Author Archives: Kelly Covey

Bloody Thumb Trick

Nationality: Chinese
Age: 60
Occupation: Retired
Residence: Torrance, California
Performance Date: 4/26/2013
Primary Language: English
Language: Chinese

“Use the left hand, and bend at the first joint of the thumb.  Bend the right hand thumb in the same way, but cover the right hand thumb joint with your index and middle fingers.  You can put your two thumbs together to form what looks like a full thumb, but your index and middle fingers are covering the joints of both thumbs.  So it looks like you’re just covering your left thumb with two fingers.  It looks natural to little kids.  So when I start moving my right hand up, it looks like my thumb is getting pulled off or broken, right?  And then, you know, I sometimes put some type of red thing in between the joints, like ketchup, and it looks like I’m bleeding.  I mean, of course, we say before we do it, “Do not repeat this” in case you guys wanted to pull your thumbs off.”

My informant has done this trick many times for little children in order to entertain them.  The first time he had seen it, he said, was when an adult had shown it to him in order to try and scare him or make him wide-eyed in wonder.  I, myself, had first seen this trick done by my uncle who was trying to entertain my brother and me.  The trick is more like a practical joke on children to fool them into thinking that it is possible to pull your thumb off and then reattach it later.  I remember wondering for quite some length of time at how my uncle managed to pull his finger apart.  The trick, while it means to keep children occupied for long periods of time, also seems to poke fun at children’s ignorance because it toys with their young minds while the adults and less naïve share a quiet laugh.

Paper Stars

Nationality: American
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Performance Date: 4/13/2013
Primary Language: English
Language: Chinese

“All the girls would get this long strip of paper—expensive as hell—and you, like, fold it into little tiny stars—it has to be perfect, like, you can’t dent it anywhere—you make a thousand of them; and once you get to one thousand, you can make any wish, and it will come true.”

Q: “So do you only do this in a private setting, or do you do it with a bunch of other girls?”

A: “We did it in middle school—let’s see, we all had a bunch of paper and do it in front of each other, do it at home, or do it when we’re bored because we’re like, “I need to get that thousand!’”

Q: “Did you or anyone you know ever make it to a thousand stars?”

A: “I knew a couple people who did.  They were like, “Yay!  I got a thousand!”  And, I don’t know what their wish was….”

Q: “Do you know if their wishes came true though?”

A: “No.  But it made us really happy when, for presents, we’d give each other different designs of paper—there’s, like, the shiny foil; the little designs on them—we’d give them as gifts, and we’d be like, “Yes!”  There were clear ones….”

Q: “Can you describe briefly how you made the stars?”

A: “Someone gave me a paper, and I was like, “I don’t know how to do this.”  So, my older friends would teach me how to make it.  And I was like, “Oh my God, I’m learning something important!”  But, first you make a knot at one end, and then you keep folding over and over and over until you have a flat pentagon; and then you squeeze the corners.  And you get a 3D star.  And then you put it in those, like, collectible jars.”

My informant has demonstrated for me how to make these paper stars which are folk objects tied to the folk belief that if a person could make one thousand perfect paper stars, his or her wish would come true.  Though she has never achieved this goal, she told me that she was never an adamant believer of it in the first place—she only made them because they were fun way to pass the time and hang out with friends.

The folk object and folk belief have been commercialized over the years to target Asians—a folk object that makes its greatest profit by selling back to its own culture.  This item often targets tween to teenage girls who go on to eventually teach younger girls how to make these stars and tell them that they will be able to make a wish if they can make one thousand perfect stars.  I think that the stars play on the romantic idea that stars are lucky and somehow possess powers to grant a person’s wishes.  Perhaps the reason a wish can only be granted after a person has made one thousand perfect ones because it will demonstrate that the individual in question has demonstrated skills and patience worthy enough of one granted wish.  Or perhaps the creation of a thousand stars as perfect as the ones found only in the heavens proves that a person is “god-like” enough to have a wish granted—somehow being able to create these perfect stars demonstrates mastery over the heavens.

Vagina Peeking

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student; Student Worker in USC Housing
Residence: Compton, California
Performance Date: 4/13/2013
Primary Language: English

“You ask someone if they want to see a vagina, and usually the answer is “yes.”  So you ask them to put their palms together and hold their hands out so one hand is on top of the other.  They have to spread their fingers, and then you put your palms together and spread your fingers and put your hands between their fingers.  Then you ask them to open their hands and look inside.  It’s a vagina!”

My informant for this piece of folklore heard this from a friend when she was in middle school.  She felt that a lot of kids in middle school were sharing this with one another and asking if people wanted to see a vagina to the point where it got old.  The age group amongst which this folklore is shared is important because it is around this age that school kids start sex education and grow increasingly curious about their bodies.  For children go around school demonstrating to one another the anatomy of the female sex organ shows that they are getting familiar with their bodies and, in a way, socially educating each other in humorous ways.

Rugby Drinking Rules

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student; Student Worker in USC Housing
Residence: Compton, California
Performance Date: 4/20/2013
Primary Language: English

“You always hold your drink in your left hand because you shake with your right hand.  If we find you with a drink in your right hand, we’ll go, “Drink, motherfucker!  Drink, motherfucker!  Drink, motherfucker!  Drink!”  And then, “Why are we waiting when we could be masterbating?”  And they have to drink whatever is in their hand—just gobble it all up.  So make sure you always hold your drink in your left hand.

“I don’t know about the guys, but for your first try, you have to shoot the boot.  And shooting the boot means that we get the person with the nastiest cleat, and we put a beer in there; and the person has to drink it—and that’s if you have your first try.”

The informant of these drinking rules is a member of the USC Women’s Rugby team.  The first rule about holding your drink only in your left hand is a rule out of respect for your fellow teammates.  According to my informant, despite rugby players’ reputations for being constantly inebriated alcoholics, there is a tradition of respect that exists.  The players like their drinks, but they also want to show respect for their fellow players and those outside of the team by shaking with the proper hand, even though the consequence for not showing the proper respect for others is to down your drink as fast as you can and become more plastered than before.

The other drinking tradition in rugby culture is known as “shooting the boot.”  It is more of a celebratory tradition where the rest of the players honor a person’s first try (equivalent to a touchdown if we are thinking in American football terms) while also incorporating a mildly disgusting element of someone’s dirty, sweaty cleat.

My informant has had first-hand experiences of both of these traditions.  In her opinion, though they are rough, irresponsible, and rather gross practices, the traditions have helped to bond the team.  I think this is definitely true—there is something exclusive about these rules because only people embedded in rugby culture are aware of them.  Rules like these have helped to shape the culture, thereby creating a social circle that is set apart from the rest of society.

Girl in the Moon / Mid-Autumn Festival

Nationality: Chinese
Age: 50
Occupation: QA Manager at DirecTV
Residence: Torrance, California
Performance Date: 4/26/2013
Primary Language: Chinese
Language: English

“The earth was once surrounded by ten suns, and the earth was scorching hot, so people cannot survive—almost dying.  So this guy—he’s really good at archery—his name is Hao Ye, successfully shot down nine suns, so he becomes the king to rule China.  However, he grew to be a very bad, uh, dictator, so people hated him, but they could not do anything about it.  And then, he somehow also found the elixir of life, so he wants to become immortal.  But he has a very beautiful wife—her name is, uh, Chang Er—and she thinks that that will be disastrous for the Chinese people if he becomes, uh, immortal.  So she stole the elixir of life, and she drank it herself.  And then after she drank it, she found herself floating—started getting really, really light—and she float, and float, and float to the moon.  So if there’s a really full moon during autumn, actually you see a woman on the moon.  That’s the story.”

The story of the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival is a well-known Chinese tale that is taught in Chinese schools around the time of the Mid-Autumn Festival.  My informant is my mother who had heard this story as a little girl growing up in Hong Kong.  She says that it was told to explain the origins of not only the Mid-Autumn Festival holiday, but also to explain to children why an image of a woman seems to appear on the surface of the moon.  When I asked my mother why there is a festival at all, she told me that it was to celebrate the fall harvest which happens to occur around when the moon is closest to the earth.  My mother feels that this story is important in explaining why the moon looks the way it does, but also because it teaches valuable lessons in standing up for what is right.  Chang Er is the heroine and should be a model for selflessness because she sacrifices herself for the good of all of China.  Though the story is not necessarily encouraging everyone to be a martyr, it does encourage that people not only understand the difference between right and wrong, but also care about that distinction enough to always fight for what is right.

On this, I do agree with my mother.  However, there is also another moral issue in consideration that takes place in the story: humility.  The story, in fact, contrasts the two main characters: the archer Hao Ye and the heroine Chang Er.  Hao Ye had also acted on his moral instincts to save the people of China from burning up from the heat of the ten suns by shooting down nine of them.  But rather than becoming a humble servant of the people, he raised himself to a position of ultimate power out of pride.  Chang Er, on the other hand, made the greatest sacrifice for her people which landed her on the moon.  The lesson is that it is not enough to be a hero if you are prideful; the best kinds of heroes are those who will do anything for the good of others with humility.  I think that there is some significance in the fact that the collective “damsel in distress” is the people of China.  This story represents the mindset of a country that is concerned primarily with the welfare of its people—the story probably originated from a commoner who felt the oppression of a large dictatorship and longed for a hero or heroine to swoop in and save the day.