Category Archives: Legends

Narratives about belief.

Ghost Pressing on the Bed

Text:

Interviewee: When I was young, my mom and dad would say it’s “Ghost pressing on the bed” that made me unable to move my body, despite being mentally awake.

I was 7 years old. One day, I woke up early in the morning —I think it’s around 4 or 5 o’clock—I was mentally awake, but I just couldn’t move my body. I thought I was stuck by something, but it was invisible, so I could not really see what happened on my body. This kind of like situation stayed with me for around 10 minutes. And then I fell asleep again, and then the next time I woke up, I could move properly.

When I told my parents about this, they said, “Oh, it’s a ghost. He or she was pressing down on your body so you could not move.”

It’s kind of like a common belief or way to explain this in China. Scientifically speaking, it’s about your mind—maybe you are being too mentally stressed or, like, too tired, and that will happen to you.

But the tricky thing is that after that happened, I kept dreaming about weird things. I would dream of being in a playground, like a theme park, and riding a rollercoaster without any security belts on. And then, I saw someone sitting next to me, but I couldn’t really see her face, though I somehow knew it was a woman. It was just so scary that I almost peed (and I was young, only seven years old.)

I never told my parents that I had this dream after the “Ghost pressing down on my bed” experience because I didn’t know how to tell them, or maybe I was too ashamed to tell them. Now, when I think back on this experience, I think it’s funny—it’s something that not everyone will experience, and it’s something that is both very tricky and very unique.

Context:

My interviewee was told of this ghost by her parents when she was 7 years old, when she experienced sleep paralysis. She was then told of this monster that pressed against her on her bed, which made her uneasy even after that experience.

Analysis:

  • Folklore filling an explanatory gap: before scientific understanding of sleep paralysis was widely understood and accessible, the supernatural was used by folks to provide culturally acceptable explanations of this symptom.
  • Psychological pressure: The ghost that presses down can be read as a projection of psychological weight: stress, anxiety, repressed fear, made into an external, physical force in the form of a supernatural ghost. This is an example of using an “external being” to explain what’s inside people’s minds—their unconscious, inexplicable feelings and anxieties.
  • Memorate: this story is also an example of a memorate: a personal encounter with a legendary figure or spirit.

The Monster Nian, Chinese New Year, and Red

Age: 19

Text:

Interviewee:

On the first day of Chinese Spring Festival (New Year’s Eve), my family and I would set off firecrackers and fireworks, and it’s best if they are very loud ones. It was then that I was told about the myth of a monster named Nian. The physical appearance of Nian looks like a lion, with pointed teeth and a scary, ugly face. According to the myth, on the first day of the Chinese Spring Festival, Nian will come out from the mountains to the neighborhoods of every Chinese family. Nian will be hunting for children to eat.

In the past, people had no idea what to do when Nian came, until one day, someone set off a firecracker exactly when Nian visited their house. It was then that the firecracker brought out “fire,” and Nian was very scared of fire, so it ran away.

There are other sayings about what drove Nian away. Some people say that Nian is very scared of the color red. Therefore, during Spring Festival, everyone will wear clothes in red in order to drive the monster away and protect themselves and their families. For instance, I was born in the Year of the Pig, and my grandmother always tells me to wear red socks during the Year of the Snake, because the two zodiac signs conflict (snake eats pig), according to Chinese traditional beliefs.

Red also became a symbol of good luck in the context of the Lunar Chinese New Year. For instance, people will hang up red lanterns to decorate the house, elders will prepare red envelopes to give out Lucky Money or [压岁钱 ya sui qian] to children in the family, and the window papercut we use specifically to celebrate Chinese New Year is always red.

Context:

The interviewee learned the myth of monster Nian as a child, around 6 or 7 years old. This myth was shared by the elders of his family when they were celebrating the Chinese New Year together. The interviewee’s thoughts: he found Nian a scary figure as a child, but got used to this belief (and the rituals around wearing clothes in Red during Chinese New Years) gradually as he grew up.

Analysis:

Myth as an explanation for ritual: Monster Nian’s story is an example of how a myth has led to the emergence of a ritual, long practiced by the Chinese when celebrating the Spring Festival (Chinese New Year) every year.

Temporal Liminality: New Year is a threshold moment, marking the end of the old year and the beginning of a new year, and Nian comes exactly on New Year’s Eve. This is representative of liminality being a time when the line between the human world and the supernatural world gets blurred. Nian’s presence on New Year’s Eve makes the distance between the human world and the supernatural world closer and thinner.

Development of a set of rituals, including ones related to fireworks and the color red: The development of a set of rituals following Nian’s story is representative of a growing Communitas: a community spirit or “togetherness” that grows from a ritual or being in a liminal zone together. This applies to the practice of setting off fireworks or putting on clothes in red when it’s Chinese New Year—as this became a ritual, everyone around is doing the same, and going through the same “liminal” phase of entering the new year.

Lake Monster

Age: 19

Interviewee:

This story was told by my father when both of us were swimming in a lake in my hometown, a town in China. My dad told me that there was a lake monster who dwelled in this lake. This lake monster will punish travelers who have done something evil recently, and the way that the monster acts out this, sort of, punishment, is that they will kill them in the water. According to my father, victims often described that something held on to their legs and pulled them down to the deep water. They were either killed or deeply injured.

Interviewer: Does this monster only haunt you if you have done something wrong? And if you are a morally good person, it will not haunt you?
Interviewee: According to the myth, yes.

Interviewer: Has this story been used to explain, or was it proved to be “real” in any real incidents?
Interviewee: Yes. A few years ago, a person in my hometown died in that lake, and his family explained this as him being killed by the water monster. That day, he went to swim in the lake near a reservoir. When they found the deceased person, folks in my hometown believed it was the lake monster who caused his death. While scientifically speaking, it’s seaweeds. He couldn’t really swim well, and it was wild water, so some seaweeds must have trapped him from the bottom.

Interviewer: When you’re swimming in the lake, are you scared of the monster?
Interviewee: No. Cuz I didn’t do anything bad (laughs).

Context:

In the words of the interviewee: “This story was shared by my father, a middle-aged man who grew up in a small town in China. He told it to me while we were actually swimming together in the very lake he was describing—it’s a lake in the wild, without much protection and very close to nature.”


Analysis:

  • Vernacular transmission: This story was told to the informant by his father when they were swimming in a local lake in his hometown. The monster is very specific to that lake. The way the informant’s father tells him of this monster legend makes it very vernacular—informal, local to their hometown, a small town in China.
  • Moral story and cautionary tale: This legend serves the purpose of “education” under Bascom’s functionalist framework. The informant’s father, by telling this legend, educates the informant to be a good person and live with integrity—when being asked if he was scared, the interviewee said he wasn’t scared “because he hasn’t done bad things.” This mirrors exactly what this legend is used for—to caution people not to do morally bad things, or they will get into trouble. Thus, certain moral ideologies are reinforced by telling a scary story. This makes this legend a mixture of a cautionary tale and a moral story.

Willy’s Story

Age: 22

Text:

Interviewee:
The story is kind of a monster-ghost story from my hometown, Thousand Oaks, California. It’s about Willy, the moster.

There is this forest area behind my neighbor’s house, and they always warn their kids “Don’t go in the forest after dark, because there is a monster in the woods named Willy, and he’s gonna grab you.”  Willy was like a old, mean, adult figure that’s kind of a spirit in a sense, and he came with a cane. Then, this story got circulated around my neighborhood, and all the kids know this story.

Essentially, if kids disobeyed, like went into the forest, they would get taken. It’s kind of like the classic, like, be weary of stranger danger story. So yeah, that basically is the gist of the story itself. All the kids in my neighborhood know this story. We always tease each other, “Be careful of Willy, don’t go in the forest.” It kind of has that local legend feel, which is kind of interesting.

I was never brave enough to go in the forest and check on that, like I didn’t want to be the person to see that Willy’s real, you know, so I trusted everyone’s judgement.


Interviewer: This story kind of reminds me of Little Red Riding Hood, like don’t go off the track.
Interviewee: Yeah, yeah. Otherwise you will get into trouble.


Interviewer: Is there a prototype, or, is there someone who was actually taken, that you know of?
Interviewee: Lucky for my neighborhood—no. No one got taken by the monster. It was more of
just a cautionary tale. There is no specific people who got taken, but my parents would joke around and, like, have items being taken from my backyard, when I was like, “Oh where did my ball go?” They’d be like, “Oh, Willy took it,” and they probably just donated it or something.

Context:

When the interviewee was growing up, around 8 to 9 years old, he was told this story by his parents. All the kids in his neighborhood know this story, and some of the parents even brought this up too——according to the interviewee, “I think that’s actually where it originated, a friend’s parent told them this story.”

Analysis:

“Stranger Danger” Cautionary Tale: Willy’s Story is a local cautionary tale. This tale functions to regulate children’s behavior. Willy is an archetype of the stranger danger—an outsider who is dangerous and must be avoided by the children. On an emotional level, this stranger, who is old and carries a cane, contrasts with the safe domestic environment in which children grow up. Children are told this story because parents would like them to be cautious of the outside world, the strangers, and the forest.

Transmission: According to the informant, a parent in the neighborhood started telling this story to their kids, and then “all the kids (in his neighborhood) know this story,” and sometimes parents know too. This represents a vernacular transmission that is local and informal, and it is also one that goes in various directions. For instance, first it was transmitted in a top-down way, but it was later transmitted peer-to-peer by the children.

Reuben Sandwich

Text

J: So, in my family, um, my grandmother says — told me that uh, that her uncle invented the Reuben sandwich before it was called the Reuben sandwich. It didn’t have a name. And-but she would eat the same sandwich when she was a kid… at the– at her uncle’s deli a- in New York City and, uh, after school she would go and he would make her the sandwich and um, and that she claimed that Aurther Reuben worked at this deli when he was young and that then, when he went off and made his own deli, that he took… that sandwich and then put his name on it and made the Reuben… as we know it. But it was really not called that before when– so the-the family, you know my-my grandmother believes that our family invented the Reuben sandwich.

Interviewer: What’s in the Reuben sandwich?

J: I don’t even know. *laughs* no, no it’s something with Russian dressing… I can’t remember actually what’s in the Reuben sandwich so I feel a-very ashamed that I don’t even know my family’s sandwich. But — and I’ve never had a Reuben sandwich… obviously.

Context

J: I just remember when [informant’s grandmother] was telling me that story and then I — you know, there’s no way to actually to you know, to actually find evidence of this, but… my grandma tends to be… on the money with most things, so I — all of her stories that I have been able to confirm have checked out pretty much to the t, so I’m inclined to believe it, but I have no evidence to actually believe that it all actually was true. But we like to go with it because it’s a fun story to tell and, you know, it’s-to me it’s become some family, you know, it’s our- you know, it’s part of our family folklore I guess you could say.

The informant and his family have been New York City residents for many generations.

Analysis

This story is much less about the food itself, and more about the legend that surrounds it. In fact, the informant has never made a Reuben sandwich, much less eaten one. This suggests that the legend has a deeper purpose than to simply pass on a family recipe. In this case, I suspect that this story serves to connect the informant and his family to the greater history of New York City and the United States.

Folklore is a way to communicate identity, and since the informant does not claim Russian or Irish heritage, the heritage he is identifying with can only be his family’s identity as New Yorkers (even though the region of origin of the Reuben sandwich is generally disputed). Having a story that connects the family to the history of the city through a family deli allows for a greater claim on the place where they have lived for generations.