Category Archives: general

Korean Sink Ghost

Nationality: Korean-American
Age: 20
Occupation: student
Residence: Fullerton, CA
Performance Date: 4/29/2020
Primary Language: English
Language: Korean, Mandarin

Text:

Informant: There’s this nice ghost who lives under the sink and if you leave leftover food in your bowl it will go down the drain and it will choke the ghost. The ghost will be miserable. It’s a happy ghost that brings joy and luck to the household, but if you leave food on your plate and it goes down in the sink then the ghost, it’s a very tiny spirit, will be choked. The spirit will die and it won’t bring any happiness to the home. I think it’s told to keep kids tidy because it’s very clean in Korea. Like we don’t even put food in the sink. That’s not something we do. We dispose of food separately, and I think parents tell their kids this to help them to learn to throw things away right. 

Context: I asked a group of friends to share any superstitions they were raised with. This was one of their replies. The informant is of Korean descent and was raised in both Korea and China.

Thoughts:

This is clearly a very modern superstition, but it feels old. It seems cleat to me that it was made by a parent to keep their child from clogging the drain.

The Golden Statue and the Crow

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: student
Residence: Fullerton
Performance Date: 4/29/2020
Primary Language: English

Text:

Informant: This was this story I heard all the time as a kid growing up. There was this crow who lived in a city next to a golden statue. There were seven or so precious gems in the statue. Expensive big ones. One blue one for each eye, one in the statue’s sword, one in the belt,  three in the crown.  They were all different colors. The statue started to see all of these poor people and the statue got really sad. The statue was like “I’m made of gold and jewels, but all these poor people are suffering” The statue told the crow to fly around town and find poor people to give the gemstones to. It would pick off a stone from the statue and find a different poor person each day to give one two. There was a girl selling matches, a blind man, a seamstress, a bunch of different types of people. The blind man got an eye and the matches girl got the one from his belt.  Because the statue asks the crow to do all of these things, the crow can’t migrate for winter. By the time winter arrives, the statue has given away all of it’s jewels. Even though it was still gold, it stopped getting all of the attention that it had before. It became an abandoned statue. Because it got so cold, the crow dies right in front of the statue or in the arms of the statue. The poor people became happy, but the crow died and the statue was abandoned. I think it’s supposed to teach you to like not help people at your own expense or something which I think is pretty messed up.

Context: I asked friends to share stories they heard as children and this was one of their replies.

Thoughts: This story reminds me a bit of the Giving Tree story. I agree with the informant that this seems to be an anti-philanthropy and also anti-poor.

El Mano Peluda

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: student
Residence: Fullerton, CA
Performance Date: 4/29/2020
Primary Language: English

Text:

Informant: There’s this story that you tell kids to scare them called el mano peluda which translates to the hairy hand. It comes out to get you at night when you go to turn off the lights. It’s just this hairy disembodied hand. When my mom would put me to bed as a kid, she’s scratch at the door frame after turning off the lights and say “it’s El Mano Peluda” so I would stay in bed and go to sleep. No one would ever say what would happen if you were attacked by him. I think it was scarier to leave it up to the imagination. 

Context:

I asked a group of friends to share scary stores form their childhood. This was one of their responses. The informant is of hispanic descent.

Thoughts:

In looking up the story, I found out it is most commonly referred to as La Mano Peluda. I find it interesting that both the informant and her mother who told her the story referred to it as “El” even though they both knew it was grammatically incorrect.

For more on El/la Mano Peluda see: http://www.latina.com/lifestyle/our-issues/scary-latino-myths-read-or-el-cuco-will-get-you

Sharks and Minnows

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: student
Residence: Fullerton
Performance Date: 4/29/2020
Primary Language: English
Language: Mandarin, Vietnamese

Text:

Informant: Sharks and minnows. It’s kinda like tag. Some kids are sharks and some kids are minnows. The sharks tag the minnows. If you’re a minnow and you get tagged you have to squat down and raise a hand. You have to stay there until another minnow comes and high-fives you. Then you can get up and run again. The minnows lose once the sharks get all of them. Now that I think about it, I don’t think there was ever a way for the minnows to win.

Context:

I asked a group of friends what games they played on the playground as a child. This was one of their responses. The informant was raised in suburban southern California.

Thoughts:

Everyone I spoke to about childhood games could often remember the rules perfectly, but never how one party could win. I’m sure there had to be a way, but everyone, myself included, couldn’t remember. Maybe the bell rang before we could ever finish.

Knitting Superstition

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: student
Residence: Fullerton, CA
Performance Date: 4/29/2020
Primary Language: English
Language: Mandarin, Vietnamese

Text:

Informant: If you are knitting or if you know how to knit, you’re allowed to knit things for your friends and your family, but you can’t knit something for your significant other unless you’re really really sure that they’re the one. When you knit something for your significant other it symbolizes that the relationship will end because there is an end to your knitting that ends in tying a knot. So either you have to tie the knot with your significant other or the relationship is very quickly going to end catastrophically.

Context: I asked a group of friends if they could recall any superstitions they were aware. The informant, and avid knitter, shared this one with me.

Thoughts: I find it odd that this same principal of endings doesn’t apply with friends, but makes sense since our society places a greater importance on marriage than friendship.