Author Archives: Champ Darabundit

Korean Childbirth Dreams

Nationality: American
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Primary Language: English

Context:

The following informant is a 21-year-old Korean American student. I was having a conversation about dreams when this topic came up. The informant stated that she heard the story from her parents who are Korean immigrants. In this I will be denoted as C and the informant will be denoted as S

S: So there this like thing I don’t know if it’s only for Korean women but apparently you get like a pregnancy dream when you’re pregnant. So like my mom’s pregnancy dream when she was with me was by a river or a swimming pool or something and then like a giant shiny black fish jumps out of the water and she catches it, and that’s kind of the dream she has. And then for my sister she had a dream of a shiny beautiful pearl. So my mom had a dream that I was a beautiful shiny black fish that she caught.

C: And what does it mean?

S: Apparently, I was talking to my photography teacher who is also Korean, what she’s heard about Korean pregnancy mother dreams is that if you dream of something really really small then it means girls, wait no, if you dream of something really small it’s a boy but if you dream of something big it’s a girl. So the big fish, me girl. So that’s it.

Analysis: This is an interesting folk belief and I have heard similar folk beliefs that are said to indicate the gender of the baby.

Masturbation Belief

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Arcadia
Primary Language: English

Context:

The following informant is a 20-year-old American male student. I had a conversation with the said informant one night about masturbation. The informant heard these this story from his mother and other kids in middle school. The informant will be denoted as K and I will be C.

K: I was told if you jerk off too much you will either go blind or you will start growing hair on the palms of your hands.

C: And why does this happen do you think?

K: I heard that it is because god is cursing you for sinning.

C: Did this ever prevent you from masturbating? Like, were you ever afraid of touching yourself because of this.

K: No.

Analysis: I think it is very interesting that the two things that can happen to you are tied to the act of masturbation itself. The hairy hands stem from the touching of one’s own genitalia while become blind stems from the, I’m assuming here, the viewing of porn. I also remember hearing similar cautionary tales growing up.

The God Among Sandwiches

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Arcadia
Primary Language: English

Context:

The following informant is a 20-year-old American male student. The informant and I were in a discussion about “secret menu” items that can be found at various American fast food chains. The informant will be denoted as K and I will be C.

K: So when I was in middle school and sex talk was really proliferating I heard about a fabled sandwich, the god among sandwiches, called the McGangBang. The story goes that if you ask for a McGangBang you will either be thrown out of the store or they will give you a McChicken inside of a McDouble. So a McDouble is bun, patty, cheese, patty, cheese, bun and then you can peel right in between the patty-cheese so the patty, cheese peel and then patty cheese, bun. And right in the center you can plop a McChicken right in the middle.

C: With the bun?

K: With the bun! And you can eat it all in one go and that’s a McGangBang. I’ve never ordered it as a McGangBang but my friend said he had. He said that it had worked at the Hog Mountain Road McDonalds. But I don’t believe him.

C: And how many times have you had a McGangBang.

K: I think I have had it at least fifteen times in my life, maybe more.

Analysis: While I find the name of the sandwich very problematic, I can personally attest that it is very tasty albeit disgusting. Additionally I find the culture of “hidden menu” items at fast food places to be very interesting. It is almost as if the restaurant is some cult and by knowing the secret menu items you can become a member of said cult. A commercialized version a secret menu can be seen with In N’ Out which is famous for their secret menu.

Kaprielian Hall Ghost

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Primary Language: English

Context:

The following informant is a 20-year-old American male student. I had a conversation with the said informant about campus ghost stories. The informant is an engineering student at the University of Southern California. The informant will be denoted as J and I will be C.

J: So when I was in 152, Physic 152. I had to go take my lab down in Kaprielian Hall. I heard this story from my TA whose verified it because he had felt the same phenomenon. So a lot of the labs are really late and the TAs will work late so when you’re walking in the hall by the machine shop you can hear the machines on and people making sounds and talking to each other. It is still really faint you can still hear it, but then when you walk over there everything is off and all the lights are off and you can’t see anything and all the sound is gone. So my TA was telling me about how he had been working late one night and all the people left from his lab, so it happened to him the week before. And started hearing these noises because we were like in the other side by where you pick up the materials. And then started hearing these thing like whirring and like thunk-a-thunk-a-thunking. And he walked over there and all the lights were off so he had to leave real fast and that’s the story of the Kaprielian Hall ghost.

Analysis: This reminds me of some of the other haunting/ghost stories that I have heard. The part that is particularly interesting is how the TA inserts himself into the legend to make it feel more real.

Tumeric and the Hidden Village

Nationality: Thai
Age: 60
Occupation: Restaurant Owner
Residence: New York
Primary Language: Thai (laotian)
Language: English

Context:

The following informant is a 60-year-old Thai immigrant who heard the following story growing up as a kid. This interview was carried out in a mix of Thai and English. In this I will be denoted as C and the informant will be denoted as S

S: This story, its kind of similar to the Amazonians. In Thailand near Chiang Mai, where I am from, there a place called Muang Laap Lae, which means it is invisible. Like if you look at it you wouldn’t be able to see there is a country there. It is a country that is so hard to get to and the path is so difficult to get there to that if you don’t know how to get there you can’t. this is why people call is Muang Laap Lae (Hidden Country) or Muang Mong Mae Hen (Invisible Country). Only people who are very good persons are able to see the hidden country. Mong Mae Hen means invisible.

There is a one good young man who enters into the forests and sees a bunch of beautiful women in the forest. At the end of the forest the girls hide large leafs. The man takes one of the leafs and wait there. Later the women return and start looking the leaves that they hid. Once they get their leaves they immediate disappear back into, into the forest. But one of them cannot find their leaf because the young man took the leaf. This one woman is very frustrated and annoyed and the young man gives the leaf back in exchange for, uh, in exchange for being able to follow the woman because he wants to see the invisible village people have been talking about. The woman agrees and takes the man to the hidden village. Once he gets to the village he realizes that the village only has women. The beautiful woman who took him to the village tells the young man, “The people who live in this village, are people who have a lot of merit and they never lie. If anyone does anything bad or lies they have to leave the village. And a lot of men tend to lie so that’s why all the men had to leave the village.”

Do you understand?

C: Yes, I understand.

S: So the young man is smitten with the woman who brought him to the village and asks if he can stay there and marry her. The mother of the woman agrees to the marriage on the condition that the man has to have merit and doesn’t lie. They get married and live together until they have one child together. And one day when the wife isn’t home and the man is taking care of the kid. The kid is crying asking for his mother non-stop. So the man playfully lies to his child “Your mom is here! Your mom is here!”

Now the mother-in-law hears this and is angry that her son-in-law is a liar. When the wife gets back she’s very, uh, disappointed that the husband did not keep his word and tells him he has to leave the village.

The pack the man a bag with stuff, his own stuff, stuff he needs to live, and also gave him a lot of heads of turmeric. A lot of turmeric because the husband cannot stay in the village. The wife takes him to the edge of the forest and points to the path to leave the village and the wife returns to the hidden village. The man has to follow the path that his wife pointed to. As he is walking the more he walks, the bag they gave him gets heavier and heavier. And the path is so long. So he eats the food and the drinks the water that they gave him. But all he can find in his bag is the turmeric. The turmeric that his wife gave him. So he starts throwing away the turmeric because it is heavy. When he finally gets back to his village his family and friends ask him where he’s been gone for so long. The man tells the story of the hidden village and also how his wife gave him a lot of turmeric that he threw away because it was heavy. There was once piece of turmeric left and he took it out to show them, and it turned out the turmeric was a bar of gold. It was a bar of gold. The man is surprised and feels regret for having thrown away all the turmeric he was carrying. Because he threw it all away, all the turmeric they gave him. And when he went back to look for the turmeric he threw away, he found it had grown into turmeric plants. And when he dug it up its just normal turmeric not the bars of gold they gave him. When he tries to find the hidden village again he cannot and just gets continuously lost in the forest. So he returns home back to his old village.

Analysis: I think there are two messages in this tale. One is to not lie, something which is important in Buddhism, and also to not take things for granted. The man in the story does both, but it seems like kicking him out for telling his kid a white lie is a little extreme.