Monthly Archives: May 2023

The Secret under the Tarpaulin

Nationality: Taiwan
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Taipei
Performance Date: 4/4
Primary Language: Chinese
Language: English

Context:
The informant is a 20 year old female who went to Shipai elementary school in Taipei, Taiwan. The interview was conducted through a video call. Shipai Elementary school is a public elementary school in Beitou District. It’s directly next to Shipai Junior High School.

Text:
Informant: I remember when I was third grade, my classmate at the time asked me if I have heard about the rumors. I asked her, “What rumors?” She said that people are saying there was a dead body under the tarpaulin at the corner of the school. I asked her where exactly was she talking about. It was an empty space between the first grade building and the third grade building, next to the wall that separates the elementary school and the Junior High School. We, and other kids, decided to check it out during the long recess. We ran downstairs to the place and saw this huge tarpaulin with blue and white stripes. The tarpaulin was covering a lump on the ground, so we know there is something underneath. None of us were brave enough to approach the thing, let along uncover it. I remember we were all standing there, 10 meters away from the tarpaulin, and a squirrel ran across the tarpaulin and we all started screaming. That was that. There was another time I walked past it and a corner of the thing underneath was out. It was just a pile of wood. We don’t really know who started a rumor and we don’t really know if it was a pile of wood when we first saw it, but that corner of the school always feel weird to me. I don’t really know why though. After I started junior high, people were talking about how some bad kids would hide there, on the other side of the wall, and smoke, maybe that’s why.

Analysis:
This legend that circled among kids around early 2010s in a particular local school shows how a simple trivial unknown thing can become the greatest mystery through imagination. The informant’s later revelation drew a conclusion to her early legend quest and she may have found the logical explanation as of why the legend appear in the first place. There is a chance that the school teachers were trying to keep the young kids away from that space by making up the rumors in order to shelter them from exposure to bad substance.

虎姑婆 Grandaunt Tiger: A Taiwanese Bedtime Story

Context: Informant is a mother with two daughters. She was telling this story as a bedtime story to the younger daughter. This is a traditional bedtime story for Taiwanese people. The story is normally told when the child is refusing to go to bed. Since it’s a has a scary plot in it, the child will usually get scared and then complied.

Text:
Informant: Once upon a time, there was a tiger who wished to become human through magical practices, which involves eating human children. One day, the tiger heard that a mom left the home to visit the sick grandma, leaving the house with only two kids. Before she left, the mom reminded the kids that they should not open the door for anyone other than her. The tiger saw this as an opportunity, but he needed to figure out a plan to trick the children to open the door for him. He used his magic power to transform into an old woman. He knocked the door and yelled, “Open the door. Your mom asked me to come take care of your guys.” The kids responded through the door, “Mom said not to open the door for anyone.” “But I’m old and walked so far to come here. Please let me in to rest and drink some water.” The kids opened the door for the old woman. As the old woman was resting in a chair, the kids asked more about who she is and where she is more. The old woman, played by the tiger, answered with her hoarse voice, “I’m your distance relative. Your mom told me to come take care of you two while she is away to visit your grandma.” Hearing what she said, the kids let down their guard; they thought no stranger would know about their grandma being sick. They invited the old woman to stay the night. At night, when everyone was asleep, one of the kid heard an unusual noise. Crackling noise coming from the other side of the bedroom. Through the shadow projected on the wall, the kid discovered the scariest thing. The old woman was eating the other kid. She ran out of the bedroom and climb all the way up on the nearby tree. The tiger noticed the kid was gone, hurrying out to chase her down. The kid was stuck in the tree with a tiger pacing around underneath; fortunately, the tiger don’t know how to climb a tree. The kid came up with a plan to get herself out of danger. She said to the tiger, “Eat me raw is too plain. How about you heat up a pot of hot oil and carry it here? I will jump in the pot and you can enjoy the tasty fried meat afterwards. I promise I won’t runaway while you are heating the oil” The tiger couldn’t resist the idea of the delicious food he could get, so he went in the kitchen and brought out a big pot of hot oil. The kid was still on the tree. She asked the tiger to use a rope and hang the pot all the way up where she was so that she could jump in the pot herself. The tiger found a rope and hung the pot up onto the tree. The kid said,”Now close your eyes and imagine the delicious meat while I get into the pot.” The tiger close his eyes. The kid dumped the whole pot of hot oil onto the tiger. The tiger screamed in pain and died beneath the tree. The kid slowly climbed down the tree, walked out the front yard, and found her mom who just got back home.

Analysis:
The story can also be found in Southeast China where most of the Taiwanese came from. The story is classified as AT333, same as Little Red Riding Hood. There are numerous variations of the story. In some, the kid was offered a piece of her siblings to eat. Sometimes the older kid was eaten, and other times the younger one. The genders of the two children also vary from version to version. The gender of the tiger is unknown, but usually portrayed with deeper voice and more male-like manner. The tale was meant to terrorize the kid to go to bed, but many times it causes the kid to be too scared to full asleep. The parent usually would say something along the line with “If you don’t sleep right now, Grandaunt Tiger will come and eat you.” However, that is exactly why the kid got eaten in the story: they went to bed and the tiger ate one of them. The contradiction is interesting and seemingly illogical. One possible explanation is that because the parent is present in these situation, they will protect the kid. It is more like “I will let bad things happen to you if you don’t do what I say.” The story of Grandaunt Tiger is adapted into traditional Taiwanese puppet show and there is a lullaby evolved from the story also named Grandaunt Tiger. The lyric attached below:

好久好久的故事 是媽媽告訴我
在好深好深的夜裡 會有虎姑婆
愛哭的孩子不要哭 他會咬你的小耳朵
不睡的孩子趕快睡 他會咬你小指頭
還記得還記得 瞇著眼睛說
虎姑婆別咬我 乖乖的孩子睡著囉

Transliteration:
The story from long, long time ago. My mom told me
In the deep deep night, there will be Grandaunt Tiger/
Baby who cries do not cry. He will bite your little ear
Baby who don’t sleep quickly goes to sleep. He will bite your little pinky.
Still remember. Still remember. Squinting my eyes and say
“Grandaunt Tiger don’t bite me. This good kid is already falling asleep.”

好久好久的故事 是媽媽告訴我
在好深好深的夜裡 會有虎姑婆
愛哭的孩子不要哭 他會咬你的小耳朵
不睡的孩子趕快睡 他會咬你小指頭
還記得還記得 瞇著眼睛說
虎姑婆別咬我 乖乖的孩子睡著囉

“GPS and Cemetery are a bad combo.”

Nationality: Taiwan
Age: 50
Occupation: Housewife
Residence: Taiwan
Performance Date: 4/1/2023
Primary Language: Chinese
Language: English

Context:
Informant is a 50 year-old Taiwanese woman and this is her memorate happened on a camping trip. The interview was conducted through a facetime call.

Text:
Informant: It was during summer a couple years ago. I took the kids on a camping trip about an hour away from the city. One of my sister’s kids said that she had something earlier that day and asked us to pick her up at a nearby train station. We arrived at the site in the afternoon and by the time I was supposed to pick her up, it was pitch black outside. There was a cemetery on the side of the road at about halfway between the train station and the camping site. I remembered it because we saw that earlier when we were heading to the site. I remembered setting the GPS map to the train station and I took a quick glance at where the route would be, nothing unusual, just one big straight road that leads to the town where the station is. I started driving and as I was approaching where the cemetery is located, the map start asking me to turn right. There is one small muddy road cutting through the cemetery and the GPS kept asking me to go through there, but it makes no sense at all because the station should be straight ahead down the big road. The closer I got to the intersection, the more I felt weird about the entire situation. The street lights were flickering and glowing in a strange tone and I just felt this uncanny feeling that the something is trying to pull me into the cemetery, down that road. I didn’t dare to look through the passenger window because I was convinced that I might see things that I shouldn’t see. As I drove past and away from the intersection that I was asked to turn by the GPS, the street lights seemed to go back to the normal, dimmed, warm-yellow tone and the strange feeling went away. Anyways, that is why you should always have a basic sense of where you are going and don’t fully rely on GPS. God knows what would have happened if I had just followed the GPS.

Analysis:
The memorate demonstrates the common Taiwanese belief of the existence of ghosts. Cemetery are usually seen as a cursed or bad place where the wandering spirits or hostile ghosts will try to haunt or harm someone, either out of fun or malicious intention. In Taiwan, you often heard that GPS or other technologies involving energy wave passing through air and space often malfunction when the device is near the cemetery. The scientific explanation of this is still unclear. This type of experience therefore was explained way by the common belief of ghost.

Noose Wearing Ritual – Ghent, Belgium

Context: I heard about this ritual from my friend MG, who is originally from Ghent, but went to boarding school in England and finally ended up at USC as a student. We talked for a while about the related history of this ritual, and MG is the type of person to ramble so in the interest of keeping the collection entry concise and readable I have shortened our conversation to the best of my ability while staying true to MG’s telling.

Collection: In the 16th century, the King of Spain, Charles V, invaded Belgium and Ghent was now Spanish territory. So in 1541 or something like that Ghent’s population refused to pay taxes because they wanted to resist the Spanish ruler. [Long tangent about how King Charles is from Ghent] So they decided to revolt and got like heavily f*cking suppressed, and a lot of people died. As a punishment for the revolt they had to walk around the city in nooses like this *imitating the walk with his arms held straight out in front of him* to show the punishment all in a line all attached to this one cord to humiliate the Ghent population to show them that they have no authority no strength no like.. yaknow they are basically owned by the Spanish. So that was like a scarring experience but we are still so proud of resisting and like trying to protect our families our values our homes. Now its become a symbol of resistance and a symbol of stubbornness and pride of the Ghent population. The Ghent population in general is known as a stubborn population that does what it wants like within a country doing its own thing. [Long tangent about banking systems and the history of Ghent] So the tradition remembers that period because it was a period of thriving for the Ghent population.

Analysis: This ritual is very interesting because MG told me that it isn’t tied to a specific date, rather it is done during hard times. The last one he could recall was in 2008 during the financial crisis which was hard on the people. Additionally, MG said that it is more of a somber thing; people don’t celebrate or gather too much. It is more of something that happens as a reminder of the Ghent peoples strength that people can observe passively throughout the day. I think that this ritual says a lot about the culture of Ghent, as well as Belgium as a whole. Being a small nation without much power on the world stage, the people of Belgium take pride in their ability to silently resist authority. Reenacting this historical event is a way to bring the people of Ghent together and show that even through difficult times they will continue to resist and thrive.

Egusi Soup

TEXT:

EI: “So basically, in my family but I feel like Nigerian culture in general, there’s this one dish… It’s a soup, it’s called egusi soup. I don’t know all that goes into it. I know egusi is a melon, but you eat the seeds, so the soup is made by grinding up the seeds and mixing it with vegetables. It kind of smells… It makes the house smell bad. Not necessarily bad, but you know when egusi soup is being made in the house. It’s just a dish for whenever, but there is a process of making it, so you have to plan in advance. Finding the different ingredients is hard because you have to go to a specific Nigerian grocery store, and there aren’t that many of those, so you have to make the trek to go to the grocery store and make it which is a full day kind of thing. It’s more difficult, but it’s not for, like, special occasions.”

CONTEXT: EI is a black freshman at USC studying business. She grew up in the Bay area in California, but her family is Nigerian.

EI: “My family, we don’t make it very much, but it’s basically when my mom or my grandma comes and she and makes it. It makes me feel like oh wow, it’s a part of Nigerian culture, like immersed. I feel like that was always fun because my sister and I would come home and we’d smell the smell and get so excited. We’d be like “oh my gosh, yay! Egusi!” Because before we’d have it once in every like five years. We’ve been having it more recently which is cool, but now, we have it and it’s that same excitement of ‘Oh, I haven’t had this in a while’ even if it was the other day.”


ANALYSIS: I’ve never heard of egusi soup before, but a quick google search reveals that it’s a fairly common dish associated with Nigerian heritage. While the dish is not eaten at a specific time in EI’s family, it definitely has a purpose: for EI, it’s a means to connect her to her culture. She stated that it makes her feel immersed in Nigerian culture. Nigerian culture is not super common in the Bay area, and based on EI’s comments, it takes effort to express that identity. After all, she stated that Nigerian grocery stores are far away—in order to acquire the ingredients to make egusi soup, it takes a lot of effort. The making of egusi soup becomes very deliberate. Not only that, it’s acquired an association with the women in her family as her mother and grandmother are the people who make it. On the topic of ingredients, it’s interesting that the egusi hasn’t been replaced. Often, people replace certain materials if they’re hard to get. However, because the egusi itself is the main part of the soup, it can’t be replaced without losing the egusi-ness that makes it egusi soup. It makes the trek to the Nigerian grocery store is entirely necessary.