Category Archives: Folk Beliefs

Shell Station Joke

Nationality: Asian-American
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Pasadena, California
Performance Date: April 2007
Primary Language: English
Language: Mandarin

Q: Where did the turtle go to get gas?

A: At the Shell station!

My inormant learned this joke from a joke book that she got when she was in elementary school.  As a child, she loved reading joke books and remembering jokes.  Because she enjoyed being humorous, she would tell her newly learned jokes to her friends to see if they thought the jokes were funny or not.
On the way to dinner one night, she and her friends passed a Shell station.  Using this perfect opportunity to say her joke, my informant recited the joke.  After a long pause of everyone in the car looking at her, she burst out laughing to end the awkward silence.  Even though this joke isn’t very funny, she tells it when there’s nothing else to talk about or when she’s bored.
My informant does not actually think the joke is funny.  She actually believes that this is the stupidest joke ever.  She only thinks it’s funny because of how lame it is.  It’s just one of those jokes that is easily remembered to tell in any situation.
If someone were to tell me this joke, I would laugh only because I think it is lame.  This joke is definitely not one of the funnier ones that people enjoy hearing.  I agree with her, this joke one of those jokes that people tell when they’re bored.  It’s also a great ice breaker when there’s an awkward silence or when people just meet each other.  This turtle joke shows how jokes are necessary in our society.  Jokes provide people with something that they can all relate to.  Jokes give people an opportunity to all agree on the humor or lack of humor of the joke.  They’re great topic starters and offer people a chance to see what kinds of people they’re with.

How to find lost items

Nationality: Polish Jew
Age: 23
Occupation: scuba diver and student
Residence: Los Angeles (from FL)
Performance Date: April 24, 2012
Primary Language: English

“It goes back a few generations, I know my grandmother does it still, because I walk into her apartment and I see the shot glasses still on the counter. The tradition is that if you’ve lost something and you can’t find it, and you’ve looked in all the unusual places, all the places you like don’t think of, and everything, that you finally get out a shot-glass, and you pour a shot of vodka, and you just leave it on the counter, just out. Let it evaporate and everything as it goes, and then what you’re looking for will turn up after you’ve done this at some point. I’ve definitely done it many, many times, I know that my mother does it, cuz I’ve walked into the house and seen shot glasses of vodka on the counter, and I know my grandmother does it too, so it’s kind of a funny thing, obviously, because we’re leaving out vodka in a way to find something. But I learned it from my mother, and I’m pretty sure she learned it from her mother, and I would assume the same happened with my grandmother. And the second half of the tradition is that once you find the thing, you have to, basically, as close to immediately, drink whatever’s left of the shot in the shot glass. If it’s been a long time and it’s evaporated and everything it’s fine, you don’t need to drink anything, you just wash out the shot glass and put it away, like normal. But if you find it like 10 minutes after you take it out, you have to drink the shot. But it works, I believe it, I’ve found stuff before, like I couldn’t find it, and then like it’ll turn up, and I’ll be like, ‘ya, I don’t know how I could have ever found this before.’”

 

My informant has practiced this folk-belief for as long as he can remember, and has consistently used it every time he loses and object and can’t find it after looking around for it, because he believes that the shot works to help him find whatever he lost. He also continues to practice this practice because it’s a sort of family tradition that’s been passed through the generations, thus tying him to his family and his heritage. Also, the informant’s background is Polish Jewish, both his grandmother and mother are from New York City, and his great grandmother came over from Poland, so it makes sense that the practice involves vodka, which is one of the most common forms of liquor consumed in Poland.

 

The shot of vodka serves two purposes: when the shot is first poured, the performer’s belief in the guarantee that the item will show up allows them to relax and stop fixating over the possible locations of the lost item, so they stop panicking and are more susceptible to subconsciously remembering where the put the item; the second purpose of the shot is a means of celebration or self-congratulations after having found the missing object, though it could also be consumed as a way to keep the object from disappearing again. In either way, this fun folk-belief is an example of both a magic and a conversion superstition. It is a magic superstition in that the performer undertakes the action of pouring the shot of vodka to cause the lost item to reappear, and a conversion superstition in that pouring the shot also undoes the bad thing of the item getting lost in the first place, and hypothetically keeps it from happening again.

Jordanian Folk Remedy

Nationality: American
Age: 21
Occupation: International Relations Student
Residence: Los Angeles (from Seattle, WA)
Performance Date: April 24, 2012
Primary Language: English
Language: Arabic

During my informant’s year abroad in Jordan, her Jordanian host mother introduced her to a few herbal folk remedies including one with cinnamon. The informant had very bad cramps, and her host mother said that cinnamon would relieve her cramps and make her period come faster, which my informant found to be ‘completely true,’ and ever since then she’s used cinnamon for that very purpose.

Cinnamon has existed for centuries as an herbal remedy to various maladies, and is still in common use today. Often described as a ‘warming tonic,’ Cinnamon chases chills, dulls pain, and relaxes muscles, which are a few reasons for its soothing effect on menstrual cramps. Cinnamon has also been deemed a uterine stimulant, meaning that it stimulates the uterine muscles to contract, which can induce menstruation by causing the uterus to shed the uterine lining. This property of Cinnamon is also why it can be used in difficult deliveries due to inadequate contractions. Effectively a painkiller as well as a uterine stimulant, Cinnamon is essentially the herbal equivalent of many over-the-counter menstrual medications.

 

Gravity Hill, Pasadena

Nationality: Taiwanese/Chinese-American
Age: 23
Occupation: Intern at a Film Production company
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: April 25, 2012
Primary Language: English

‘There’s this place in Pasadena called Gravity Hill, and it’s this very foresty, old area of Pasadena where there’s a lot of oak knolls. And I never done it myself, but I remember people from my high school would go. You need a car, first of all, and you drive up to the top of the hill, right at the precipice, and they sit there for a while, and I dunno when exactly, but they somehow feel like they’re levitating. It’s like gravity is reversed there, right at that one sweet spot. But I’ve heard it from many different people that they’ve all felt the same way. And they felt like everything was lifting up right now. They stay in the car and they don’t lift up out of the car but the car itself feels like it’s levitating. You go because it’s a myth, and it seems cool, but it’s also spooky in a kind of, you have to find out yourself kind of way. ‘

This piece of folklore is a legend quest of sorts because it’s an event action that you undertake to prove or disprove the theory going around about the weird things that happen on Gravity Hill. This legend quest is also particularly intriguing because it involves the mysteries of the supernatural and the unexplainable, which is always fascinating and also exciting, because it’s unknowable what will happen when you’re there. The remote location is also key in this piece of folklore because it means that the participants have to undertake a sort of journey to get to the special location where magical things await them.

Mexican Healing Chant

Nationality: Hispanic-American
Age: 8
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 4/27/2012
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

My informant taught me this chant in the context of our Forms of Folklore JEP class. I asked her if she was familiar with “sana, sana” and she said yes, and then finished the chant. She said that she learned this from her parents, and that they say this to her when she has been hurt. My informant said that this usually occurs at her home, but that it could happen anywhere. When asked if it works, she giggled and said, “well, it makes me laugh.” She repeated this as the reasoning as to why she likes and does it.

Material:

Spanish:
“Sana, sana, culito de rana,
y si no se cura ahorita, se cura mañana.”

Her translation:
“I hope you feel better,
if it doesn’t get better today, it gets better tomorrow.”

Word-by-word translation:
“Healthy, healthy, frog ass,
and if not cured now, cured tomorrow.”

While saying these lines her parents usually rub the inflicted area. You can hear her performing this here: Sana, Sana.

Analysis:

One of the most interesting aspects of this piece of folklore is perhaps what was almost left out, “culito de rana.” My informant giggled over it while reciting the chant in Spanish, and when translating it into English she left it out entirely. This piece, which Google Translate translates as “frog ass,” could have been lost entirely. This omission makes one wonder the reason behind it. Did she intentionally do so, for my sake and sensibilities, or did her parents tell her a simplified translation? The first option certainly makes more sense, especially considering her incessant giggles. So, more likely than not she felt uncomfortable sharing such material with me. To me, this emphasizes the early understanding of what is appropriate and what is inappropriate behavior and speech. The environment of the school reinforces and could be the source of her understanding of behavioral norms. Her teacher is extremely strict and reprimands the students for every false move—even speaking out of turn. There is no doubt that she would frown upon the use of vulgarity and that my informant would be punished for such speech.

The vulgarity (and my informant’s attempt to cover it) proves very interesting for analysis. It could be a part of the chant in order to allude to (and perhaps make fun of) magical workings that could involve such things as frog butts. With this in mind, the chant could be seen as a parody of a spell, or it could be the remnants of an actual healing spell.

Simultaneously, the laughter involved in the chant does not only point to discomfort but also to a bit of levity. Though her parents transmitted the chant to her, the authority didn’t confer seriousness. Instead, it could be taken lightly—my informant didn’t say that it worked, but that it does make her laugh. And perhaps this was the intended result (especially if the goal was to poke fun at magical workings).

Furthermore, and more particularly, the piece of folklore does something interesting—it offers the hope of recovery but not the promise that the recovery will be immediate. This statement is at least in a different tone than more traditional comforts—“you are okay,” “it isn’t too bad,” etc. Instead of that, it conveys that it may not be okay right now, that it may be bad, but that it will not be soon. This points to a different sense of time, and immediacy.