nineties by Reba McEntire.  As this song came out a good amount of years before HA was born,  it makes sense that the song and it’s lasting effect on the culture of Southern vernacular fit her age demographic.  It gives a great example of just how pop culture can be  translated into folklore just as much as  folklore is turned into pop culture. It seems like the song is about killing a cheating wife so it makes sense that HA would say it’s like “he’s a dead man.”