Category Archives: Legends

Narratives about belief.

Weed Day

Nationality: Mexican
Age: 23
Occupation: Student
Residence: Cypress Park, Los Angeles CA
Performance Date: March 21, 2013
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

“4/20 is kind of like a holiday.”  My informant is referring to a “holiday” widely known in the cannabis culture where one smoke marijuana on April 20th . “Its common for people to smoke at 4:20 pm but on 4/20 you smoke basically all day. Its a day that people come together, hang out and enjoy a bowl or blunt.” My informant refers to a pipe bowl, a small amount of cannabis that is smoked and passed along thorough a smoking pipe. A blunt refers to a rolled up cigar-like way of smoking the cannabis. When asked if he knew where 4/20 originated from, he takes awhile to respond. “There are a couple of stories I’ve heard.” He lists off a few- the number of chemicals in the plant, Hitler’s birthday, the police code for marijuana smoking in progress.

 

But the most reliable story is that 4/20 originated in San Raphael, California in the 1970s. “A group of five friends at San Raphael High School called themselves the Waldos because their usual hang out spot was by some wall. They had heard about a lost cannabis plant somewhere in the woods or a park or something, so they planned to meet everyday at 4:20, after practice, to look for the plant. They never found it but they blazed the whole time while they looked for it. So they just started saying 420 to set up a smoke sesh”.  This is a widely known story, but no one really is sure if it is true or how it spread all over the world. My informants suggests that the spreading of the term could be from music, a “universal language’. 420 has been referenced in all types of music from reggae, to hip-hop/rap, to rock and roll. So music being the catalyst for popularity of this counterculture “holiday” is plausible. Which ever way this has grown to be a phenomena, mostly by word of mouth and a tradition among cannabis enthusiasts alike.

White Lighters/ Club 27

Nationality: Mexican-American
Age: 24
Occupation: Student
Residence: Bell, CA
Performance Date: April 12, 2013
Primary Language: English

“White lighters are said to be bad luck. The one time I got a white lighter I ran out of gas and someone hit the mirror right off my car…all in the same week. Plus Jimi, Janis, Kurt, and Jim all had a white lighter when they died. Those things are evil. No bueno.”

 

A cultural stigma against white lighters has developed. No one really knows how this urban legend came to be. My informant refers to the Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Kurt Cobain, and Jim Morrison- also known as 27 Club. This “club” is the group of revolutionary musicians who all coincidently died at the age of 27 of alcohol or drug related causes. Jimi Hendrix the legendary guitarist and songwriter died of asphyxiation on September 18, 1970 from wine and sleeping pills. Janis Joplin, regarded as the first woman rock star died of an heroin overdose on October 4, 1970. Lead singer of the Doors, Jim Morrison, died of presumed heart failure on July 3rd. 1971. Nirvana front man and icon, Kurt Cobain, committed suicide on April 5, 1994. These musicians are the most notable and well known among many that have died at the age of 27. Most recently, Amy Winehouse has also been considered part of the 27 Club. She died On July 23, 2011of alcohol poisoning. This strange phenomenon has many theories as to why these hall of famers die at such a young age, but none can really be proven.

According to autopsy reports, each of them had a BIC white lighter in their possession. It has also been suggested that when BIC introduced lighters there were only two colors: black and white. Black was preferred among smokers because on the white lighters, ash residue was visible on the bottom of the lighter from pushing down on the bowl of a cannabis pipe. While BIC was not established until after the deaths of two of the Club 27 inductees, it is highly doubtful that the white lighters was the cause of their death. The other reason may or may not be true. Nonetheless it is a widely known legend amongst cannabis smokers.

Zongzi story and festivity

Nationality: American
Age: 32
Occupation: American
Residence: Taipei
Performance Date: 5/1/13
Primary Language: Chinese
Language: English, Japanese, Taiwanese

“There was this one guy, a poet, named Yuan I think, who loved his country very much. Then something happened to do with national disputes between the kingdoms and since he loved his country so much, he couldn’t take it and he committed suicide by throwing himself into the river. The people loved him so much though that every year on the anniversary of his death, people throw zongzi into the river to prevent the fishes from eating his body by eating the zongzi instead. His death anniversary is like around the Dragon Boat Festival, which I think is like the 5th day of the 5th month, and it’s based on the lunar calendar so the day changes every year. Oh and zong zi is that triangular food, triangular prism, and it’s a rice ball, like steamed rice wrapped in bamboo reeds. They’re probably called rice dumplings in the western world.”

In this description, Yuan was a nationalist poet during the Warring States Period who loved his country so much. Through some act of betrayal, he killed himself out of desperation. There are differing legends to the exact cause of his death. The most popular legend is that he gave warning to the Chu emperor that the Qin would take over soon. The king did not believe it, exiled the poet and was soon overthrown by the Qin as Yuan predicted and Yuan subsequently killed himself. Through his sheer, though perilous, patriotism, Yuan became a martyr to his people. This shows how much national pride matters to the Chinese people. The informant did not have a reason as to why this specific food was thrown into the river. The informant said that the food was thrown to prevent the fishes from eating Yuan’s body, but another source I found wrote that Yuan actually became a water spirit and the food was supposed to feed him. A water dragon, however, kept intervening and taking the food, so the spirit of Yuan came back and told the people to wrap it in bamboo so the dragon would not want to eat it. This gives an explanation for the exact type of food that is used for throwing and how people now still throw that in reverence of their national hero.

Citations: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/people-places/The-Legends-Behind-the-Dragon-Boat-Festival.html

Moon Cake rebellion legend

Nationality: American
Age: 32
Occupation: Student
Residence: Taipei
Performance Date: 5/1/13
Primary Language: Chinese
Language: English, Japanese, Taiwanese

“In China, people were unhappy about the Mongol rule of China and wanted to overthrow them. They were the tyranny society, and were hard to get organized. I think the people in charge were Zhu…Yuangzheng and Liu Bowen. That’s not even a Chinese name haha. Anyway on mid-Autumn festival, the people who wanted to rebel gave out moon cakes and slipped messages that said a weapon and day to meet. Then that day, the farmers and civilians banded together on that day and overthrew the king. Since then there’s been the lunar festival which has moon watching and moon cakes still. And a moon cake is a pastry that has red bean, crust, lard, and I think lotus seed paste.”

China is a strongly nationalist country and its steadfastness to maintain its current identity may come from how many past  invasions and changes of rule they had to go through. If the moon cake story is true, it was a clever way for the vast population of China, that stretches over miles of land, to come together. Keeping the tradition of the moon cake as part of the celebrations is another symbol of the current Chinese identity as one sole nation.

Killer Upstairs

Nationality: African American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: April 28
Primary Language: English
Language: Basic Spanish

So when I was younger all the kids in the elementary school were scared of going upstairs. You know the parents say go upstairs to my room and get x object. And you’re all downstairs, the lights are all off upstairs, so you always run up the stairs to get, to get the stuff and run back down, because there was a story going round that a guy went up to his parent’s room to get a, uh, a remote, a TV remote or something like that, and he got killed by a killer who only goes up there when the kids are told to go up there by their parents. So all the kids were afraid, and um, I was literally terrified, because I knew for a fact . . . there is a guy in there! There wasn’t though.

This story is an urban legend spread by elementary school children. It was told to initiate children, as older children in-the-know could tell younger children this to scare them, without believing it themselves. It was also told by children who might have believed, as many children are afraid of the darker and being alone, even in their own house. Going upstairs to a parent’s room in the dark to retrieve something can be a terrifying experience. This story helps rationalize why one should feel afraid to go upstairs alone as a child.