Author Archives: ivyhong

Christmas

Nationality: Irish American
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Performance Date: 4/19/16
Primary Language: English
Language: Latin

The informant is Catholic, and of Irish descent. They agreed to meet up with me, and share pieces of folklore for this project.

 

So what do you do for Christmas?

 

“Ok so for Christmas, we always set up a Christmas tree, which is like, um a pine tree or an evergreen tree and we go… Like exactly a month before Christmas, my family would always go to like an outdoor lot and pick out a Christmas tree. And we- and then the… also a month before Christmas- so like the month before is when it kinda starts. We have Saint Nicholas’s Day which is, we would put our stockings up and we would get like…”

 

That early?

 

“Yeah; Saint Nick’s Day is like… it’s a Catholic thing. Um so, you put your stockings out and Saint Nick comes. It’s like an early… he gives you like… it’s not exactly like Christmas but he gives you like candy in your stocking and like. We’d always get an ornament, like one ornament so we can put it on the tree for that year.

 

And then… when it’s like Christmas Eve, we would go and we had like our- we had like a Christmas Eve… celebration at one family’s house. And then, we would like do- we would open presents there, some presents. The next day on Christmas morning we had this rule that like you couldn’t- you couldn’t open your- So there were presents, you played Santa, or your- and your parents would come and like put, um presents under the tree, but you weren’t allowed to open the presents until you went downstairs an- Ours was outside; we wait until we opened our stockings first, which are next to the chimney. Stocking’s next to the chimney, tree’s like in the family room. And we’d always open our stockings first, and then go and open presents. And that was like the Santa part of our Christmas.

 

We would also go the church, like we’d go to the Midnight Mass so in between- so you know like I said- This is sort of out of order, but you know how I said like the night before, we would have the pre-Christmas where we opened presents? And then immediately afterwards go to the Midnight Mass at church. And then the next morning, we would have our Christmas morning thing.”

 

I included this piece because the way we overlook pieces of folklore within our daily lives because they are so ingrained into us as normal always amazes me. While Christmas is one of the biggest holiday in the U.S., nearly every family who celebrates it has their own take on what is tradition. Thus, if one was to organize those who celebrate Christmas into groups, how one group celebrates Christmas could be wildly different from say, how the informant and their family celebrates the holiday.

 

This also reminds me of when we talked about vernacular religion. Christmas is not necessarily a day-to-day occurrence, but the fact that people celebrate it in whatever way they want still stands. There is no “official” religious text or requirement for people to receive an ornament in preparation for Christmas, but the informant and their family holds onto this tradition anyways as they observe the holiday each year.

 

 

Tooth Rat

Nationality: Hispanic American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Valencia, Venezuela
Performance Date: 4/9/16
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

The informant brought this up in an informal environment.

 

“Oh so, I’m from Venezuela and there, instead of a tooth fairy, we have what’s called a tooth rat. So it’s a rat that comes in and steals your teeth whenever you lose a tooth, um and takes it to his underground rat tooth kingdom.”

 

This is a fun variation on the tooth fairy belief more common in the U.S.. As a country with British influences, it makes sense that some of our folk beliefs will have fairies in them, even if belief in fairies is dwindling overall in the U.S.. With the tooth rat, one might assume that such creatures are not present in Venezuelan stories.

 

However, this also suggests that parents trying to soften a child’s fear that comes from a loose tooth is nigh universal. Perhaps a rat takes on the tooth collecting role as it is small, and active at night. One might also speculate that rats are viewed as friendlier, or nicer than they are in other countries.

 

Annotation: There are several countries with variations of a tooth rat, such as Mexico and France. The French version reportedly has the tooth rat switch out the tooth with toys, rather than coins.

 

H, Lotta. “Baby Teeth – Tooth Fairy and Worldwide Traditions | Toothpick.” Toothpick Blog. Toothpick, 07 Mar. 2014. Web. 28 Apr. 2016.

Six, Eight, and Nine

Nationality: Chinese American
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Plano, Texas
Performance Date: 3/31/16
Primary Language: English
Language: Mandarin, Spanish

The informant is of Chinese descent, and was another attendant of an assembly meeting. The atmosphere was very relaxed and informal, and while we were waiting for it to start, I brought up this folklore project.

 

What sort of meanings do the numbers six, eight, and nine have in Chinese culture?

 

“Cause there’s a lot of homophones in Chinese, and so they have like homophones associated with positive words. Let me see… six sounds like- it’s like the word for “to flow” it like relates to luck, so… Eight relates to… let me see… to a word that means prosper and wealth. And then nine is just the number of heavens. So like, a lot of the times, the Emperor would have like nine dragons and stuff like that.”

 

What catches my attention about this is that the Chinese cultural associations behind the numbers six, eight, and nine are debatably less common of a trivia fact compared to the Chinese cultural associations behind the number four. If I had to guess, I would say that it is because negativity stands out more. Also, in this specific case, the fact that “four” in Chinese sounds like Chinese for “death” is a trivia bit that fits in well with American holidays and special days like Halloween and Friday the 13ths. As such, it has a slightly higher degree of relevance whenever these days come around.

 

Besides being an example of number superstition, this piece also aligns well with homeopathic magic in general. Following the idea that “like produces like,” the appearance of six, eight, or nine in nearly any context would be viewed favorably. The specifics of how these blessings of luck or wealth would be applied is left unclear, but a driving sentiment seems to be that it is nice to have them than to not, and that it is certainly better than a four.