Author Archives: Maria Peltekova

Grovers Mill Haunted House

Nationality: Indian
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: April 26, 2013
Primary Language: English

Interview Extract: 

Informant: So there’s this legend in my community, and I don’t know if people outside of it would really know about it, but definitely all the kids in my class know about this because we all went to a field trip and we learned about the history of our little town in class and like, ok do you know H. G. Wells’ book, War of the Worlds?”

Me: “Yeah, I know it.”

Informant: “Well in 1938 Orson Welles did a reading of it on the radio, and he read in the style of a news report. And this was in Grover’s Mill, this small town inNew Jersey, but people didn’t realize that like, it was fiction, so they all actually thought that like aliens were coming in and invading earth, and people legit thought it was real, since it like, sounded like a news report. They all were running out of their houses, shooting with guns, and basically, it was just like, a huge disaster.

So in my elementary school, they taught us all about this, and I guess it was like, the history of our town. Also, so in the 80s, they created a time capsule and buried it in the area where the hysteria culminated, and it’s by this park that I always used to pass like everyday after my mom dropped off my dad, and there was this um, water tower behind this creepy-looking house painted gray. And it’s pretty big too. And like, I passed it all the time without ever really thinking about it, but I guess back then people thought it was a spaceship and started shooting at it.

And with my friends, we made up all these stories about it, because we didn’t actually know what the house was for or who it really belonged to. Like we’d see a car in front of it always, but never anyone actually going in and out, you know. It was just a staple in our community and everyone thought it was really old and weird. We made up stories, like ‘Oh, aliens live there, Oh, it’s haunted,’ that kind of thing.

It’s just the kind of creepy house and I have friends that definitely still believe in some of the stories, or the ones from before when people actually thought it was a spaceship. And like, honestly, if it turned out that aliens really did live there, we wouldn’t be surprised.

In the end, we learned when we were older that a chiropractor lived in the house, which took away from some of the creepiness, and he repainted the house a different gray so it’s less run-down looking. But there still is that vibe of creepiness, I mean, at night also, you see the lights come on inside but still you’d never see anyone inside!”

Analysis:

This is a good example of a memorate, or how someone will create a memory of an incident, such as a haunting or alien invasion, after hearing previous legends regarding the area or situation. My informant has been told about the mass panic in her town since she was a child, so it’s natural for her and her friends to fabricate stories about real aliens or sinister people in the strange house they often pass.

It also shows how important it is for a small town such as hers to distinguish itself in whatever way it can. Orson Welles may have done a reading there, but that was nearly a century ago, so new stories and legends have to be made up to keep people’s interest in the town. This is why the time capsule was buried in the 80s and why the children were led on field trips to visit the supposedly haunted house, which they in turn also believed was ghostly or inhabited by extraterrestrials. It provides interesting locations to visit for tourists and gives a sense of pride to townsfolk who live there.

I find it interesting that my informant remembered seeing a car parked in front of the “haunted” house, but because she and her classmates never saw a living person, they still had probable cause to believe something out of the ordinary was going on. This brings up the question of how much “creepiness” is necessary for a person to believe a haunting is real. My informant says the house was a strange gray color, but had she not heard that it was the location for the climax of hysteria in 1938, it’s doubtful she would have noticed what color the house was painted. It’s likely that the house itself would never have attracted any attention had she and her classmates not been taught about their peculiar town history.

When Tigers Used to Smoke

Nationality: Indian
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: April 26, 2013
Primary Language: English

Interview Extract:

Informant: So I work in for a publishing company called Kaya Press, and it focuses on the Asian Diaspora, so it publishes Asian authors mostly. And well, it’s logo, you can find it online if you go to Kaya.com, and their logo is a tiger smoking a cigar, or smoking—I think originally it was supposed to be a pipe, but they updated it to be more modern. Although I think they should have kept it as a pipe because now it just looks like a joint.”

Me: “What does the tiger and whatever its smoking symbolize, or why is that the logo?”

Informant: “So we got the idea from the Korean mode of storytelling. Like instead of starting their folktales with ‘Once upon a time,’ like in the Western European tradition, they started ‘Back when tigers used to smoke.’

The tiger is just, I guess it some sort of culturally important image, and by invoking that image, it goes back to some mystical, legendary days. Yeah…I don’t know too much about it or about Kaya’s link to the tiger, but I suppose the idea behind the logo is that we celebrate literature and strive to pull from Asian culture, so it makes sense that we’d like, incorporate the beginning of folktales into our logo. And I think it does give it some legend-like quality or mysticism anyway, because you don’t like really see tigers smoking.”

Me: “Do animals typically smoke in Asian folklore?”

Informant: “I’m not really too sure. Like, I guess it was just limited to when they started their tales, but I don’t really know.”

Analysis:

“When tigers used to smoke” is quite the mystical beginning and would appropriately set the tone for any magical or supernatural folktale, as well as any that involved animals. It has an even more distant connotation than the Western “once upon a time,” because it personifies the tiger and allows him to do something very sophisticated. In a sense, there is a story within that opening itself, and it

Unfortunately, that Korean folklore may be lost to many people as they become more and more used to the typical “once upon a time.” The Kaya Press, which my informant mentioned, acknowledges this and helps to revive the smoking tiger with its logo and dedication to publishing Asian authors. This not only allows for increased globalization and spread of different cultures, but also allows the saying to remain intact, albeit through a visual form instead of a spoken or written one.

Also, Kaya Press is updating the phrase itself, by modernizing the tiger to be smoking a cigar instead of a pipe, as they had done so before. It’s documented proof of how a piece of folklore can transform throughout the years so it can reach a wider audience, although my informant did lament this fact. She claimed the tiger smoking a pipe would have been more impressive, although who knows, that may not have been what it was originally intended when the story opening was coined in the first place.

Gonggi

Nationality: Korean
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: May 1, 2013
Primary Language: English
Language: Korean

Interview Extract:

Informant: “Have you heard of gonggi? It’s a game we played as children, with these sort of like marble-ly things. They’re like round, and colorful, and they’re just like, made out of plastic and have little things inside to give it weight or something. But anyway, to play the game, you’d throw one in the air, and then try to catch it before it dropped to the ground. Then you throw two in the air and try to catch both the little ‘balls,’ I guess you can call them. Then you throw three, and catch them and so on.”

Me: “Did you play this game often?”

Informant: “Yeah, I remember our parents used to buy them for us, me and my brothers and my friends, like all the time. It was a really fun game to play.”

Analysis:

This was the first thing my informant thought of when she tried to remember something from her childhood. Evidently, she would play them all the time with either her brothers, friends, or even by herself, since it’s an easy game to learn and participate in. The gonggi pieces are sold in many cities here, probably in Koreatown shops, so my informant was able to play this traditional game while growing up in the Southern California area. Her parents didn’t seem to mind buying her multiple sets, either because she lost them or broke the pieces, because they still tied her to Korean culture. Since it appears that this was one of my informant’s favorite games to play growing up, if they continue to sell them here in the years to come, I’d imagine she would buy gonggi sets for her children as well.

The simplicity of the game is attractive, as well as the colorful balls, or pebbles, children use to play with. This makes it popular worldwide and a game that can no doubt make a lasting impression upon a young child. While gonggi is still only known to Korean children, there have been variations of this game that are known by other names, and there’s a possibility that this will allow gonggi to become more popular within other cultures and ethnicities as well.

The Sparrow Story

Nationality: Korean
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: May 1, 2013
Primary Language: English
Language: Korean

Interview Extract:

Informant: “Well, we have swallows in our house, like a nest on the side of our house, and the swallows come every year, for like four years now. And um, my dad told me this story about swallows, and basically, there were these two brothers, one very rich and the other very poor. The richer brother was annoyed by the poor brother ‘cause he was a um, he was a beggar and he’s always coming around asking for something and finally, like the rich brother, I think he was also the older brother, but the rich brother stopped giving him food and things.

Then um, the uh, poor brother noticed a swallows’ nest on his house, and saw a baby bird like, fall out and break its wing, so he took care of the bird. I think he just like, had nothing else to do.

Then like, all of a sudden, all these pumpkins start growing in his yard from a pumpkin seed, all this other good agriculture starts growing. And the poor brother was curious how he had all this food, but also he was very grateful. Then, uh, the sparrow got better, and it flew away. And then when the rich brother saw the good crops, he got jealous, so he tried to find a sparrow and break its wing or its leg so he could nurse it back to health so he could get good crops too. But of course, it didn’t work.

The sparrow only left a pumpkin seed on the poor brother’s garden because he was good and did not expect anything in return. So the moral of the story I guess, is when you just do good things, good things will happen to you.”

Me: “So is this a traditional Korean folktale?”

Informant: “Yeah, my dad told me about it just recently because we had birds next to our house, and we’re not supposed to kill nature, even though people would want to crush the nest because the birds can poop, you know, and make a mess, but apparently, it’s like special to have sparrows. They’re very symbolic in Korea I guess, so we keep the nest, and they just come back every year.”

Analysis:

Most of us would have heard stories similar to this one, where the younger or poorer sibling does a deed out of the kindness of their heart and is rewarded for it, while the jealous, richer, and usually older sibling will try to do the same but fail because of their avarice in some way. This theme, that the good-natured underprivileged character will prevail, is seen in Indian and European folktales as well and is extremely popular. People like to see the kind characters succeeding in the end and gaining the wealthy, happily-ever-after ending, especially when it doesn’t come true often in real life.

The sparrow was the equivalent of a fairy godmother in this story, and important to my informant because she saw the sparrows in her own house. They are also what spurred her father to tell her this story, a fact that she obviously valued since as a college senior, adults don’t usually relate fairy tales to her anymore. She clearly cherished the memory of her dad taking the time to tell the story, as well as the sweetness of the sparrows flying back to their house year after year.

My informant’s parents are from Korea, so they would have seen sparrows often, and it’s interesting that even though they moved thousands of miles, the same story is relevant because the same type of bird is found in California. My informant would not have heard the story if they lived in another state possibly, and neither would have I. This emphasizes how some folklore is spread throughout the world because of similar surroundings, and why some of is changed in order to adapt with any differences.

Gloomy Sunday

Nationality: Chinese
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: April 11, 2013
Primary Language: English
Language: Chinese

Interview Extract:

Informant: “Do you know about ‘Gloomy Sunday?’”

Me: “No, what is it?”

Informant: “It’s a song, I think by a Hungarian or a European composer. Yeah, Hungarian, because they also call it the Hungarian Suicide Song. And the composer, there’s a story about him, that after writing it, he killed himself and it goes that if you listen to the song for too long, you’ll commit suicide too because it’s like so sad.

Billie Holiday did like a jazzier version of it; it’s not so depressing, and no one obviously is scared of killing themselves from that one.”

Me: “Where’d you hear about it?”

Informant: “I heard about it in high school. Someone just like, played that song for us and a bunch of people freaked out But there’s been a lot of reports about people dying when they hear that song, or they’ll die like holding the sheet music or something like that. And I think the composer himself did jump or a building, I think because um, he had never achieved any greatness after that one hit he had with ‘Gloomy Sunday.’”

Me: “Were you ever scared of the song’s legend?”

Informant: “Not really. Like, I believed that people would maybe commit suicide after listening to it, but I think they felt like that before and they just sort of got pushed over the edge after listening to this sad song over and over again on repeat.”

Analysis:

The fact that song with Hungarian origins managed to travel all the way to a Chinese school playground proves that children love to scare each other. There is something tantalizing about hearing a legend such as this one, and it naturally creates a environment in which students would dare each other to listen to the song. Competitions could arise perhaps, to see who can withstand listening to the sad song for the longest period of time, or as was the case with my informant, students would just play “Gloomy Sunday” to others in order to frighten them.

If the background of the song was only that the composer had committed suicide, then perhaps its folklore would not be so scary. But as it spread around the world, “Gloomy Sunday” naturally accumulated urban legends that either existed before and became tied to it, or were invented along with the song. Once a person hears that many people have committed suicide directly because one eerie song, then it’s certainly terrifying. When my informant was telling me about it, she herself seemed to mystify the song, almost revering its power in a way. She may have been putting on a show to scare me, in which case it certainly worked, or she herself had some lingering fears from when she first heard about it. Either way, I became too nervous to play the song even though I had originally wanted to hear what exactly made it so depressing.

This Hungarian song isn’t the only song or object that has been claimed to have the power to make people suicidal. There have been pictures that supposedly have a influence on people similar to “Gloomy Sunday,” and even a whole forest, the Aokigahara forest inJapan, has that sort of sway. The forest is one of the most popular places for suicides, and this leads to many urban and ghost stories about the place. Yet one must wonder, does the forest, or the picture, or song actually force people to kill themselves, or are suicidal people drawn to these objects regardless? Most likely, as “Gloomy Sunday” and the Aokigahara forest draw more attention, they will be credited for more deaths, and the cycle will continue.

The way to break this seemingly endless sequence is indeed by lightening the mood. Either the song can be used as a playground game or it can be rewritten into a more cheery melody, the way my informant says Billie Holiday did. No one will link Billie Holiday’s adaptation to mysterious deaths, and that will limit the legends, and potentially, if they really are true, the suicides themselves.