Author Archives: Alexis Madara

The couple on top of the mango tree

Nationality: American
Age: 37
Occupation: Hair Dresser
Residence: New York, NY
Performance Date: March 2012
Primary Language: English
Language: Tagalog

My informant told me this story while we were having lunch and discussing ghosts. When he was a kid he used to spend every summer in the Philippines. “You’re going to love this one!” he began, laughing loudly. “When my grandparents lived in an apartment in Manila my grandma used to tell me and my siblings this story. I used to think she told it to us just to scare  us, since we were kids” Loud laughter, “but now I’m not so sure. So in her apartment building, during the chinese invasion, there was a newlywed couple that just moved into their apartment. They were killed together in the apartment, I think decapitated, by the Chinese and there is this well directly across the street…they dumped  their body in the well. Next to the well is a giant mango tree and supposedly every once in a while you can see the couple sitting at the top of the tree, holding hands. And sometimes at night all of the doorbells in the apartment building ring at the same time, and it isn’t actually possible for someone to ring all the doorbells at once. Which is really creepy, it gives me the chills.” nervous laughter. He explains once again, “But at the time I really thought she was just trying to scare us.”

There are many ghost stories in Manila dealing with deaths that occurred during the chinese invasion, these stories could be a way to connect to that important  and brutal piece of Filipino history. It also creates a life after death where the couple who was killed are still able to be together, leaving a somber, yet happy ending to a brutal story.

Super Jesus Piece of Knock on Wood

Nationality: American
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Long Beach, CA
Performance Date: April 2012
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

“My mom is catholic and she would always carry this wooden cross with a jesus face on it in the car. And it was like this huge, chunky, wooden cross. So it would constantly fall off so she would like superglue it on, like she was super obsessed with that goddamn thing being on there. And, like, any time she breaker really hard it would just lie go and hit me in the face if I was sitting there and I would be like, ‘fuck,’ and she would be like, ‘why are you cursing the sacred Jesus cross?!’ But she actually had it in the car, she always said, because it was good to knock on wood, so she would knock on that when she would almost get in an accident or something. So it was her, like, super Jesus…piece of knock on wood.”

Knocking on wood is very commonly used, including a song called “Knock on Wood” by Eddie Flood and Steve Cropper. Knocking on wood is supposed to prevent tempting fate. The cross with jesus adds another protection through a religious belief.

Three men in Saudi Arabia

Nationality: American
Age: 53
Occupation: Lawyer
Residence: Chicago, IL
Performance Date: March 2012
Primary Language: English

My informant told me this funny joke she had heard while we were in her car, “Three men get in trouble while visiting Saudi Arabia, one is white, one is black and one is Arabian. They each are to receive ten lashes, but the guards tell them they each get one request. The white man requests for a pillow to be tied to his back, after a couple lashes the pillow breaks and the man’s flesh is broken. The black man requests for two pillows, after a few lashings the pillows break and the man’s flesh is broken. The guards then grant the Arabian two requests, first the Arabian asks for ten extra lashes, to which the guards respond that he is brave and strong, second the man asks to have the white man tied to his back. ”

This joke could be a way to deal with retribution for what white’s have done to other races to torture and enslave them. Also the guards show a level of nationalistic support by giving the Arabian man two requests. The women who told me this joke is Black and is married to a white man.

Dumb Blonde

Nationality: American
Age: 21
Occupation: Store Owner
Residence: Chicago, IL
Performance Date: March 2012
Primary Language: English
Language: Arabic

My informant told me a dumb blonde joke, which went like this: “What do you call a blonde with two brain cells?…pregnant.”

This joke stereotypes blonds not only to be dumb, but it possibly has a connotation that blondes are also loose. This joke also assumes that the listener will presume from the first line, which does not mention female, that it is about the female. This not only reflects as a stereotype of blondes then, but also of females, which could possibly indicate how females are vied in our society as opposed to their male counterparts, who do not have this stereotype put on them.

Snake in the Forest

Nationality: American
Age: 21
Occupation: Store Owner
Residence: Chicago, IL
Performance Date: March 2012
Primary Language: English
Language: Arabic

I had a friend tell me this piece of folklore, “A woman finds an injured rattle snake in the forest. She brings it back home and nurtures it back to health over the course of a few weeks. Finally, as she is getting ready to release it back into the forest, it bites her. ‘Why did you do that? I saved you!’ she shouts at the snake. ‘look, bitch’ the snake replies, ‘you knew I was a snake.'” He told me that this was a Native American folktale. It seems to indicate that a snake is a snake and even if you nurture and care for it, it will still act like a snake. The nature of the creature cannot be changed.