Category Archives: Festival

Monster Nian and Sui

Nationality: Chinese
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Residence: U.S.
Performance Date: March 18, 2017
Primary Language: English

This friend of mine heard I was finding people to collect folklore and decided to help. He came up with several origins of traditional Chinese festivals. For this particular festival, he said he read it somewhere in the book.

Story:

”

Huang: So, Nian was a monster that would visit villages to villages on the first day of the year. This brutal animal would kill and eat people in the villages, even those little kids. Every year, people would fled to the bamboo forest to hide from Nian. One year, Nian was so hungry that he followed the trial and found the bamboo forest, but for some reasons, as soon as he saw the bamboo he ran off. People realized he was afraid of the bamboo, so the next year they became bold and test the theory. The next year, Nian came to a village, but he was first terrified by a red clothing hanging in front of one house and fled; He went to the other village, but soon was scared off by the cracking sounds of burning bamboo. People confirmed that these were what Nian was afraid of, and ever since, on the New Year, people would dress in red, hang the red scrolls on their house, and set firecrackers to scare off Nian. Every time they succeeded, they would visit their family and friends to say congrats, and have a big meal in celebration. As the time goes on, Nian stopped coming out of fear, but these activities remained for precautions and became traditions for New Year.

Huang: Also, do you know where does the tradition of giving kids red pocket money [called Ya Sui Qian in Chinese, meaning “Repress Sui Money”] come from? There was a monster called Sui that would come to little kids’ dream and feed on their scare. Sounds a lot like the Monster Inc, right? Anyway, kids that met Sui would have a fever and become dumb. So parents would put some money in a red envelope and place it under their children’s pillow to exorcise Sui [Red color is believed to have the ability of repress evil spirit in China, so do the bronze coins in ancient times]. As time passes, this also became a New Year tradition.

”

Thoughts:

The name Nian and Sui both mean “year” in Chinese. This folklore explained pretty well that where the traditions of the Chinese New Year came from. I would say Nian’s story is not as often told as some of the other traditional folklore but still, now I could recall some uses of Nian in modern days. For one, I remembered Coca Cola or Pepsi in China once used Nian element in their TV ad during the Chinese New Year. On the other hand, this is the first time I heard of Sui’s story.

Qixi Festival

Nationality: Chinese
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Residence: U.S.
Performance Date: March 18, 2017
Primary Language: English

This friend of mine heard I was finding people to collect folklore and decided to help. He came up with several origins of traditional Chinese festivals. For this particular festival, he learned it from both the literature teacher and geography teacher in China. The two teachers had different focus on the story — the literature teacher mentioned it when studying a poem that referenced the story, while the geography teacher used a astronomical phenomena to explain the possible origin of this tale.

Story:

For story telling purpose, I changed the name of male protagonist, Niulang [meaning Cowherd in Chinese], to Altair; the name of the female protagonist, Zhinv [meaning “Weaver girl”] to Vega.

”

In ancient time, there lived an orphan named Altair. He was poor and had nothing except for his cow. That cow was extremely old and one day, it eventually died. That night, Altair dreamed of the cow. The cow told him to wear its skin on the day July 7th, and the skin will help him ascends to heaven. In heaven there is a river, the daughters of the Queen of heaven are having a bath there that day. The one that dresses in green would be his wife. The cow instructed Altair to hide near by, wait till they get in the water, grab her clothes and run home. Once the girl follows him to his house, she would never leave him.

Altair did what the cow told, and did come to the river of heaven on July 7th. He hided in the bushes and waited till the girl in green went into the water, grabbed her clothes and ran all the way home just as he was told. That girl did followed him to his place, demanded for her clothes back and asked why did he do that. Altair answered that he wanted to marry her, and coaxed her by praising how the earth is much better than heaven. The girl was persuaded, plus Altair himself was quite handsome himself, she agreed to marry him. She stayed on earth and started a family, weaving every day to make a living. People called her Vega.

Years had passed, Vega and Altair had a son and a daughter. One day, when Altair was working in the field, the King of heaven sent an army and captured Vega home. When Altair was back, there’re only his kids crying on the bed but Vega was no where to be found. He immediately realized what happened, put on the skin of the cow and went after Vega. When he almost caught up the army, the Queen of heaven was irritated. She pulled out her hairpin and drew a river between Altair and Vega, so that Altair could not come to rescue her. Both of them were crying so hard that the magpies heard what happened. They were moved by their love and decided to help. Hundreds of magpies linked themselves to one another and formed a bird bridge, so that Altair and Vega could step on the bridge to say goodbye. The Queen was also touched by them, so she announced that Altair and Vega could meet on this magpie bridge once a year, on every July 7th.

Thus, July 7th became a festival to celebrate the reunion of Altair and Vega and their love. On this day, girls would do needleworks, praying to be as skillful at this as Vega, as well as praying for their love.

”

Thoughts:

According to my friend‘s geography teacher, every year of this time, the Vega star rises to the highest, and the closest and the brightest star next to it is the Altair star, though they would still be divided by the galaxy. Later in August, the Vega star will head towards West and Altair star will rise to the highest point, as if the Altair is trying to chase Vega. Whether this is how this folklore came to be, or if it’s after the folklore came out people found two stars resemble them and named the stars Niulang and Zhinv, we’ll never know.

Zongzi (sticky rice dumplings)

Nationality: Chinese
Age: 58
Occupation: Art Teacher
Residence: Fullerton
Performance Date: 4/14/2017
Primary Language: Chinese

Informant KY is my aunt who was born and raised in Shanghai, and came to the states when she was in her late 20s.

KY: “a long time ago there was this dude, forgot his name, who was a war hero and a sick poet. He was loved by everyone and eventually became the emperor’s right hand man. The Emperor trusted him and listened to all of his advice. However, there began a rumor that this dude was a traitor and selling secrets to other nations, and the Emperor started believing this rumor. The guy was kicked outta nation and he just hung out on his own for a few years. Eventually he hears news that his nation has been invaded and defeated. The guy was so sad, because he really loved his country, he took a rock and drowned himself. People felt bad for him so they made these zongzi for his spirit and threw it in the river that he drowned himself in. One day as these people were throwing the zongzi the guy’s ghost floats up and was like ‘guys, the fish are eating all the food and I don’t get any’. So the people went home, put the zongzi in bamboo baskets and threw them into the river”

wait i thought they threw the rice because then the fish would eat the rice and not each the guy’s corpse

KY: “I don’t know man, thats what I remember…”

Thoughts: To me, this is a very familiar because zongzi is a large part of Chinese cuisine and culture, and I’ve heard of this story from my parents and my teachers too. Zongzi is traditionally eaten during the Dragon Boat Festival, which shows that it is a big part of Chinese culture. Anyways, this story just reminds me of when I was a kid and I would listen to my mandarin teacher tell us all these stories about why we eat different things during different Chinese festivals, and also reminds me of how much I miss home.

For another version of this story see: https://artifactsjournal.missouri.edu/2014/03/the-legend-behind-zongzi/ by Xiao Fan

The 12 Zodiac Signs

Nationality: Chinese
Age: 58
Occupation: Art teacher
Residence: Fullerton
Performance Date: 4/14/2017
Primary Language: Chinese

Informant KY is my aunt who was born and raised in Shanghai, and came to the states when she was in her late 20s.

KY: “I kind of don’t remember why they animals race. I think its because God wanted 12 guards or something, so the animals raced. The rat and the ox were the earliest to wake up so they raced. Eventually they came across a river that the rat couldn’t cross, so he jumped on the ox’s back. Once on the other side, the rat ran and got first place while the ox got second. Next came the tiger and rabbit cuz they were the fastest and most athletic. Following them in 5th place was the dragon. God saw dragon and was like damn you’re good looking your son can get 6th place. However, dragon’s son didn’t come and just then the snake shows up and says ‘I’m the dragon’s son’, making snake 6th place. Then came the horse and the goat, who were both really kind, so God ranked them 7th and 8th respectively. Eventually, the others, monkey, chicken, dog, and pig, came.”

The 12 zodiacs is a story that I had learned growing up and is present in my life a lot. Since one animal is represented each year in a cycle, your spirit animal is the animal of the year; mine is the ox. Often times my parents would ask people they just meet what their zodiac sign is to get a feel of the person. If they have the same zodiac sign people often bond over it. Zodiac sign also represents personality traits and love connections in Chinese culture. Zodiac signs are a really important part of Chinese culture and many other Asian cultures which is why it is very important to know where they came from.

 

Dussehra and Diwali Festival

Nationality: Indian
Age: 23
Occupation: Student
Residence: Mumbai, India (Los Angeles, California during the school year)
Performance Date: April 21, 2017
Primary Language: Hindi (urdu)
Language: Primary is actually Marathi, can also speak Hindi, Konkani, Kannada, and English

“Dussehra and Diwali both are basically celebrated for the triumph of good over evil. So, mytholoigcally speaking, there were two gods, Ram and his wife Sita. Sita was kidnapped by Raavan, Aasur as they called it, a Satan in maybe English. So now, Raavan kidnapped Sita and took her to a place where Ram had to, you know, cut down trees, go inside the forest, look for her, and then kill many people. People as in like, the bad people obviously, and then when he found Sita, he brought her home and killed Raavan. Raavan had ten heads, so he was called Dash Aasur. Dash is ten and Aasur is a devil, so Dash Aasur, as in the ten headed bad guy. He killed Raavan and that’s why we celebrate Dussehra, where we make a statue of Raavan and burn it. We burn it so that we can tell people that they need not be scared, he’s dead, and it’s the triumph of good over bad. And then, there is the festival called Diwali, which is ten days after it. It is a part of Dussehra. So, after Dussehra, you have Diwali, the festival of lights. People lite candles, like lanterns everywhere, candles everywhere, and then they decorate their houses with flowers and colors just to celebrate.”

In India, there are around fifty festivals that are celebrated all around the year. However, half of them are more regional, while the others are more nationally celebrated. Essentially, most of the festivals are known, but not all are celebrated in every state. These two in particular take place at the end of October through the first week of November.

As are a lot of their festivals, color plays a huge role in Dussehra and Diwali. For these festivals, it is more elegant than some, but still has to be colorful. You are not supposed to wear black because Indians view it to be ominous, which would go against the festival’s idea of good defeating evil.

The informant relayed this to me while we were re-shelving books in the stacks of Doheny Library at USC. She is one of my co-workers.

It is very common around the world for celebrations to revolve around their gods, but I was surprised when she described the festival being based on a myth before telling me about it. I feel that it is very uncommon for people to discuss their myths in such a way to other people, already acknowledging that others do not believe what they do. However, I found that she was more open to discussing and sharing it with me because of her approach, even though she does believe in the gods.