Author Archives: Jaemyeong Lee

The House-Sitter

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: USC
Performance Date: April 22, 2014
Primary Language: English

The story:

A girl who was house-sitting heard banging in the basement. It was night, and she was alone. She called 911 to report the noise. The police said they would come in half an hour. Shortly after the call, while the girl was sitting in the living room, the SWAT team broke in. When the girl asked what was going, one of the officers told her that after she hung up the phone, the police heard a second click on the line – someone else had been listening, a murderer who had recently killed two victims.

Analysis:

The informant heard the story when he was around 11 years old at a summer camp. In this transmission, the story’s primary function was to entertain the informant who also explained that ever since he heard the story, he’s always “listened for another click.” The primary element at play seems to be that the source of the story’s tension, the murderer, had successfully kept his presence unknown to the house-sitter – in other words, like many scary stories, this one utilizes the existence of forces of fear that we cannot effectively control. The turn at the end of the story that provides the button works because it illustrates that such forces can be much closer than we anticipate them to be.

In this performance of he piece, the informant didn’t make much of an attempt to scare his audience with the story, but instead was trying to remember the piece as he used to tell it to his friends in middle school.

Collector: Why do you think you continued to tell the story?

Informant: I don’t know. Like…maybe I was just power obsessed, [name omitted].

(chuckles)

Collector: You think?

Informant: I mean I don’t know. That’s just me speculating at this point. But I think that’s just what kids that age do. They just try to get the other person to think they know more.

 

In a similar vain to how children use riddles and jokes to assert their desire to subvert a system, perhaps scary stories function in a similar manner but more among peers. While I got the sense that the informant was merely joking when he mentioned the possibility of his use of the story as being manipulative, I wouldn’t be surprised if a collection of stories revealed that part of the appeal of transmitting scary stories is in the dominance granted in the active bearer who could control his/her audience’s reactions.

The Blonde and the Tickle-Me-Elmos

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: USC
Performance Date: April 30, 2014
Primary Language: English

The Joke:

A blonde girl was hired at a Tickle-Me-Elmo factory. The owner of the factory told the girl to tickle each of the finished Elmos twice before sending them out to be packaged. Later that day, the owner heard howls of laughter coming from the room the girl was assigned. When he went back to check what was going on, he saw the girl attaching two marbles in between the legs of the Elmos. As he started chastising her, she replied, “But you told me to give them two test-tickles.”

Analysis:

The informant claimed she remembered this joke from having performed it for an audition to MC a sixth grade talent show. She had learned it from her two older siblings who are 4 and 5 years older than she is.

That the informant had even understood the humor of this joke when she was 11 is rather astonishing. When asked why she finds the joke funny, the informant admitted that part of the humor for her now rests in how the joke is embedded in the memory of the experience, of knowing that the joke was inappropriate and yet telling it to a teacher, who had given her permission, anyway. In this situation, it seems there are multiple interactions at play: on one level, the lore is tied personally to the informant through the particular memory of having rebelled against decorum and on another, perhaps the lore itself has become how she has adapted the memory into the telling of the joke. In performing it as a sixth grader, the informant illustrated the use of humor – puns, innuendos – to subvert the rules she grew up on. Performing it now, the informant reveals how the performance of folklore can affect future performances of the piece. By telling the story in full with the joke weaved into it, the informant has the opportunity to not only entertain, but also share her experience of having grown up with older siblings and whatever other details she chooses to include. In short, this informant exemplifies that one’s experience in performing folklore can be the focus of the experience as a whole in and of itself.

“Sir Nikolai” – Russian Joke

Nationality: Russian-American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: USC
Performance Date: April 30, 2014
Primary Language: English
Language: Russian

Sir Nikolai

(The attachment contains the joke spoken in Russian, an additional translation, as well as some commentary by both the informant and collector.)

Transcript of audio file (condensed and edited):

Informant: This  one is what my grandpa always used to tell me. [Joke in Russian]. It means, “A man named Nikolai sitting at home doesn’t go outside much. Girls are gonna come over to your place and you’re gonna fart and they’re going to leave.” It’s a crude joke but it’s a lot funnier in Russian just because of the word play there. It’s just a little rhyme that my grandpa used to say to get my mom mad.

The informant heard this joke when he was around 10-years-old from his paternal grandfather who had learned the joke during his time serving the Russian army back in the ’40s. As the informant begins to explain in the recording, the “joke’s a lot funnier in Russian because of the word play.” While the translation may convey the “crudeness” that the informant’s mother may have found upsetting (i.e. the reference to flatulence as well as the possible sexual impotence of the main character), the translation preserves neither the pun nor the rhyme, which in this case is also the former. The word for “to come over” in Russian roughly transliterates to “preidut,” and “to fart” to ” perdut.” If one listens to the audio file again keeping both the cadence and the words in mind, the rhyme is more apparent than in the first listen.

When I asked the informant if he ever began performing the joke himself, he replied that he’s only ever done it with his grandpa when his mother was around. Even when he didn’t quite understand the exact word play when he was younger, he found the rhyme entertaining because he knew it was inappropriate based on his mother’s reaction and because of the pleasure his grandfather got from seeing him recite it. In a later part of the conversation with the informant, after having shared a few other jokes from his grandfather, the informant expressed deep veneration and affection for his grandfather who had always been present in his life. He then revealed that just that morning he had received a call from his father (the informant’s grandfather’s son) that the grandfather had to go back to the hospital because of a kidney failure. He went on to share that in more recent conversations with his grandpa, he began noticing that the man who was once so energetic and whose voice seemed booming had diminished into frailty from his illness. Along with being an incredible touching encounter with the informant, the experience also illustrated the continuing role of folklore in interpersonal relations. In this particular relationship, the informant is a first-generation Russian American. “It’s hard being Russian-American because I’m not fully American but also not Russian. My grandpa is my farthest tie to Russian culture.” And by “farthest tie” the informant intended that his grandpa goes the farthest back into the history of the culture; in other words, the grandpa is the informant’s closest tie to the deeper roots of his heritage, which he identifies through the folklore his grandpa shared with him. But of course, in addition to the association with ethnic identity, this particular piece of lore connects the informant on a personal, affectionate level with an influential figure in his childhood. If we are to follow the belief that humor reveals what lies below the surface of mundane vernacular, it would seem that in this particular performance of the folk speech, the informant, in the midst of his current grief over his grandfather, was letting surface the pleasant memories that he shared with him.

Rituals and Etiquette in Russian Drinking Culture

Nationality: Russian-American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: USC
Performance Date: April 30, 2014
Primary Language: English

The informant, a first generation Russian-American, listed the following as customs and beliefs regarding drinking that he picked up on as he attended family dinners growing up:

  • “The pattern goes: toast, take the shot, toast, take the shot, and so on and so forth. To take a shot without toasting with the people at the table is a huge…like…it’s no good.”
  • Toasts can be made regarding celebrations, but also more generally to things like good health.
  • “One would not drink vodka without toasting, but one would not toast without vodka to drink.”

Drinking vodka mends a broken soul. Drinking is not for enjoying the taste, but for feeling the effects of the alcohol, which is believed to amplify the love among the people one is drinking with. It’s not solely about the drunkenness, but rather about the affection that the drunkenness gives rise to that is believed to be the cure/relief from the pains of life.

In this case, the informant has drawn conclusions regarding a cultural view not only on alcohol but also on community based on the gestures of a ritual.

“Two bears in a shower…”

Nationality: African-American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: USC
Performance Date: April 30, 2014
Primary Language: English

The Joke:

Two bears are taking a shower. One of the bears asks the other, “Hey do you have any soap?” The other replies, “No soap…radio.”

Analysis:

“The joke is,” the informant said, “that it’s not really a joke. It doesn’t make any sense. But if you’re in a group of people and you and a few buddies are in on the joke together, one of you says the joke and everyone else just needs to laugh as if it’s the funniest thing ever. No one else is going to get it. They’re going to be really confused and then from there…it just gets funnier. It’s beautiful.”

Collector: Where did you learn it?

Informant: On a retreat I went on last year, during the drive up, two of the guys [who were older members] in my car did it to us. I had heard similar jokes before, so I picked up on it and started laughing, too. But the two other girls that were in the car had no idea and got really pissed. And even after we explained it to them, that it’s not supposed to make any sense, they didn’t find it funny at all.

 

I think this “joke,” or rather meta-joke (in which the joke aren’t the words but rather the situation of performance that becomes the joke) beautifully exemplifies the use of prank in liminal space. This retreat that the informant attended, he later explained, was a new members retreat to get the new members situated in the group. Ironically, while the intention of the retreat is to integrate additional people into community, the older members in fact alienated some of them. The informant, however, having figured out the joke earned a kind of place among the “big boys.” When asked if the joke was enacted intentionally as a bonding/alienating experience, the informant clarified that it probably wasn’t. Rather it may have just been an irresponsible prank in which the potential consequences hadn’t been fully recognized prior to enacting it on that nature of a retreat. Nevertheless, the experience illustrates a tension that lies between old members and the new: those who are in on the joke and those who are not. And if you happen to be new and yet somehow in on the joke, then you have only affirmed that you belonged in the group all along, even prior to having joined.

This type of prank emphasizes the binaries that establish identity: the “us” and “them” distinction, the “us” presumably being the originals.