Monthly Archives: May 2022

Chinese wedding ceremony

Genre: customary lore

Category: ceremony

Collection date: Apr.27th, 2022

Main piece:  

“In traditional Chinese weddings, there is a step where the bride and groom would need to kowtow to three things. First, they salute the sky and earth; second, they salute their parents; and finally, the bride and groop would salute each other.”

Contextual data:

Social context:

The informant learned this folklore from movies, televisions, and stories. It is no longer a custom performed in regular daily lives, but it is a concept known by most people. 

Cultural context:

The informant has a mixed cultural background of northern and southern Chinese. He defines himself to have a stronger connection with northern China, specifically Beijing. 

Informant’s comment:

“This ceremony has a similar purpose as the exchange of rings and swearing oath in a western wedding. It represents the traditional Chinese understanding of marriage. Kowtow to the sky and earth to show people’s respect towards nature; kowtow to parents to thank them for raising themselves; kowtow to each other to show their respect towards each other. ”

My comment: 

This is a tradition rarely practiced in modern times. However, people still know it from stories and are still influenced by it.

The Tradition of Eating Zongzi

Genre: Customary lore

Category: Custom/Festival

Collection date: Apr.27th, 2022

Main piece:  

Original Scrpit:

“中国有一个节日叫端午节，大概在每年六月份。粽子是用植物叶子包裹糯米和其他食材，枣子、豆沙、肉，放在锅里蒸熟。这个习俗来源于一个传说，中国古代有个爱国诗人叫屈原，当时他的祖国被灭了，他走到一条江，叫汨罗江，走到这里，他很感伤，就很怀念自己的祖国，就投水自尽了。当地的百姓，特别敬佩他的行为，觉得他是一个有高尚情操的人，他们怕他的尸体被鱼虾吃了，然后就纷纷把粽子仍在江里，鱼虾吃粽子就不会破坏他的尸体，这就是这个食品的由来。”

Full translation:

“There is a holiday in China called the Dragon Boat Festival that happens around June every year. Zongzi is a type of food that uses leaves to wrap sweat rice and other ingredients such as Chinese dates, red bean paste, and pork belly. This custom comes from a legend. In ancient China, there was a patriotic poet named Quyuan. His country was defeated. He walked to a river, named Miluo. He felt very sad, and he missed his country much. He decided to end his life by jumping into the water. The locals admired his determination. They are afraid that his body will be eaten by the fishes and shrimps in the river. They threw Zongzi into the river so the fish and shrimp won’t eat his body. This is the origin of this type of food.”

Contextual data:

Social context:

The informant learned this story from all kinds of sources, including word of mouth, television, and tourist destinations. Every year during the Dragon Boat Festivals, this story will be brought up in all kinds of media. Every year, people will eat Zongzi and listen to these stories. 

Cultural context:

The informant has a mixed cultural background of northern and southern Chinese. He defines himself to have a stronger connection with northern China, specifically Beijing. 

Informant’s comment:

“The story should be real, but the origin of this food is probably not related to Quyuan’s story. To commemorate Quyuan, people related these two things together. This is a symbol of traditional Chinese culture. This food could represent Chinese culture. The spirit of Quyuan is accepted and appreciated by the entire Chinese community, and the story lasted for thousands of years.”

My comment: 

This is a very common way in traditional cultures to commemorate things, and many of these stories have the purpose of educating people about some good qualities. You can learn about a culture’s values and standards through these kinds of legends.

Customs Regarding Roasted Lamps

Genre: customary lore

Category: Custom

Collection date: Apr.27th, 2022

Main piece:  

“Roasted lamb is one of the traditional cuisines for Chinese Mongols. Usually, the entire roasted lamb will be brought to the dining table including the goat’s head. The most revered person in the room will use the knife to cut first horizontally and then vertically on the head of the roasted lamb. The person will then slice a small piece of meat from the back of the goat and eat it first. The rest of the roasted lamb will then be broken down by the chef and brought back to the dining place for everyone to eat.”

Contextual data:

Social context:

The roasted lamb was quite a luxurious cuisine in the past and was usually eaten during important festivals or celebrations. The most revered person in the family will be granted the right to have the first bite to honor their contribution to the family. The horizontal and vertical cuts on the forehead of the roasted lamb are a way to show respect to nature, praying that nature will keep helping them bring food to the table.

Cultural context:

The informant is a Mongol Chinese. She grew up in Beijing, China and came to the U.S. for post-secondary education. She has a mixed cultural background of Mongols and Northeastern Chinese. 

Informant’s comment:

“It is an interesting tradition that Chinese Mongols have and I think it reflects the cultures back in the nomadic times.”

My comment: 

There is a similar tradition of eating roasted ducks in Beijing, China as well. It represents respect for the elderly in Chinese culture. 

Pineapple, Ungratefulness, and Pain

Main Piece: 

It’s this folklore or like this tale my mom used to tell me about how this poor family. The mom had like this child and she did like a lot of work to try to make sure her kid was happy. But the child was always like disrespectful, and like unappreciative of the mother’s hard work. And she kept asking for pineapples and like kept asking like I want pineapples. Like why don’t you ever feed me pineapples? All you feed me is like plain plain food. We never get like any good pineapples, the neighbors do. And so it was it like a fairy or like some celestial Spirit came down and was like, Hey, kid, do you want a pineapple? You keep fucking asking for like, goddamn pineapple. Maybe if you helped your mom out with like the work you got some pineapples. She’s like I shouldn’t have to and he’s like, You know what? I’ll give you pineapples. You can have all the pineapples you want. The only condition is you have to eat it all in one sitting. And so the kid ate a shit ton of pineapples. And because it’s a super acidic fruit, it burned through her tongue. And so it was just like, kind of like a scary little folk tale of like, how you should be appreciative of your, you know, elders and parents. 

Informant’s relationship to the piece: 

“This was like a common tale that like both my mom and dad used to tell me, and I was like, ‘Can I have McDonald’s’, and they’re like, ‘No’. And it’s yeah, a little manipulative. But, I mean, it is true. Like our parents do so much for us. And sometimes we forget how much they do for us. Um and they’re all a little cryptic in cursed ways. But they have sacrificed a lot for us and sometimes by not acknowledging that we end up harming ourselves. Like the little girl who didn’t help her mom and just wanted pineapples and burned her tongue. 

Context: 

The informant is one of my roommates, a 21-year-old Vietnamese American college student at the University of Southern California. This performance was collected in our living room with one of our other roommates as we were talking about our family and the stories we grew up with. 

Analysis:

Me and my informant are both Asian, and we both grew up with a lot of stories that were supposed to scare us into being good, but this story specifically focuses on appreciating what you’ve been given, and as my informant mentioned, she was told this story when she would ask for fast food, and in addition to being told no, she would also be told this story. This story also imparts the cultural values of respecting your elders and not asking for too much. I think these stories are an easier way to convey these values than just being told that by parents because there’s an element of fear and consequence of major physical harm, which most parents would never threaten their children with. Although, I will say when I was looking into this story to annotate it, I couldn’t find any version of it, but I did find one about a girl who was turned into a pineapple that follows the first half of the story my roommate told me. So who knows, maybe this story was a way for my informants parents specifically to scare her.

For the closely related pineapple story that’s found both in Vietnam and the Philippines see: https://saigoneer.com/saigon-food-culture/11645-a-food-folktale-the-savage-clapback-that-turned-a-girl-into-a-pineapple

Evil Eye

Main Piece. 

Informant: Yeah so in Turkey the evil eye, which is called I’m blanking on the name, it’ll come back to me. But it’s like yeah, it’s a form of protection. It protects you from you know, the evil but like more specific cases like if someone is like bad-mouthing you like talking behind your back that people in Turkey believe that if you have like an evil eye in your house or in your car or anything like it’ll protect you from-from things like that. You know it comes in different colors. It’s it’s-it’s supposed to be hung. Yeah, like in your car. People have bracelets rings they get tattoos of it. But in your home a lot of like Turkish like bazaars like the markets. They will hang it so they make like they put them in like birdhouses to like they put the evil eye design in like different like domestic objects, so that you can hang it it always has to be hanging that’s that’s something I mean, I guess like via tattoo then. I don’t know how that counts. But but in terms of like the jewelry or like the object itself, it has to be hanging because it like hangs like over you. So you want to hang it like above a door or like the entrance to your home like you walk in and it’s right there. 

Informants Relationship to the Piece. 

My informant was taught this by her parents and recalled a story of the time her mother had given her an evil eye for her car. 

Informant: When I first got my license, I was going to drive for the first time by myself in a car. She had me hang an evil eye chain on the front mirror as like protection and then when I got in a car accident, she actually was like ‘It’s because that was in your car and it protected you’, because I didn’t have any injuries. And it’s really crazy how people believe it. But my mom believes in it very much so and because of that, it’s like yeah, it’s really been passed on to me where I have one hanging right there (she points to her wall where she has a small evil eye chain-hung”

Context: 

The informant is one of my friends, a 20-year-old Turkish-American theatre major at the University of Southern California. I was told this as we were hanging out in her room after I asked her about some superstitions she believes in. 

Analysis:

I definitely grew up seeing a lot of my friends wear an evil eye and seeing vendors who sold jewelry that contained the symbol, but I never really knew what it meant, other than being a pretty symbol. I think it’s interesting how the main purpose of the evil eye is to protect you from people bad-mouthing you behind your back, but for my informants’ family it’s become a catch-all symbol for protection, especially for their children as they begin to leave the house and become more independent, the evil eye becomes a way for the parents to keep an “eye” on their children.