Author Archives: jakenels

The Cook and the Cowhands

Nationality: American
Age: 50
Residence: Campbell, CA
Performance Date: 3/20/17
Primary Language: English

There was a joke that my grandpa used to tell. It’s a little off color but not so bad. But he told the story, and then my mom told the story, and I haven’t really told it but I can tell it to you so you can hear it. It’s a little bit racist but you can take the race out of it and it works just the same. This is a story that my grandfather’s older brother and father told him. So there was a ranch in the West somewhere, probably Colorado or California. There were cowhands, and they were working all day on the ranch, and they had a cook named Wong. They thought they would play some practical jokes on him. When Wong was sleeping, the cowhands they would tie his shoes together with lots of knots. The next day they waited for a reactions, but nothing happened—he just fixed his shoes and didn’t mention it. The next day they put thumbtacks on his seat. They waited to see his reaction, and when he sat down he kind of grimaced, but just swept them away and didn’t really care. The next day they either short-sheeted his bed or soaked his sheets with water—I don’t really remember. They waited for a reaction, and no reaction. So they finally decided to talk to him. “So Wong, you’ve been a really good sport, tying your shoes in knots and putting thumbtacks on your seat, and messing with your sheets, so we won’t do that to you anymore.” In a different voice; “You no more put knots in my shoes?” “No, no more knots in your shoes.” “You no more put tackies on my seat?” “No, no more tacks on your seat.” “You no more soak my sheets in water?” “No, we won’t soak your sheets in water anymore.” “Good, well I no more pee pee in your soup.”

This story is important to the informant because of its history, and it having been passed down for multiple generations. It reminds him of how different the world used to be regarding the treatment of minorities, and their portrayal.

I find it interesting that the racist aspect of this narrative isn’t actually essential to the story– it could be told just about the same, without making stereotypical voices or mentioning the races of the characters.

Yugong and the Two Mountains

Nationality: Chinese
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 4/14/17
Primary Language: Chinese

Yugong was a ninety-year-old man who lived at the north of two high mountains, Mount Taixing and Mount Wangwu.Stretching over a wide expanse of land, the mountains blocked Yugong’s way making it inconvenient for him and his family to get around.

One day yugong gathered his family together and said,”Let’s do our best to level these two mountains. We shall open a road that leads to Yuzhou. What do you think?”

All but his wife agreed with him.”You don’t have the strength to cut even a small mound,” muttered his wife. “How on earth do you suppose you can level Mount Taixin and Mount Wanwu? Moreover, where will all the earth and rubble go?”

“Dump them into the Sea of Bohai!” said everyone.

So Yugong, his sons, and his grandsons started to break up rocks and remove the earth. They transported the earth and rubble to the Sea of Bohai.

Now Yugong’s neighbour was a widow who had an only child eight years old. Even the young boy offered his help eagerly.

Summer went by and winter came. It took Yugong and his crew a full year to travel back and forth once.

On the bank of the Yellow River dwelled an old man much respected for his wisdom. When he saw their back-breaking labour, he ridiculed Yugong saying,”Aren’t you foolish, my friend? You are very old now, and with whatever remains of your waning strength, you won’t be able to remove even a corner of the mountain.”

Yugong uttered a sigh and said,”A biased person like you will never understand. You can’t even compare with the widow’s little boy!””Even if I were dead, there will still be my children, my grandchildren, my great grandchildren, my great great grandchildren. They descendants will go on forever. But these mountains will not grow any taler. We shall level them one day!” he declared with confidence.

The wise old man was totally silenced.

When the guardian gods of the mountains saw how determined Yugong and his crew were, they were struck with fear and reported the incident to the Emperor of Heavens. Filled with admiration for Yugong, the Emperor of Heavens ordered two mighty gods to carry the mountains away.

—

This is an interesting myth, and it seems like it tells more than just a lesson about morals, but also about the importance of lineage.

Dragon Boat Festival

Nationality: Chinese
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 4/20/17
Primary Language: Chinese
Language: English

There was once a poet called Qu Yuan. He witnessed his country falling apart. With full patriotism, he committed suicide by jumping into the Yangzi River. People commemorate him nowadays by celebrating the Dragon Boat Festival. Celebration includes dragon boat racing and dumping rice dumplings into the water.

This is an interesting festival, and I can’t think of any American festivals or holidays that celebrate someone committing suicide.

Fiji Cold Remedy

Nationality: American
Age: 30
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 4/26/17
Primary Language: English

I learned this from a friend of my dad’s who was an Indian guy living in Fiji when we lived there. We always got sick on the plane coming over, a cold or whatever.  It works—makes you feel much better, makes being sick much less awful, and it tastes good, I drink it when I’m feeling okay, too.
If you feel like you’re getting a cold, you go to an Indian market and you buy these things to make tea  and then I’ll tell you what to do with them.  I guess it’s really an infusion, not a tea, but anyway.

So first you buy whole cloves.  These are the most important and if you can’t find anything else they’ll help some.  They have a slight numbing quality—dentists use eugenol, which is clove oil—and they’re also pretty antibacterial—and then you take like twelve cloves and twelve peppercorns, black peppercorns for sneezing, for your sinuses, a couple of bruised cardamom pods—they make you cough stuff up—and some fennel seeds, like a couple of big pinches, it also, like, loosens phlegm, there’s a thing in it that they isolate to make cough medicine—and a cinnamon stick because I don’t know, it’s supposed to be warming.  I think mostly it just tastes really good in there. You put in some sliced fresh ginger to clear your sinuses and maybe a slice of lemon or a little honey and you pour boiling water over it all and let it sit for a while.  Then drink it.  And you can re-infuse it a few times.  The ginger and fennel make it good for stomach stuff, too.

If you can’t get this stuff, just go order a chai tea with no milk.  It’s a lot of the same stuff.  But this is better.

 

I had actually recently heard about a similar version of this cold remedy, and it seems the use of cloves and peppercorns in a tea-like infusion is a popular way to treat cold symptoms.

Bigfoot

Nationality: American
Age: 50
Residence: San Jose, CA
Performance Date: 3/19/17
Primary Language: English

He’s just a furry guy that walks around the Santa Cruz Mountains. All I can picture is Chewbacca in my mind because they kind of resemble each other a bit. It’s something I remember from my childhood as being a big story, and they even have a museum in the Santa Cruz mountains. We used to go backpacking all the time when I was a kid, and it used to be a big thing, back in the 70s. It seemed like people were actively searching for him.

—

The legend of bigfoot is very popular and widespread, but I hadn’t heard the variation that he lives in the Santa Cruz mountains. I usually only heard that he lived in the Pacific Northwest, like Oregon or Washington.