Category Archives: Legends

Narratives about belief.

Unconventional Pregnancy- Folk Belief

Nationality: Mexican American
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Residence: Oakland, CA
Performance Date: March 14, 2011
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

A girl can get pregnant from swimming in water that has been ejaculated into.

 A woman can become pregnant from sitting on a toilet seat with ejaculate on it.

You can get an STD from a public restroom’s toilet.

My informant heard all of these unconventional pregnancy/sexs methods when she was in high school. She recalls being a bit skeptical about them back then when she was a 14 year old high school freshmen, but now she finds them absurd and laughable. She thinks that people continue to tell these folk beliefs is because the world is seen as a dirty place. As girls grow from children into young women they feel particularly vulernable to the world they can no longer be shielded from by their parents. Even in places that should be harmless, like a hotel swimming pool or your neighbor’s toilet can be dangerous because you never know who using it before you and what they were doing there. A thought like that can be scary and yet there is little that can be done about it, besides making sure to cover the toilet seat and to never go swimming.

I agree with what my informant said, but I also think there might another reason that these folk beliefs are spread, especially among young teenagers. I think these beliefs can act as a scapegoat for people’s sexual exploits. If a young woman who is believed to be a virgin by her family and friends becomes pregnant, the story goes from being condemning to tragic if she was impregnated by some force outside of her control. If she was engaging in a harmless and innocent activity, such as using the bathroom or going for a swim, when she became pregnant she can’t really be blamed for what has happened. Similarly to those who contract STDs from public restrooms again it alleviates blame of any frowned upon sexual activity.

Annotation: The folk belief that swimming in a pool of water that has been ejaculated into was used as a basis for a lawsuit in 2009. A woman sued a hotel in Egypt after claiming that her 13 year old daughter become pregnant from swimming in their swimming pool.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           Doyle, H. (2009, July 09). Teen pregnant after ‘swimming in pool’. The Sun, Retrieved from http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2525921/Teen-pregnant-after-swimming-in-pool.html

“Gook” and “Tianmu” Origination Legend/Starcraft and Koreans.

Nationality: Asian American
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Room 4203B, 920 W. 37th PL. Los Angelos, California 90007
Performance Date: 4/22/2011
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

My informant is a third generation Chinese American male student. He grew up in Irvine, California. During dinner in a shopping center, he mentioned the following origination legend of the word “gook” (He was eating Korean food, which prompted his anecdote):

“Informant: Ok, so, why are Koreans called gooks?

Collector: Why?

Informant: Well, during the Korean War, the South Korean troops would applaud the American soldiers when they came walking through the fields to liberate them and they’ll cry out, “Megook! Megook!”, which means “America” in Korean. However, the American soldiers, in all their wisdom, felt that the Korean soldiers were identifying themselves as gook, “me gook”; hence they started calling them gooks. So the Koreans are called me “gook!”, me “gook!”. “Oh, you call yourself gook! I get it, you guys are all gooks!”

Collector: Ok, so where did you hear this?

Informant: I heard it from my Korean friends.

Collector: Do you know where he heard it from?

Informant: He’s Korean [laughter]. He was probably born knowing this story, kind of like how he was born knowing how to play Starcraft, and born knowing that they created the sundial.

Collector: [laughter] Well, what do you think is the importance of that little tidbit of history?

Informant: The term “gook” is often used to apply to Southeast Asian populations, as well as Koreans. This kind of says that Koreans are indeed number 1.”

This legend is set during the Korean War from 1950 – 1953 and explains the origination of the racial slur “gook”. My informant’s tone of voice implies that the Americans are, as he says, liberators (“the good guys”) but nonetheless foolish. The foolishness of the American soldiers lies in their assumption that everyone speaks English and in their misunderstanding of the Korean that the Koreans are speaking. The legend suggests that the American soldiers hold a sort of bigoted assumption that everyone naturally speaks English.

Interestingly, I, myself, have heard a variation of this legend in 2005 from a cram school math teacher in Tianmu, Taipei, Taiwan. Here’s a bit of background on me: I’m a third generation Chinese Taiwanese male student who was born in Taipei, Taiwan. I speak English and Chinese. I lived in Taipei for two years before moving to New Jersey, where I lived for seven years. After that, I returned to Taipei where I finished high school.

My cram school math teacher performed this legend as a joke item in between math tests.

For more information on Tien-mu, click this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tianmu,_Shilin_District.

As I remember, the story goes:

“Do you know where the name Tianmu comes from? Back in the 1960s, when American Soldiers occupied Tianmu, they would come into the fields and ask the Taiwanese farmers, “Where are we?” But, the Taiwanese farmers, unable to understand English, said, “Tee-yah-buo?” (‘Tee-yah-buo’ means ‘I don’t understand’ in Taiwanese), “Tee-yah-buo?”. The American Soldiers misunderstanding the farmers said, “Oh! Tian-mu! Tian-mu. Ok. OK.” Hence, Tianmu is called Tianmu.”

*My cram school math teacher performed the legend in Chinese; however, it’s been too long for me to remember the exact way he performed it.*

Both my informant and my legend deal with post-world war affairs in East Asian. While the “gook ” legend originated during or after the Korean War, the “Tianmu” legend originated during or after the American occupation of Taiwan in the 1950s, when the U.S was still fighting the Pacific front. However, the story could have also possibly originated in the 1960s when U.S soldiers stayed in Tianmu to help the reconstruction of Taipei’s economy. The legends both show a cultural remembrance in how the U.S shaped East Asia in the 1950s to 1960s post world war II and overall, portray the Americans as a positive influence yet foolish in their approach. Moreover, the tone both the legends were performed do suggest a sort of respect for the work the American soldiers did in Korea and Taiwan.

Another interesting thing my informant mentioned in his performance of the “gook” legend was:

“kind of like how he was born knowing how to play Starcraft, and born knowing that they created the sundial.”

There seems to be a widespread belief on the internet and in online gaming folk culture that Koreans are really good at Starcraft, a online real time strategy game. A simple Google search on “koreans are good at starcraft” yields 2,770,000 results.  More information can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StarCraft_II:_Wings_of_Liberty.

Also, there seems to be a widespread belief that  Koreans think they invented everything, hence my informant mentions that his Korean friend was born knowing that his country created the sundial, which is not a widespread belief. A quick Google search on “koreans invented everything” yields 2,670,000 results. This is possibly a result of widespread rumors of legal claims that Korea has made to the World Heritage Foundation on several cultural artifacts, which are generally considered Chinese cultural items, such as Confucius, soybean milk and the Dragonboat festival…etc.

Rafting Legend – Shanandoa Mountains, Virginia

Nationality: Mexican American/ Slovenian American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student - Neuroscience
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 18 April 2011
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

On a rafting trip her friend’s “mother was saying, ‘Oh, you know you guys should be careful you could drown and I was like, ‘Oh, no. I’m a good swimmer.’ And she was like, ‘No! I know this story about this old woman who was rafting on the river out here and uh, she was a really good swimmer like you Andrea, you know she was a really good swimmer. But she fell out of the raft in the high rapids and she got stuck under one of the rocks cause you know like under it cause the current was so fast going over it that she got stuck and then she drowned and she couldn’t get out.’ And this was used to scare me and my friend. And it definitely worked!”

The informant, originally from Arlington, Virginia, learned this legend was she was in 3rd grade on a rafting trip with her friend’s family. They had gone over some terrifying rapids on a multiple day rafting trip and her friend’s Mom had had them get really low into the boat so they no one would fall out. The informant clearly understands this as a legend told to scare children into behaving well while rafting.

This mother may have exaggerated the dangers of rafting – the logistics of getting caught under a rock are not beyond imagining but out of the real of normal experience. Mentioning this legend served its purpose not so much in being a realistic representation but in controlling child behavior enough to relieve a frightened mother’s anxiety. Especially a mother that was given the task of ensuring the safety of not only her own child but also another’s child who she didn’t as trusting a relationship with.

Harvard Bridge

Age: 44
Residence: Maplewood, NJ
Performance Date: 1/4/2011
Primary Language: English

Interview:

“One of the bridges across the Charles River in Boston is measured, not only in feet, (it’s about a few thousand feet long or something), but also measured as 360 “Smoots” long. In fact, I think there’s a plaque or something on the bridge, which gives the measurements. Smoot was a guy in a Harvard club, who had to lie down, make a mark, get up, lie down again, and measure how long the bridges.”

Joe heard this story sometime during his freshman year at Harvard University in 1984.

Really, Oliver Smoot was a pledge at MIT in 1958. Being the shortest pledge, his brothers measured the length of the bridge by flipping him end over end, the whole way across. The bridge is approximately 2,164ft, or 364 Smoots +/- one ear.

The story is published by the Lamba Chi Alpha Fraternity chapter at MIT, and the “smoot marks” are repainted every year. Joseph’s version of the story named Smoot as a member of Harvard club, rather than an MIT undergrad, which demonstrates a level of multiplicity and variation.

H. E. Widener “Ice Cream Endowment” at Harvard University

Age: 44
Residence: Maplewood, NJ
Performance Date: 12/27/2010
Primary Language: English

In the freshman dining halls at Harvard University, there is always ice cream available for dessert. Supposedly, this is because the mother of a student named Harry Elkins Widener endowed the school with an “ice cream fund” following his death in the Titanic disaster, because ice cream was her son’s favorite food.

The “ice cream fund” has never been confirmed, but it lives on through generations of Harvard undergraduates. Joseph heard this legend in his freshman year at Harvard. Despite total lack of evidence, (even evidence to the contrary) the story persists. Students keep up the story, perhaps, because it reinforces a sense of elite identity. To have something as indulgent as an “ice cream endowment” to attribute to the identity of being a Harvard undergraduate.