Category Archives: Folk speech

53 Bicycles

Nationality: USA
Age: 19
Occupation: student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 10, 2015
Primary Language: English

Riddle:

A man was found murdered in a room with 53 bicycles. Why was he murdered?

 

The Informant was a nineteen year old female friend that I had dinner with. I told her about the catch riddle we learned in class (what do virgins eat?) and she began telling me all of these riddles that she knew.

Collector: He was a bad man?

Informant: No.

Collector: Did he steal all of the bicycles?

Informant: Nope, try again.

(After several minutes of guessing and failing, she gave a pivotal hint)

Informant: Think of Bicycles as a brand, not as objects. I told you this was a hard one.

Answer via Informant: Well, bicycles is a type of card – you know, poker cards…bicycle playing cards. You’ve heard of those, right? Yeah, yeah. And how many cards are in a deck? Yeah, 52. So the guy was cheating, he had an extra card… so they killed him!(Seemed a little too excited by this).

Collector: Where’d you get this riddle from?

Informant: A high school friend.

Riddles in general are very interesting considering that nothing is ever what it seems to be. You have to really think outside of the box in order to figure out the answer, but it also makes it difficult when a person is not familiar to something that’s being referenced, such as with the brand “bicycles”. I told the same riddle to my dad and he had never heard of Bicycle playing cards, which made it pretty much impossible for him to figure out the answer. So, it can be considered a way of distinguishing between groups: those that understand the references and those who don’t.

3 for a Dollar

Nationality: USA
Age: 19
Occupation: student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 10, 2015
Primary Language: English

Riddle:

A man walks in a hardware store and asks “How much are those?” the clerk says “three for a dollar.” The man takes one hundred, pays a dollar and walks out. What did he buy?

 

The Informant was a nineteen year old female friend that I had dinner with. I told her about the catch riddle we learned in class (what do virgins eat?) and she began telling me all of these riddles that she knew.

Collector: Wait, he bought one hundred of them for a dollar when only three are for a dollar? That makes no sense.

Informant: That’s why it’s a riddle, duh, but it does have an answer – in case you were wondering.

Collector: Did the man steal 97 items?

Informant: Nope. He paid for everything just fine and walked out.

(After several minutes of guessing and failing, she gave a pivotal hint)

Informant: You find these on the front of a house, and every house has this.

Answer via Informant: It’s the address on the house, the address is one hundred. Get it? One hundred has three numbers, three for a dollar? He bought a one and two zeros – for a dollar. Get it? He literally bought “100”. Three digits.

Collector: Did your high school friend tell you this one too?

Informant: Yup.

This riddle wasn’t quite as exclusionary as other riddles that require the person to understand certain references. This one was pretty straight forward with objects that everyone is familiar with .

 

 

 

Persian New Year

Nationality: American/Persian
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Orange County
Performance Date: 4/26/15
Primary Language: English
Language: Farsi

Okay, so Persian New Year, it lasts seven days…So, basically the Tuesday before or during, everyone goes to a special place or they do it at each other’s houses and they make fires, like small fire pits.

 

Inside or outside?

 

Outside, it’s always outdoors. Like in an alleyway, or if you have a big backyard, or they do it at the beach. And then people jump over it and they say a saying that’s kind of like, I don’t know how it’s translated but it symbolizes throwing your bad energy or anything bad from the past year into the fire, or like from other people, into the fire. That’s basically it.

 

Do you know the phrase in Farsi?

 

Yeah, but you’re not gonna get it. It’s like, “sorheitaz…?” I don’t even know how to say it, you’re kind of just saying whatever is bad is going into the fire. And you kind of say it with a friend, like whatever’s bad from each other, your relationship goes in too.

 

When is Persian New Year?

 

Our calendar is different, the Persian calendar is a little different. It’s first day of Spring, so it starts on March 21st, and then it lasts seven days. And we always set a table, it’s called the Hafseen, and Haf means seven, so like everything starts with an “S” you can look this up, I don’t know what each thing symbolizes.

 

So there’s a lot of symbolism involved?

 

Yeah, there’s seven things, there’s like a fish, and then there’s a specific thing you grow, it’s like a grass, and then there’s flowers… It’s really specific but it’s all with Spring and has to do with new beginnings and stuff like that. So it lasts a week, and then after that you get rid of the table and everything, and they throw out the grass thing, they’ll go to the river and get rid of it, there’s like special ways. And they celebrate after too.

 

ANALYSIS:

The informant is clearly engaged in her family’s and culture’s traditions and customs surrounding New Year, although it is clear there is a generational gap – she speaks Farsi, but doesn’t know exactly what she’s saying or what it means when they jump over the fire. She also participates in the traditions and knows the general gist of how things are set up, but doesn’t know specifics about the symbolic elements of the festival. However, she is aware of how the ritual is done, participates in it, and has a general idea of why these things are done and what they mean. The new year festival is about being away with or burning away all the old, stale, bad things from the past year, and bringing in the new year. There are very specific things that must be present and actions that must be done to ensure good luck, success, happiness, good relationships, etc. in the new year. This also corresponds with the earth cycle, and not with the biblical calendar.

Burning Esfand (Persian Rituals)

Nationality: American/Persian
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Orange County
Performance Date: 4/26/15
Primary Language: English
Language: Farsi

Do you have any traditions or rituals that your family does?

 

Okay yeah, superstitions and stuff, it’s similar to the salt thing, my mom will burn sage on a stove, I think it’s sage, I’m pretty sure it’s sage. And like it’ll still be in the little pot, and they’ll put it over your head just like to keep bad eyes away from you. Like if you were at a party, and all these people are like, ‘Oh my god your daughter’s so beautiful, or like, they’ll say all these things and…It’s not always a compliment, but they’ll think like, if all these people are complimenting you, they’ll take it weirdly, like people are gonna have an evil eye on you. They’re just superstitious, so they think if a million people are complimenting you, one of them is gonna have like, one of them is gonna be fake, they’re not all gonna be true and real.

 

So your mom has done this to you?

 

Yeah so after like a big party, if all these people went up to her and were like ‘oh my god, your daughter is so beautiful,’ they’ll just give me compliments. And she’ll come home and it’ll be like two in the morning, she’s done that before! Once we get home from the party she’ll just burn sage, oh it’s called Esfand! In Farsi. She’ll burn it and kinda like, circle it over your head for like 5 seconds. And from what I know it’s not a prayer, but she’ll just say like, “keeping bad eyes away from you” or something like that, in Farsi.

 

So she burns the leaves in a pot?

 

Yeah, like a special little pot.

 

Oh so there’s a special pot for doing this?

 

Yeah there’s like a specific kind of pot for it. It’s just tiny, it’s not like a huge pot, it’s small, it’s not metal, maybe it’s ceramic.

 

ANALYSIS:

This is a superstitious belief and accompanying ritual intended to keep bad intentions or bad spirits away. There is also a clear emphasis that parents or older family members do this to younger family members to keep them out of harm’s way. There is a sense that this ritual, also involving a gesture, incantation or prayer of some sort, and a physical, material tool, can undo or ward off evil, even if it’s already intended for the young person, but there is a sense of urgency, that it must be done as soon as possible for the most protective power.

Persian Rituals adopted by a Non-Persian, Jewish Family

Nationality: American/Jewish
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Beverly Hills
Performance Date: 4/23/15
Primary Language: English

Basically, when someone talks bad about you, or someone does something to like, harm you, or let’s say like for example I’m wearing a nice dress and I come home and I’m like ‘oh mom, this lady said “nice dress, it looks really good on you,”’ my mom would be like, ‘oh, she has a bad eye on you.’ And my mom will run, and she’ll get salt, and she’ll put salt all around my head. Like she’ll start spraying it, like literally having salt fly in the air, and like, pouring salt everywhere and then she says like, ‘to keep the bad eye away from my daughter,’ she says like a little prayer in her head. It’s like a blessing of salt over your head to keep away the evil eye.

 

So your mom does this to you?

 

She did it once. She learned it from her Persian friends. I’m not Persian, but my friends that are Persian, their moms have done it to me too.

Another thing is like, I don’t know if it’s traditional but like when you get a new car or you get something new, you take eggs and you run the eggs over with the car. You put like two on the back tires, two on the front tires, and you run them all over. So it’s like good luck cause you’re like coating the tires with an egg? Not an egg but like, you break the way for the car kind of. You break the way for the car to like enter the world, the streets.

 

Why eggs specifically?

 

I, I don’t know. These are just things that I’ve seen people do. And then, what is the jumping over fire one, Nic?

(Her friend: That’s for Persian New Year.)

Why?

(Friend: You’re asking the wrong person. Ask Sogol.)

 

ANALYSIS:

This is an interesting folk superstition and ritual that has been adopted by a family that isn’t Persian, but is Jewish, and are surrounded by a community of Jewish Persian. The informant’s mom, through interaction with her friends, has inherited or adopted this belief and practice of protection and keeping bad spirits away. One can easily see, though, how the original meaning or belief has become lost / confused/ muddled, because the informant did not grow up being as exposed to this tradition in her family. However, as her friends and her friends’ parents have done these rituals, she has been exposed to them and so participates in them, just not as fully perhaps as her friends with Persian heritage. She does know why these rituals are practiced and some of the symbolism behind the eggs, for example. It is also a sort of initiation ritual for the car to enter into the world.