Author Archives: Naifang Hu

Haunted Train Tracks

Nationality: Mexican American
Age: 24
Occupation: Custodian
Residence: Riverside, CA
Performance Date: 4/21/2015
Primary Language: English

The informant used to live in the Gulf Coast region of Texas.

SC: I did once hear the obligatory “haunted train tracks” legend in my town back in Texas. Some kids were joyriding along the tracks and got killed dead. LEGENDS SAY that if you park your car on the tracks and cover your windows with powder, you can see their handprints form as they try to push the car off.

There’s a lot of train tracks in the area and a few crossings in town don’t have warning lights or bars, so it’s not too hard to believe someone was acting stupid and got into an accident.

The legend actually caused some people to park their cars across the rails in hopes of meeting the ghost kids, but the inherent danger in doing that and obscuring vision to catch the ghosts in the act made the traintracks even more unsafe. Since then, fences and crossings have been built across more of the railroad crossings in the area.

United We Are Stronger (Bulgarian Proverb)

Nationality: Bulgarian
Age: 23
Occupation: Freelance Artist
Performance Date: 4/27/2015
Primary Language: English
Language: Bulgarian

Сговорна дружина, Планина повдига

zgovorna druzhina planina povdiga

A united team can lift a mountain.

If you work together, you can achieve more than if you worked alone.

сговорна -/zgovorna/ – united or conspired
дружина -/druzhina/ – party or company
планина – /planina/ – mountain
повдига – /povdiga/ – to lift

United we are stronger is a proverb in English that has essentially the same meaning.

Pickled Grudges

Nationality: Armenian American
Age: 23
Occupation: Freelance Illustrator
Residence: Glendale, CA
Performance Date: 4/28/2015

Pickle a food item, and keep it for 40 days because that’s how long a grudge should last. On the 40th day, you have to throw it away to remove the grudge.

The belief is that the pickle withers and dies in place of the relationship between the people involved, so that the grudge would not poison their connection.

LB mentioned this as an extreme of grudge-holding among her people when she jokingly told me she would hold a grudge toward me and strike when my guard was down. While she was joking about her grudge, she used this story as an example of how I should beware around her, because her people (Armenians) are supposedly infamous for holding out grudges for extreme measures of time.

LB first heard this from a friend of hers who was carrying out this practice at the time, over a perceived snub from a close friend. Because she could not act out toward the friend as they saw the wronging unevenly, and their long-term relationship is more important to her than the perceived wrong. She placed a cucumber in a jar of vinegar for 40 days, and on the 40th, the jar should be broken to release the resentment. The cucumber is used as a sacrifice in place of an important relationship.

LB’s friend’s jar actually never made it to day 40, as it broke on its own on day 35. While it was a mess to clean up, LB’s friend took it as a sign that the grudge had run its course before the time was even up.

Fire and water must never meet

Nationality: Chinese American
Age: 47
Occupation: Real Estate Broker
Residence: Danville, CA
Performance Date: 3/17/2015
Primary Language: Chinese
Language: English

A feng shui master once told my informant that when fire and water meet within a household, conflict would arise. By fire, he refers to stoves, fireplaces, and other sources of heat, while by water he refers to faucets and pot spouts.

A few years ago, my informant lived in a house with poorly laid out kitchen, as the sink and kitchen counter each faced the stove and fireplace. Since she had a rotating faucet, the master warned her to never directly face fire and water toward each other, because it would lead to conflict. My informant really took this to heart, but her husband always dismissed her insistence on doing things exactly the way she was told to. One of the worst fights that they had had actually sparked from my informant noticing that the faucet was pointed toward the stove, which she took it as proof that her husband didn’t care if there was conflict in the family, while her husband, who prided himself on being logical, resented how she wanted him to subscribe to superstitious rituals and actively rebelled against her wishes.

This is a self-fulfilling prophecy, but it only reaffirmed my informant’s belief in feng shui.

 

Granny Said Two Things

Nationality: Armenian
Age: 23
Occupation: Freelance Illustrator/Student
Residence: Glendale, CA
Performance Date: 4/28/2015
Primary Language: English
Language: Armenian

Ба́бушка на́двое сказа́ла.

Babushka nadvoei skazala.

Grannie said two things.

No one can know anything for certain; all things have two sides.

This proverb’s meaning is difficult to ascertain just from the wording, as it has been shortened. A longer version of the same proverb is, “Granny was telling fortunes, said two things.” It alludes to the ambiguous nature of prophecies.