Author Archives: Matthew Im

Korean folktale 홍부과 놀부 (hongbu and nolbu)

Nationality: Korean-American
Age: 50
Occupation: Medical Device VP
Primary Language: Korean
Language: English

My source is a middle-aged Korean immigrant born in Korea, but raised after age 10 in the United States. His first encounter with the story of hongbu and nolbu was during his childhood and hearing the story from his grandmother. He described the story as follows:

“Long, long ago, there were two brothers. The older was named Nolbu, and the younger was named Hongbu. The older brother was rich after taking all of his parents’ inheritance, and extremely greedy, leaving nothing to his younger brother. Hongbu, on the other hand, was poor, but very kind and generous, despite having very little.

One day, Hongbu was returning from a long day’s work and witness a snake attacking a swallow nest. Only one escaped from being eaten alive, but it had hurt its leg. Seeing this, Hongbu quickly brought some ointment to rub on its wound and a small splint to support it. He carefully placed the young swallow back in its nest, and returned every day to feed it and nurse it back to health. The swallow eventually recovered, and flew off one day in fine spirits. As winter passed and spring came, the swallow returned and dropped a pumpkin seed to the ground in front of Hongbu. Thinking it was strange, Hongbu planted the seed.

After a few days, the seed began to sprout and grow at an extreme pace. It pushed forth leaves and flowers and eventually several huge pumpkins sprouted. Because the pumpkins were several times larger than normal ones, Hongbu and his wife were curious what was inside them, and so they proceeded to cut them open. From the first pumpkin spilled an overflowing amount of rice and filled as much as they could in containers, but they still had some left. When they opened the second pumpkin, gold flowed out in large quantities, and Hongbu and his wife danced in joy. When the third pumpkin was opened, a nymph came out who summoned carpenters and wood, and commanded them to build a splendid house, after which she disappeared in a puff of smoke.

After this Hongbu became a man of wealth and he and his family lived without want. When his older brother Nolbu heard the news of Hongbu’s great luck, he demanded to hear how he came across such a fortune. Hongbu told him about the injured swallow and what had happened afterwards.

Nolbu, after hearing the story, decided he would do the same. He built a swallow’s nest and waited for a swallow to come and make its home there. It happened that one unfortunate swallow did come and hatched some baby swallows there. Nolbu threw one of the swallows out of the nest and broke its leg. Then he rubbed some ointment on the injured leg, wrapped it up with a splint, and placed the bird back in its nest. Winter passed and Nolbu's swallow returned in the spring. The bird dropped a pumpkin seed in front of Nolbu who immediately planted the seed. Things continued to happen just as Hongbu had described. Then, when the pumpkins appeared, Nolbu immediately split open one pumpkin to see what was inside. However, out of the gourd came many little imps wielding sticks. "We must punish you for your greed," they said and beat him mercilessly. Then the imps disappeared. Convinced that the other pumpkins contained gold, Nolbu struggled and managed to open another pumpkin. This time a number of debt collectors appeared. "Give us money. Repay your loans or else we will take everything from you." Eventually, they took everything and left. Nolbu, thinking that everything would be all right if he could just open up the other pumpkins, split open the third pumpkin. This time a flood of dirty, smelly water poured from the gourd and ruined the house. Nolbu couldn't take it anymore and ran to Hongbu's house for help. His compassionate brother took pity on him and welcomed him. The greedy brother reflected on what he had done and was very sorry for everything. From then on, he became a very humble person. Hongbu divided his fortune equally with his brother and both of them lived happily ever after.”

 

My source described the story as influential on him due to having an older brother who he always fought with at the time as well. This story is in many ways the story of greed versus generosity and kindness that can be found worldwide. The kind brother is rewarded with his good deeds, while his greedy brother is punished and is reformed. This story is particularly compelling, in my opinion, due to the message that is spread in Nolbu’s initial reluctance to quit at the first pumpkin punishment. It describes that greedy people will continue to be set in their ways until they literally have nothing.

Superstitious folk belief of the Evil Eye

Nationality: Mexican-American
Age: 20
Primary Language: English
Language: spanish

My source is a current college student who was exposed to the belief in the evil eye and the warding off of bad luck from a young age, her parents and her brother also being superstitious. She described to me a personal experience with her belief of the bad luck of the evil eye. As she was biking to school one morning, she was passing a woman when the woman suddenly looked at her with a deathly glare and evil expression in her eyes. This initially startled her as a bad premonition due to the evil eye and as she continued biking to class, her tire caught on a spike, throwing her off her bike and tearing a large gash in her wheel. She attributes her run in with the woman with the evil eye to the ill will and bad luck that she suffered.

There are many people around the world who hold superstitious beliefs in bad luck such as a mirror breaking or spilling salt. My source’s belief in the bad luck of the evil eye is no different. Likely a folk belief passed on to her by her parents or perhaps by her brother, it continues to have impact in her life day to day. Folk superstitions often seem to be so deeply ingrained in a person’s mind that it affects a person’s life in a very palpable way.

Central Pennsylvania New Year’s Custom

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: student
Primary Language: English

My source is a current college student first experienced this custom from her father who was raised in Central Pennsylvania. At the beginning of every New Year, one must eat sauerkraut to bring in the New Year. She claims that her father was adamant about her eating the sauerkraut, suggesting strong symbolism behind the custom. She believes the folk custom to have come from the many Eastern Europeans living within Central Pennsylvania and their beliefs that sauerkraut was to be eaten on every New Year’s Day, though she does not for sure know why.

The eating of sauerkraut, in my opinion, is likely to bring in good luck and ward off the bad for the coming year, or it could be similar to the Korean tradition of eating a special type of soup that signifies the aging of one year when eaten on New Year’s Day. Eastern Europeans tend to be a superstitious people, however, and the warding off of bad luck seems to be the more realistic reason.

Ethnic Fraternity Hazing

Nationality: American
Age: 21
Occupation: student
Performance Date: 4/25
Primary Language: English

My source is a current college student who first encountered ethnic fraternity hazing through her brother who would tell the folk rituals involved in an African American fraternity. The story was of one particularly nasty hazing ritual in which new pledge brothers of the fraternity were initiated through grueling and painful processes that were meant to immerse the new pledging class into the hardships of discrimination and segregation felt by the first African American men who created the fraternity more than half a century ago. The new pledge class was bound to one another in a line by handcuffs, forced to strip down to their underwear and walk neck deep into ocean water at night and stand there for extended periods of time. Once brought back out of the freezing water, they were whipped by their pledge master and salt rubbed into their wounds. My source was particularly disturbed by this one story that she had heard and failed to see the rationale behind the extent to which the pledges were subjugated.

Similar to any folk initiation ritual which brings an individual past a liminal phase and into acceptance within a group, the hazing rites of this supposed African American fraternity serve to allow the group of men to enter the brotherhood. The fact that each and every pledge class enters the fraternity in such a way is an extreme display of folk ritualization of the crossing of a phase of one’s life into another of acceptance.

Assassin game

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: student
Performance Date: 4/25/12
Primary Language: English

My source is a current college student who claims to have played this game in high school. From what I have been told, a game master sets up the game known as assassin. A list of names of those involved in the game is written down. The person after you on the list is the one you try to ‘kill’ or eliminate. You are designated an object to use as a killing weapon. In trying to kill a person, the killer would attempt to make the victim touch the killing object as that would eliminate the victim from the game. This game made the players very paranoid and on high alert against touching unknown objects. Can get more complicated with the addition of a specific location in which the victim had to be killed. Touching the object anywhere else would have no effect. Because the game was played on such a wide scale with several hundred involved, the game was soon banned by the school. The notion of playing a game involving ‘killing’ one another was discouraged likely for its intrinsic connotation as well as the distracting nature of a game that puts its players into widespread paranoia, though all in good fun. The rules of the game are spread by word of mouth; typically by the introduction of upperclassmen to lowerclassmen.

“Assassin” appears to be is a teenage folklore game that allows players to have the adrenaline rush of fear of being ‘killed’, but without any real consequence. The notion of the school discouraging such a game and it being played regardless of that fact brings light to a well-known phenomenon of the teenage disestablishmentarian mindset and ‘fighting oppression’ within society.