Category Archives: Folk speech

猿も木から落ちる

Nationality: Japan
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Tokyo
Performance Date: 4/19/16
Primary Language: Japanese
Language: English

SF was born in Tokyo, Japan, and lived there for 10 years. She is a student at USC majoring in Business Administration. SF is in my Introduction to Music Technology class and she had a ton of Japanese folklore to share with me.

Proverb: 猿も木から落ちる

Pronunciation: saru mo ki kara ochiru

Literal Translation: Even a monkey falls from a tree

Meaning: It means nobody’s perfect, and that everybody makes mistakes.

My informant learned this proverb in Japanese class.

I found this proverb interesting because there are many variations of it from different cultures. With this proverb it recognizes the universal fallibility in humans. Even in cultures that highly prize expertise and perfection, there is still an acknowledgement of some sort of the phrase “we are all human.”

Grandma’s Ghost

Nationality: Colombian-America
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: April 23 2016
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

Informant (A.G.) is an 18 year old student from Los Angeles.

A.G.: “My mom is really religious and my grandma is really religious. I was raised Catholic and I used to go to church and stuff”

While his “dad is Italian” and his “mom is Colombian,” they “both grew up in Columbia” to come here when they were “18 or 19.” Alex’s mom is a “stay at home mom,” and his dad does “construction” and owns some local “properties.” We grew up in the same area of Los Angeles, and started to hang out in high school. He was telling some ghost stories at a party one weekend, so I set up an interview for the following Saturday afternoon. I picked him up and brought him to our mutual friend’s house to conduct the collection.

A.G.: “In my apartment building, we used to live in one of the back apartment units.”

While the family still owns the apartment building, A.G. has since upgraded to a nearby house.

A.G.: “At the dinner table… my brother and sister used to talk about stuff that would happen to them because our house was super creepy.”

Here “our house” refers to the family’s apartment building.

A.G.’s family connects over the supernatural. For instance, while the non-religious A.G. is less concerned with Christianity than his pious mother, she is less concerned with the supernatural. However, they all contribute supernatural experiences to the dinner table discussion.

A.G.: “This happened to my mom. It was weird hearing it from her because she’s always like ‘oh that stuff’s bullshit.’ This happened in Florida when she was visiting my grandma in her last days. After a few days after she passed away, my mom said she was sleeping in the living room or something and then she said that she woke up at night and the TV was on and she saw a figure that reminded her of her mom.”

A.G’s mother’s experience of seeing a recently deceased family member is a regular part of the grieving process. Such memorates, referred to as crisis apparitions, make up a large part of the ghost story genre. While A.G.’s mother’s experience was attached to the deceased grandmother, A.G.’s siblings had their own supernatural experiences attached to the old apartment building. Whether it’s remembering the loss of a loved one, or a displeasurable living situation, I interpret the exchange of scary stories to be the family’s way of bonding over personal tribulations.

For more ghost stories about deceased loved ones, visit http://www.cnn.com/2011/09/23/living/crisis-apparitions/

Angulimala

Nationality: Biracial, American Black and Southern European
Age: 50
Occupation: Buddhist Meditation Teacher
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: April 25 2016
Primary Language: English

Informant (J.H.), my mother, is a 50 year old Buddhist meditation teacher from Los Angeles. J.H. identifies as biracial, with both African and Southern European heritage. I interviewed her after stopping by for dinner one Monday evening. J.H. had a traditional roman Catholic upbringing, and has been studying meditation for 15 years. I asked J.H. for her favorite legends and myths surrounding the Buddha. As a self identified Buddhist agnostic, she takes these stories as metaphors with values them for their important teaching opportunities.

J.H.: “Angulimala was basically a serial killer. He was a bandit, who would kill people in the forests of India, and he would cut off a finger for each person he killed, and put their finger on a necklace that he wore around his neck. So mala means necklace basically, and Anguli is finger. So he had a finger necklace around his neck, and one time he came across the Buddha in the forest and he started chasing him to kill him, but no matter how fast he ran he couldn’t catch him. And so finally, the Buddha just stopped and Angulimala caught up to him, and the Buddha promised him freedom from his pain and suffering if he would just start meditating with him. Angulimala was so impressed… by the Buddha’s fearlessness, that he decided to try it. And the legend has it that he became enlightened, and what’s so beautiful about this story is that the Buddha thought that nobody was irreparable. Because the Angulimala apparently killed thousands of people, as the legend has it, but the Buddhist tradition says that all people have the opportunity for full liberation, no matter what your path has been.”

J.H.’s Buddhist Sangha is especially targeted toward people who have had struggles with society and are seeking alternative guidance or recovery through spirituality. J.H. seems to appreciate the Angulimala myth for its teaching of acceptance of all people. As a teacher, J.H. speaks fluently and openly about the history and philosophies of Buddhism in general as well as her particular Sangha, or group.

Ehipasiko

Nationality: Biracial, American Black and Southern European
Age: 50
Occupation: Buddhist Meditation Teacher
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: April 25 2016
Primary Language: English

Informant (J.H.), my mother, is a 50 year old Buddhist meditation teacher from Los Angeles. J.H. identifies as biracial, with both African and Southern European heritage. I interviewed her after stopping by for dinner one Monday evening. J.H. had a traditional roman Catholic upbringing, and has been studying meditation for 15 years. J.H. shared one of her favorite Pali phrases, which she uses in her teachings. J.H. was hesitant by my classifying it as a ‘proverb’ due to the word’s Christian connotation in American culture, so I explained the folkloristic definition of ‘proverb’ for clarification.

J.H.: “What Ehipasiko is is basically a phrase that says ‘see for yourself’ would be the most basic translation. For me, why I chose Buddhism is because the Buddha doesn’t require people to follow a faith based narrative. It’s more about seeing how our own behaviors lead us down a path towards more confusion and pain and suffering, or down a path of peace and calm and joy and equanimity. As Buddhists, we are asked to pay attention to how we respond to situations, we’re not asked to have a being that we can’t see help us or save us from life’s truths…. Pali was the formal oral language during the Buddha’s time, but it wasn’t the written language. There wasn’t a written language until 500 years later, it was Sanskrit. Ehipasiko was the oral language, and then there was Sanskrit. Honestly, a big part of my attraction to who the Buddha… has a lot to do with who Jesus is. I think they’re very similar. Not that the religions are similar, but the men Siddartha Gautama, and whatever you want to call him, Jesus, lead very similar rebellious traditions to what was being practiced at the time. Judaism was what Jesus was rebelling against, and Brahmanism is what Siddartha was not necessarily rebelling against, but saying it wasn’t enlightenment.”

J.H.’s Buddhist Sangha is especially targeted toward people who have had struggles with society and are seeking alternative guidance or recovery through spirituality. J.H. seems to appreciate the proverb for its open endedness and universal truth. Ehipasiko makes for a good introduction to how personal of a practice Buddhism is. As a teacher, J.H. speaks fluently and openly about the history and philosophies of Buddhism in general as well as her particular Sangha, or group.

Upekkha Tattoo

Nationality: Biracial, American Black and Southern European
Age: 50
Occupation: Buddhist Meditation Teacher
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: April 25 2016
Primary Language: English
“I am the heir to my own kharma, my happiness and unhappiness depend upon my actions not upon my wishes.”

“I am the heir to my own kharma, my happiness and unhappiness depend upon my actions not upon my wishes.”

Informant (J.H.), my mother, is a 50 year old Buddhist meditation teacher from Los Angeles. J.H. identifies as biracial, with both African and Southern European heritage. I interviewed her after stopping by for dinner one Monday evening. J.H. had a traditional roman Catholic upbringing, and has been studying meditation for 15 years. I asked J.H. for her favorite quotes from the Buddhist practice. One quote that stood out was the one on J.H.’s arm. J.H. was hesitant by my classifying it as a ‘proverb’ due to the word’s Christian connotation in American culture, so I explained the folkloristic definition for clarification.

J,H,: “Upekkha, means equanimity in Pali. ‘I am the heir to my own kharma, my happiness and unhappiness depend upon my actions not upon my wishes.’ It kind of goes back to… how I speak, think and act will directly affect my life. I remember very specifically, I was on retreat, and I was having very obsessive thoughts about the same thing over and over again, and it was… filling my mind. And when I realized that I could literally focus on not thinking those thoughts I could change the course of my next mind moment. It’s a Buddhist-Pali phrase. Upekkha is one of the four Brahmaviharas, which means the divine abodes. The other three are compassion (karuna), loving kindness (metta), and mudita (sympathetic joy).”

J.H. seems to find meaning in the most ancient aspects of Buddhism, as Pali was the language spoken during the time of the Buddha. Further, J.H. has many tattoos symbolizing important phases of her life. The importance of Upekkha, or equanimity, to J.H. is evident in her permanent reminder to harness the ability to not think particular thoughts. Mastering the business of the mind is a central teaching in among all branches of Buddhism, and this particular proverb surrounding equanimity is well known, often used in meditation surrounding acceptance. As a teacher, J.H. speaks fluently and openly about the history and philosophies of Buddhism in general as well as her particular Sangha, or group.