Category Archives: general

The Winchester Mystery House

Nationality: African-American
Age: 22
Occupation: UI Engineering Intern
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 29, 2021
Primary Language: English

The Winchester Mystery House is a mansion in San Jose, California. Built in 1886, the home was expanded until 1922. The home has been open to tours for almost one hundred years– beginning in 1923.

C: There’s like, the Winchester Mystery House. There’s this married couple, um. Forgot their names, but the guy made a very popular type of gun– I don’t remember the story exactly, but it’s the famous one. He died and left the house to his wife. And they made guns, which killed a lot of people and she felt really guilty about it. And it’s like “Oh, the ghost of the people whose my husband’s invention killed haunt this place,” so how she thought like, the ghost wouldn’t be able to get her is if she kept expanding the house. So it led to all, like, the weird staircases that lead to nowhere cause she’s trying to confuse the ghosts. And like, stairways that lead to pits and to walls and stuff like that, because she never stopped expanding. Until she died.

It’s like, going there, Oh if you go there, and they give like, haunted tours and stuff on Halloween. It’s just a cool place. It’s like, whoo, yeah, I’d feel guilty too if my husband made a weapon of small scale destruction.

Thoughts:
While the Winchester Mansion has become a kitschy tourist trap over the past 100 years, the myths and rumors surrounding it are just as real and haunting as the story of a woman continuously building up her home to escape the ghosts murdered by her husband’s invention. Originally, the house was a symbol of guilt and the fear of mortality. However, as the house became famous and more tourist-y, that symbolism has been softened. Ultimately, the fear of mortality is more approachable in Halloween tours.

Mount Diablo

Nationality: African-American
Age: 22
Occupation: UI Engineering Intern
Residence: Los Angeles, cA
Performance Date: April 29, 2021
Primary Language: English

Mount Diablo is a mountain on the Diablo range in the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California. This mountain has been the reported site of many ghost hauntings, paranormal phenomena, and cryptozoology.

C: This is more like, local history than folklore, but Mount Diablo was like the big mountain range in the area. And everyone was like, “Oh! Why’s it called that?” Um–

L: Cause Diablo!

C: Cause Diablo! It was like . . . The Native Americans called it something because of like, the plant life on it–or something– and “Ah, demons” says the Spanish. This mountain has demons and thus said “Mount Devil”.

Thoughts:
It’s a chicken and the egg scenario of what came first — the paranormal sightings on the mountain, or the name of the mountain itself. Undoubtedly, one influenced the other into existence. It would be almost criminal to not have spooky stories about a place called Mount Diablo.

For more stories about this Mountain Range, please visit: https://museumsrv.org/post-1421/#:~:text=One%20of%20the%20most%20famous,guise%20of%20an%20old%20hidalgo.

Peruvian Time

Nationality: Peruvian-American
Age: 23
Occupation: Producer
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 30, 2021
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

The informant explains the difference between “Peruvian Time” and “English Time”.

A: I didn’t know this was an actual thing until I looked it up. If you say– if you invite someone over to, like, a dinner party or whatever, if you say it’s at six it’s customary for people to show up thirty minutes to an hour later up to two hours later. And it’s not considered, like, a problem. They call it, “You’re arriving at Peruvian time”. 

It’s because, during dinner parties, if you say at six, you don’t expect to serve anything until eight anyways. And if you say, uh, show up at English time, you show up on time.

Thoughts:
When hearing this, I understood why people would show up to functions an hour to an hour and a half late. The party isn’t in fully swing, and dinner usually isn’t served until an hour or two into the event. However, I found it incredibly hilarious that if you want someone to show up on time, you have to say, “Show up on English time”. This gives me the imagine that Americans are seen as these very punctual, straight laced people by Peruvians.

The Taboo of the Left Hand in Yemen

Nationality: China
Age: 75
Occupation: Arabic Interpreter
Residence: Shenyang, Liaoning, China
Performance Date: 4/20/2-21
Primary Language: Chinese

Backgrounds:

CC was born and grew up in Beijing. He earned a bachelor’s degree in Arabic, and then served as an interpreter for China’s medical assisstance team sent to Yemen. He stayed in Yemen for over 10 years, helping with the communication between the patients in Yemen and the medical workers from China. During his time in Yemen, he got to know many local Yemen people and was able to learn a lot about their culture from local people.

The informant shared this piece of folk practice during an interview via phone call.

The Main Piece:

In Yemen, most people eat with their hands instead of using forks or chopsticks, etc. One has to use the right hand and may not use the left hand to eat. Also, when handing stuff to other people or receiving things from other people, one must use the right hand. It is super offensive to use the left hand to pass objects.

CC gives the reason: after defecation, the people in Yemen use water, instead of toilet papers, to clean their anus. And this is always done with the left hand. So everyone in Yemen keeps it in mind that the left hand is for the “dirty business” and the right hand is used to interact with other people.

Analysis:

I believe this custom reveals that the people in Yemen draw a clear line between their “private” practices and their interaction with others. I personally think that even if someone uses the left hand to hand objects to another person, it wouldn’t be that much of a big deal because the hand is already washed. But the people in Yemen still make this distinction between the left and right hand. It shows their respect for other people’s feelings, as well as their dislike for faeces.

Another interesting things is that the custom makes everyone to clean their anus with the left hand, because normally people might have different preferences for the left or right hand. This case is an example how cultural norms can shape ones habits.

The Origin of Bloody Mary

Nationality: China
Age: "No no no, don't tell them my age"
Occupation: Elementary School Teacher
Residence: Shenyang, Liaoning, China
Performance Date: 2/24/2021
Primary Language: Chinese

Backgrounds:

Ms. Z is an elementary school Maths and Chinese teacher in Shenyang, China. We were having dinner together when I mentioned my folklore collection project. She then shared some of the interesting folklores she’s learned of from the kids in her class or from her colleagues.

The Main Piece:

Z: I recall this ghost story about Bloody Mary going around among my students. So, basically, this Bloody Mary used to be a prostitute. She hated the way men treated her, so she wanted to revenge. Since then, every time when she was hired by a man, she would kill him and then drink his blood. And after she dies she becomes a ghost.

Me: So how do we call her out. I know other versions of this story, and they had their own ways of calling her to appear.

Z: If a boy walks into a dark bathroom, turn off all the lights and then say “Bloody Mary” three times facing the mirror, the ghost’s disfigured face will appear in the mirror, and she’ll scare the boy to death.

Analysis:

The Bloody Mary story might be one of the most famous ghost stories, this time not around America, but around the world, since the elementary school Z works in is in China. It is interesting to see that there are so many different versions of the orginin of Bloody Mary, how to summon the ghost, and the consequences of summoning her. Through all the different versions, we can see how a piece of folklore can have different variations in difference places. I know of classic origin stories of Bloody Mary that is linked to European history, or linked to religion (Virgin Mary). I guess for the reason why the ghost’s origin becomes a prostitute in the Chinese elementary school is this: the kids in the elementary school has little or no knowledge about western religion or western history, because they aren’t taught about them in elementary school. So, their cultural backgrounds and knowledge doesn’t allow for such origin stories. Therefore, the origin of the ghost might then turn into a more relatable story, prostitutes, which exist in almost all cultures, unlike religious or historical figures that are known only to a specific group of people that share the same culture.

For another version of the story, see Bloody Mary by Austen Le

http://uscfolklorearc.wpenginepowered.com/bloody-mary-10/