Author Archives: Shirley He

Carnival of Binche

Nationality: Belgium
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Brussels, Belgium
Performance Date: April 1 2017
Primary Language: French
Language: English, Spanish, Dutch

Background of informant:

My informant YF is an international student from Brussels, Belgium. He spent the first two years of high school in Los Angeles, and the last year back in Brussels. He lived in Wallonia in Belgium, which is the French-speaking region that accounts more than a half of the country.

 

Main piece:

YF: “We have the Carnival of the year around spring break. Every region in Belgium will have different character for the carnival. Each one has its story, its name. ”

YF: “The most memorable one that I went to is the Carnival of Binche. The most famous character in the carnival is called “Gilles de Binche”, directed translated as “Gilles from Binche”. This is the name of the character of the Carnival. So depend on the different city the Carnival is taking place, there will be different character, also different names. Gilles de Binche are only done by guys. They have white outfit, and orange jacket that has patterns of roasters on it, because roaster is the Coat of arms for Wallonia. And on the jacket there are also lines in black, yellow and red since those are the colors on Belgium flag. And also straw on the edge of their jacket. On their head, they have a huge hat with feathers, and traditionally, they also wear mask on their face made of wax. They walk on the street at the days of Carnival, and each of them carries a basket with blood oranges inside. They throw the oranges to the crowd and people will try to catch them. ”

SH: Why do they throw oranges?

YF: “Oh, so blood oranges are seen as gift given by the Gilles and they carry good luck.”

YF: “The Gilles also wear wooden shoes. The special thing about Gilles de Binche is that they are the only group of Gilles that stay in the city, so they can only stay in Binche, while others can go around and participate the parade in other cities.

“At night, we have ‘feu de bengale’, which means ‘fire from Bengol’ for people to dance around. It’s about the size of a human. Two meters high. Basically, when you’re a kid, base on which city in Belgium you’re from, you’re assigned to one character. It’s really old-fashioned, that based on the town you were born, you have the character that you can become when you’re older, and then you choose to take part into the culture and go into the circle of the character.

“So every early, like 6 am in the Carnival day, participants will go to people’s family to party with them. So you’ll have numerous cups of champion in each house you went to at the end of the day. And I did practice this!!”

 

Context of the performance:

This is a part of the interview I had with my informant YF.

 

My thoughts about the piece:

Though Belgium is a small country, the differentiation within the country is huge and obvious. Not only do people from different regions speak different languages (three main languages: French, Dutch and Germany), the Carnival are different and the characters for each Carnival are different.

Speculoos

Nationality: Belgium
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Brussels, Belgium
Performance Date: Arp 26 2107
Primary Language: French
Language: English, Spanish, Dutch

Background of informant:

My informant YF is an international student from Brussels, Belgium. He spent the first two years of high school in Los Angeles, and the last year back in Brussels. He lived in Wallonia in Belgium, which is the French-speaking region that accounts more than a half of the country.

 

Main piece:

YF: “It is the cookie that we have during Christmas, or more accurate speaking, Saint Nicholas Day. It’s kind of like a ginger bread cookie, but it’s definitely different.”

“The ingredient that I will use to make speculoos will be: flour, butter, eggs, baking soda, and the most important cloves, which is the ingredient that gives the flavor, and nutmeg. And with a special kind of sugar, cassonade which is made of sugar beets.

“You mix these ingredients and make the dough. Then, you’ll have a mode that have different images, like a figure of Saint Nicholas, or a Christmas tree. You dust the mode with flour, and put the dough into the mode, and use a knife to cut, to clear the edges. Then flip the mode upside down, so cookies in shape are finished.

“Normally, we don’t clean the wooden mode after using them. That’s because the more they’re being used, they better the wood will be. “

SH: What about the Saint Nicholas mode? Why do you use it?

YF: “We have a holiday of Saint Nicholas in Belgium, and the time is really close to Christmas. It is also called Winter Holiday, on December 6th each year. So on that day, Saint Nicholas will give gifts and candies to kids. He is our version of Santa Claus, so making Saint Nicholas into the cookie is to rememorize him, and the cookies are given to kids as gifts.

“It is traditional only for the Saint Nicholas Day, but this cookie is really good so now, people have it all over the year. It’s not a special thing only for a day and it is not always made in the special wooden mode. Those speculoos in beautiful shapes, from wooden mode, are usually hand made.”

 

Context of the performance:

This is a part of the interview I had with my informant YF.

 

My thoughts about the piece:

When YF showed me a picture of the cookie, on Google, I suddenly realized that I know this type of cookie, I had it before, and I love it. The brand that makes Belgium speculoos is called “Lotus”, and it is really prevalent and popular in Chinese market. Knowing the fact that speculoos used to be a special offer only for Saint Nicholas Day, it is interesting to see how it becomes more prevalent to Belgium people since you can have it all over the year, and then it becomes more prevalent and accessible to people in a distant country because of globalization.

The Ghost Without Face

Nationality: Chinese
Age: 47
Occupation: Animation film director, college professor
Residence: Beijing, China
Performance Date: Mar 12 2017
Primary Language: Chinese
Language: English

My informant CH is a 47 years old Chinese animation film director. He was born and lived in southern part of China, especially Changshu and Nanjing for many years before she moved to the north, Beijing at age 34.

The conversation is in Chinese.

 

Main Piece:

The Ghost Without Face:

CH: “When I was very young, like 10 years old, I always had a same nightmare over and over again, repeating the same thing every night. In the dream, I was lying on my bed in the same room that I was supposed to be, and I saw a person walking toward me from the door. But the person is always in darkness, so I was very scared and tried to turn o the light. I turned on the light, but the light was vey dim, and was flashing all the time. So I never saw that person’s face.”

The Strange Sound:

CH: “Almost at the same time period, there’s always a strange sound in our home. It sounds like cricket, but it’s not. I can’t really describe the sound for you. I was never sure what it really was. My whole family started to look for the thing that made this sound but we found nothing. Until one day, my uncle from Wuxi came to visit us. I remember, at that time, he was in his prime of life, like forty years old. He snored really loudly at night when sleeping. Interestingly, after he stayed in my home for two days, the sound never appears again. It’s gone.”

“This was the time when my grandpa just past away. I always saw him looking at me, smiling to me. But I was afraid because I knew he was dead. Now I think he was coming back home to see me during night time as a ghost, coming into my dream.”

SH: Do you think the person you mentioned in the first story was your grandpa?

CH: “hmm… It’s not him. It’s a man, a big man.”

 

Context of the performance:

This is a part of the conversation with my informant CH. He recalled that he didn’t tell anyone about his strange dream until he grew up a little bit. And later on, he would tell these stories in parties when people gathered together talking about ghosts stories or supernatural things, he would always share his own stories.

 

My thoughts about the piece:

Since the three events were happening close in time, the dream, the sound and Grandpa pass away, CH believed they are in connection. Also, as mentioned in the second story, the uncle somehow “dispelled” the sound, due to the fact that he is a middle age man with strong Yang Qi (Yang spirit), while ghosts are believed to be attracted by Yin Qi (opposite to Yang spirit). Yin Qi is most often accumulated in women and young children. If we put CH’s stories under this Chinese theory to explain human’s relation to supernatural, the stories can therefore be explained.

Loong

Nationality: Chinese
Age: 47
Occupation: Animation film director, professor
Residence: Beijing, China
Performance Date: Mar 12 2017
Primary Language: Chinese
Language: English

My informant CH is a 47 years old Chinese animation film director. He was born and lived in southern part of China, especially Changshu and Nanjing for many years before she moved to the north, Beijing at age 34.

The conversation is in Chinese.

 

Main Piece:
CH: “The word in English, ‘Dragon’, is translated into Chinese as ‘Loong’. But the ‘Loong’ in China is a totally different thing than dragon. Dragon is a more evil creature that is always portrayed as the destroyer, it can breath fire. But Loong is a divine creation in China. It means royalty, luck, and happiness. For what I know about Loong, it is a combination of several different animals. It has four claws like an eagle, and it’s skin like fish scale, and it has antler on its head, with a long and thin body like a snake, and so on. I think it can be transparent sometimes is it wants, when it is flying on the sky. And it can make itself longer or shorter, or in general, make any shifting in shape and form as it wants.

Loong was the totem in ancient China. And it carries many good characteristics, and is being respected by Chinese people throughout the history.

I also heard about that Loong is actually the constellation on the night sky that people saw. And according to the tradition, since Loong is divine, as a god-like figure, which is definitely superior than normal human-being, it is invisible to any normal living creatures. So people can only see the reflection of Loong, and that can explain why people say Loong can change it shape. Or, to further think about this, Loong might be something that has different space dimension than what human can perceive. [laugh]”

 

Context of the performance:

This is a part of the conversation about Chinese myth with my informant CH.

 

My thoughts about the piece:

I notice that there are many creatures in different culture that shares similarities with the Chinese Dragon, Loong. An iconic western dragon can be found in “The Dragon Trainer” where most of the dragons are brutal and are creatures that cause destruction, but at the same time, dragons can be trained, which means they are inferior than human. However, not only is the Loong a good thing in Chinese culture, it represents divinity, royalty, and supreme. I think the two creatures have two different origins, but interestingly, they share some similarities. For example, both of the can fly, though in different ways (dragon has wings, Loong doesn’t have wings… but can fly anyway). Also, there is a similar creature in Indian cuture, named as “naga”, and is a evil incarnation, but also shares feature similarities with Chinese Loong.

Hong Shui Man Tian

Nationality: Chinese
Age: 47
Occupation: Animation film director, college professor.
Residence: Beijing, China
Performance Date: Mar 12 2017
Primary Language: Chinese
Language: English

My informant CH is a 47 years old Chinese animation film director. He was born and lived in southern part of China, especially Changshu and Nanjing for many years before she moved to the north, Beijing at age 34.

The conversation is in Chinese.

 

Main piece:

“Hong Shui Man Tian” is the creation myth of Dai people. Dai is a group of minority people live in Xinpin village, Yunna province in China. “Hong Shui Man Tian” can be directly translated as “flood over the sky”, and refers to the flood punishment given by the sky god to the evil human.

 

CH: “The Dai people, they believe that “there are 99 floors up on the sky, and 99 floors down in the ground”. So on the sky, there is this sky god whose name is Pi Fa, while on the ground, there is the earth god Mei Wo. So Pi Fa controls the sky and Mei Wo rules the ground of earth.

Long long time ago, each of the people on earth only has one leg, and they are really bad, morally. They kill their own parents and eat them. And they do a ton of extremely evil things. The sky God Pi Fa hears about the people on earth and decides to punish them. He plans to drown the evil earth people by flood. However, the god of the ground, Mei Wo, he still has faith that there are good people on earth. So he goes to the human world and tries to find the good people. He arrives this village of Dai people, and finds there are this twin brother and sister in the village. The brother is very hardworking and diligent, and the sister is pretty and smart. Mei Wo follows the brother and sister around, and notices that when they are walking on the street, there is a poor, dirty homelessman asking for food. While all of the other human avoid having any contact with this homeless old man, the brother and sister come close and give food and water to the old man. Mei Wo sees this and thinks, “these two will be new generation of human after the flood.”

Mei Wo disguises himself into a old woman and talks to the brother and sister. He tells the two to find a huge tree and make the tree into a wood boat. He also tells them to use bamboo to make a flute, and to play the flute to attract all animals in the forest.

The sky god creates the flood and punishes the earth people. But the brother and sister, with animals in the forest survive on their boat.

After the earth is dried, they start to seed the ground and recreate life on earth. At the same time, human also need to have reproduction. A pair of ravens come and send the gods will to the brother and sister, that they need to get married and reproduce new human. So they follow, and have three children. The oldest brother is the Dai people now, and the second brother is the other minority groups, and the youngest is the Han people now.”

 

Context of the performance:

My informant CH went to the Xinpin village, in Yunnan province in China to visit a family member. He learned this story through a conversation with the village head. He also took note in the conversation. This is the story that he told me after he came back from the village.

 

My thoughts about the piece:

This creation myth of Dai people in China is really interesting. The motifs of evil human, of gods’ punishment, of flood, and of wood boat all remind me of Noah and the punishment in the Bible in Occidental culture. Also, this creation myth deals with many taboo elements, like the evil human eating their parents, as cannibalism, or the brother and sister need to get married, as incest. This resonates with many epic stories, like the Odyssey, or Oedipus Complex where there’re prevalent examples of cannibalism and incest. Nevertheless, this creation myth is really specified to this minority group, Dai. And at the end of the story, the three brothers turn to be the ancestors of three groups of people in China, Dai people, other minority people and the Han (90% of Chinese are Han people).