Author Archives: zukkhini

Russian Little Red Riding Hood

Nationality: Russian
Age: 25
Occupation: USC Grad Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/17/19
Primary Language: Russian
Language: English

Main Piece

The point of this is if you’re a stranger in the forest, don’t just walk into someone’s house. The story is a guy is walking and traveling. He walked into this road in the middle of the forest because he is lost in the woods. At a certain point, he sees this house and it’s getting dark, so he walks into the house. The guy inside is actually very friendly. They had good conversation and he told him interesting things that happens in the forest. Here comes the night. The guy has been fed and that is good. They are happy. Then they both hear the sound of wolves howling. The host changes his face completely. The guest is wondering what happened. The host said, “My friends are hungry, we need to feed them.” He walks outside. The guest waits a little. Then he walks back in with a gun pointing at this guy and is like, “Alright, let’s go feed my friends.”

 

Context

This is a story my friend heard while he was on a camping trip in Russia. My friend specifically told me that this story is meant to teach people not to always trust strangers and to know where you are going. Also, going alone to places you don’t know is a dangerous thing to do.

 

Notes

Imagining someone telling this story to you in a Russian accent definitely makes it more fun to read – my friend who told me the story has a Russian accent. I personally like this play on version of Little Red Riding Hood the best because it is a little twisted and less expected.

Here is a link to many different versions of Little Red Riding Hood: https://www.pitt.edu/~dash/type0333.html

Leaves of 3, Good TP

Nationality: half Chinese, half German and various European countries
Age: 20
Occupation: USC Undergrad
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/21/19
Primary Language: English

Context

My 2 friends and I got together to exchange funny stories with each other. L is the storyteller in this, C is the second friend, and I am ‘Me.” My friend heard this modified version of a proverb from her dad, who read it in a newspaper article.

 

Main Piece

 

L: So you know how there’s like, “Leaves of 3, let it be”?

 

Me: Yeah

 

L: Umm, I think my dad heard it in a newspaper or something. He told me and I can’t stop thinking about it. Where it’s like – it was a newspaper competition to purposely give bad advice, and one of the winners was Leaves of 3, good TP. And so now every time I think of poison ivy, I think of leaves of 3, I don’t finish it with the normal proverb ending, I think, “Leaves of 3, good TP!” and then it’s all messed up in my head.

 

C: Is that because you have to like, itch your…?

 

L: Yeah, like good toilet paper and it’s bad advice. And another one was strangers have the best candy.

 

Notes

Original proverb: “Leaves of 3, let it be; berries white, take flight.”

The original proverb is a rhythm to teach people how to identify poison ivy and stay away from it, as contact with the plant causes severe itching and rashes. The play on words of this proverb in the text above is joking that leaves of three (poison ivy) makes good toilet paper! Well, the point of the newspaper article was to give bad advice. So you would not want to use poison ivy as toilet paper or you’ll have a serious rash in an uncomfortable location…

 

I thought this was a clever play on this proverb. I’ve heard of the original 3 leaves proverb and keep it in mind when I go hiking. Here is a link to another version of this proverb: http://www.stillmannc.org/Poison%20Ivy.pdf

La Llorona’s Curse

Nationality: Mexican
Age: 23
Occupation: USC Viterbi Masters Student
Residence: currently: Los Angeles; born: Guanajuato, Mexico
Performance Date: 3/29/19
Primary Language: Spanish
Language: english

Main Piece

H: “This guy in our town would always tell the story of La Llorana and he died in his house in a weird way. It looked like someone choked him.

My cousin invited us to play Mario kart. So we played and then were like let’s go outside and talk to my uncle. His name was Miguel. We asked him questions about his stutter. We were kids, so some ppl were born that way, but some other people they become that way with a stutter. When I was young he used to speak fluidly. So we asked him why he started talking that way.

 

This woman who lost their children, it dates back all the way to when the Spanish ppl came to the first time to America and they invaded the Mayas. There was this girl who was trying to be a Maya and her husband put her in a hole with her children so they could escape the killing of that the Spanish people were doing. But it started to rain, and she was able to survive but her children died.

 

You can see her ghost and hear her voice asking for her children. The way she said, “Ayy chicos.” It’s just that in there, that there are a lot of people who are able to replicate her voice and they sound like her. I was with my mom and my sister and you started to hear someone in the house, I was looking at the window and was trying to see what it is. And I was scared. She looked at me weird and was like, “Oh, it’s probably someone.” It sounded so real, it was a woman’s voice, when I heard it – my skin got like chicken skin. People use it so people would get scared in communities, so people would get scared and get inside their houses. So people do it so they can steal your animals like cows and pigs. So you get scared and you lock yourself in your house so those people can get your things.

 

Anyways, back to the original story I was telling you. He used to have a parcel, a small land where he farmed corn. The thing is, is that the places where I lived in Mexico, you have the place where you live and the place you farm the corn is far away. So his parcel was a mile away from where he lives. So he had to walk there. people in my town used to work very late, they wouldn’t get to their house until 8pm. So he used to tell us one day he was working there in his parcel, on his way home he realized he forgot his bag with tools, on his way back to the parcel to his farm. First, he started feeling someone was following him. The weather started to get really windy, and then, how do you say it, when you have a lot of mist?”

 

Me: “Foggy?”

 

H: “Yeah it started to get a little foggy. Being a kid he was 12 he started realizing something was moving in between the trees and he actually felt someone threw a rock at him. He saw this girl in a white dress. That’s how a lot of people describe La Llorana – this woman in a wedding dress. When he saw her he started to run, he tripped and when he tried to get up, La Llorana touched him on the lips. So that’s why he stutters, because he was so scared.”

 

Context

The informant told me this story when I asked him to tell me some ghost stories from his childhood because he grew up in Guanajuato, Mexico. He told me about the main experiences he’s had with La Llorana. The context of how my friend heard the story is included in the main piece.

 

Notes

 

It almost feels like these stories came from a documentary or movie. It follows so many creative tropes like the typical old man in the village who has a quirk because he was touched or saw a ghost. Plus, how people will pretend to be ghosts to scare people into their homes so they can steal their livestock. I have heard the story of La Llorana before, but not so many stories that came from one person to where, while my friend was telling me the stories, I started to really believe all of it was true. I don’t actually know if it is true or not, but I was definitely convinced while he was telling them to me.

Saint Nicholas Day

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: USC Undergrad Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/21/19
Primary Language: English
Language: parts of German

Main Piece

“Saint Nicholas is like Santa Claus, but in Germany he’s still Santa. His day is December 6thand umm, the night before, you leave your boots out for Saint Nicholas. I don’t remember what the story was, but I remember the traditions that we would do.

So, you leave your biggest pair of boots out, and like, you know – however big your boot is how much you’re going to get. So, you want to leave really big boots out. And he leaves oranges, is like the big thing he leaves. And candies and chocolates and small toys in your boots. So, you leave them out the night before and you get your boots. But I remember oranges being the big thing.”

 

Context

The informant told me this story while we were exchanging fun things we used to do when we were little. We got on the topic of Christmas and told each other traditions we participated in when we were younger. After some research, the oranges are supposed to represent the gold balls that St. Nicholas would throw at children. St. Nicholas day is December 5th and children put out their shoes/boots that night so they can collect them the morning of December 6th.

 

Background Information

The informant was born in Charlottesville, Virginia. She comes from a family where both of her parents are lawyers in the military (jags). She has lived in Germany, Kansas, Virginia, and goes back to Oregon every summer to her family’s main home. While living in Germany, she spent Christmas there and her family participated in the Christmas tradition there.

I have heard of Christmas traditions such as “Elf on the Shelf” and leaving out your stockings to be filled with gifts and candies on Christmas Eve. My Christmas traditions never included these, but we would bake and leave cookies out for Santa on Christmas Eve. I have never heard of leaving out boots so early before Christmas, and wonder why Santa giving oranges was such a big deal.

Why Only Female Mosquitos Drink Blood

Nationality: Vietnamese
Age: 52
Occupation: Doctor
Residence: Los Angeles; born: Saigon, Vietnam
Performance Date: 2/12/19
Primary Language: Vietnamese
Language: English, French

Main Piece

“A long time ago, there was a man and a woman who were married to each other. The wife became sick and was about to die. So, the husband called the witch doctor who diagnosed her and said that if the man gives his wife 3 drops of his blood to swallow, then her disease will be cured. So he gives her 3 drops of his blood and she was cured and wouldn’t die. They lived with each other for quite a while. But one day, the man wasn’t home, the wife got kidnapped by a rich merchant. At first the woman was terrified, but then she got used to a life of luxury and refused to go back to her husband. The man was so outraged and asked for his blood back for her betrayal. So the woman agreed said, “Ok, I’ll give you back your 3 drops of blood!” She gave back the blood and died. But when she died, she became a mosquito. So to this day, she searches, as a mosquito, trying to get her 3 drops of blood back so she can become human again.”

 

Context

My mom escaped from Vietnam during the war when she was 12. In Vietnam, her grandma would tell her bedtime stories and this was one of them. When I was little, my mom would tell me this story at the dinner table after we ate to entertain me.

 

Notes

I enjoy hearing legends like this that explain the odd phenomenon of nature that science cannot explain. I think they are a lot of fun to hear and imagine. Science can explain perhaps why it happens, but nobody can really say why it is that way. I also think it’s interesting that the rule of 3’s (common in the U.S.) is in a Vietnamese legend too.