Category Archives: Old age

Retirement, seniority, death, funerals, remembrances

Hungry Ghost Festival — Singapore

Nationality: Chinese
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Singapore and Los Angeles
Performance Date: March 23, 2013
Primary Language: English
Language: Chinese

Interview Extract:

informant: “So in Singapore, around August or September, I forget which month but somewhere there, we have this festival sort of, called the Hungry Ghost Festival. And it’s where all our deadancestors come alive again for a day, but we sort of like, celebrate it for a whole week kinda. And what we do is we buy lots of paper money…it’s like square paper with a gold leaf…impression on it, and we’ll fold it into shapes, like ingots. It’s kinda like origami. And this represents money, which we’ll dump into bins that everyone has. Not like every person, but like, every apartment complex or every house. Like any public complex or space, we’ll dump the paper money shapes there.”

Me: “What does the money signify, or rather, why would it be necessary on the day the dead come back?”

Informant: “Oh, well in Singapore, when someone dies, you’ll burn paper money for them, sorta like to send them off with good fortune and wealth. And we do the same thing for like, when our ancestors come back.”

Me: “I see. So what else do you. You celebrate for a whole week?”

Informant: “Yeah. We’ll burn incense, have lots of food. Like there’s cakes, oranges, eggs…boiled eggs, I don’t really know why, but boiled ones, and rice and fruits, and just like, donations or offerings. It’s for the dead. And it’s really one day but we have the preparation last a while and there’s concerts and performances too.”

Me: “It’s a bit like Halloween or Day of the Dead celebrations.”

Informant: “Yeah, kinda. You have something similar here. But ours isn’t focused on like, creepiness so much.”

Analysis:

The Hungry Ghost Festival is indeed like Halloween, a day in which past spirits are recognized, but it is also much more like the Mexican Dia de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, where past ancestors are treated with respect and given offerings. The ghosts don’t seem to pose any danger to the people celebrating, and are in fact welcomed since these are the old ancestors of families. The donations and offerings are there as signs of respect and a way to ensure comforts of passed family members. The fact that there are performances and concerts, as well as a whole community effort to make the paper money shapes, demonstrates that this is a bonding festival, bringing people together.

My informant was very eager when talking about this festival. She especially seemed to enjoy paper ingots that she would make and that the whole apartments would collect. It is a very neighborly tradition, and brings not only families close, but communities. The ancestors’ ghosts become a communal experience, instead of just focusing on personal ties. Everyone participates in buying the special paper, folding it, and collecting it, also showing that this festival is extremely inclusive, and unlike Halloween, does not limit who can join based on age.

Had my informant been back in Singapore this past year during the festival, I’m sure she would have joined in on the celebrations. It seems like a tradition heavily embedded into South Chinese culture, emphasizing money and food, the basic things needed to provide comfort and security. Evidently, it is a kindness to bestow these things to those in the afterlife as well as the living.

Russian death custom

Nationality: Russian
Age: 20
Occupation: Actuary/student
Residence: Troy, Michigan
Performance Date: 3/28/13
Primary Language: English
Language: Russian

“In Russia, when someone dies, you leave an empty spot at the table. Then you pour one shot glass of vodka and put a piece of bread over the glass. This makes it like they’re still with you and you’re still making room for them in your home.”

Like the informant said, after death, the deceased person still is a part of the lives of the living. The people remember the person through leaving food, which is inherently is meant to sustain you physically, though in case it sustains the person spiritually. According to PBS, the bread on top of the glass is black, and its a ‘reversal of the traditional Russian custom of breaking black bread when meeting someone for the first time.’ Therefore, though the living are temporarily memorializing the dead with the food, they are also saying goodbye for the last time.

Citation: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/onourownterms/articles/cultural.html

Hearse Song

Nationality: White
Age: 22
Occupation: Screenwriter
Residence: Los Angeles (from Glendale, CA)
Performance Date: April 24, 2012
Primary Language: English

Hearse Song

Did you ever think when a hearse goes by, that some day you are gonna die?

They’ll wrap you up in a big white sheet and throw you down about 500 feet.

The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out, the worms play peaknuckle on your snout.

And after a while, the snot comes out, and you spread it on bread, cuz that’s what you eat, when you’re dead!

 

My informant remembered this song, which she described as “a classic, grim piece of oral tradition,” and said that it brought back a lot of memories from her childhood. When she was little, the informant’s mother would sing this song whenever they passed a hearse, and the informant said it was always a very visceral for her, and that ‘the part about the snot coming out and eating it really disgusted me’. She learned it from her mom, and she thinks her grandfather used to sing it, because her mother said that it reminded her of her dad whenever a hearse drove by.

 

As my informant stated, this song is a ‘classic, grim piece of oral tradition,’ but also a particularly interesting one. Not only is it a song sung in America that openly addresses mortality and the fact that death is inevitable, but the intended audience is children. America is one of the countries that shuns, fears, and stigmatizes death the most—possibly why horror movies are one of the topmost grossing genres of film in the US—so it’s interesting that this song is a non-romanticized and very explicit recounting of what happens when you die (no heaven or angels here). Further, the lyrics and the major key of the song makes light of death altogether, making jovial and silly what Americans consider one of the most sorrowful and somber occasions ever. What else is interesting about this song, which coincides with the lyrics and the major key, is that the song is targeted for children. The song, which sounds very much like a camp song children would sing to laugh and gross each other out about a particularly macabre subject, could have been used as a fun and entertaining way to let children participate in something seemingly transgressive while also familiarizing them with the concept of death.

The Chinese Moon Festival

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Student Housing
Performance Date: April 24th
Primary Language: English

Contextual Information

Time of Interview: April 24th, 2012, 11:52 a.m.

Location of Interview: Interior of EVK Dining Hall

Informant’s First Encounter w/ Folklore: Since birth. It is a family tradition.

When Folklore is Performed: On the 15th day of the 8th month of the lunar calendar.

 

Transcript:

“Chinese Moon Festival is one of the biggest holidays of the lunar calendar and basically the premise is, um, it’s a time of harvest, but also doubles as, like, a time when the family get’s together. It’s also called the Mid-Autumn festival and that’s where the harvest comes in, but the moon festival always falls upon the full moon. The idea is that wherever you are, you always see the same moon as your family and that’s when you look up and, um, reminisce over your family. One of the foods that we eat is the moon cake, and inside is a salted egg yoke which symbolizes the moon.”

 

My informant was very excited to relay this information to me. While the excitement may have also stemmed from the food we were about to eat, it was clear that this tradition was very special to him. It was not difficult for me to see why. While we do have Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, rare is the holiday that celebrates the entire family. However, the Chinese Moon seems to commemorate not just the immediate family, but a world family united under one moon. Most who celebrate the lunar calendar return home to their family. For individuals whose families are simply too far away, such as my informant, it serves as a sacred and endearing ritual for him.

Washington’s Hill

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Student Housing
Performance Date: April 24th
Primary Language: English

Contextual Information

Time of Interview: April 24th, 3:33 p.m.

Location of Interview: Interior of Birnkrant, 6th floor hallway.

Informant’s first encounter w/ folklore: Early childhood

When Folklore is Performed: National Holidays, such as July 4th

 

Transcript:

“In New Jersey, my town is Chatham. It doesn’t have a super long history, but it has a decent history. In our town, it’s split into a borough and a township. All through the borough there are little plaques around saying, “This person is here, this person is there.” Near my town is Springfield, and during the revolutionary war, there’s the battle of Springfield and there’s this one big hill where apparently George Washington stood and watched the battle of Springfield from the top of this hill. Now it’s weird because the hill’s a graveyard, but every year people do go their, look out over the field and think about what could have been. It’s weird, because the hill has a really good view of New York, one of the best. Now, every year people will go there and look on 9/11, and they’ll shoot the two beams of light that are supposed to be the towers and the hill takes on a new meaning.”

 

For my informant’s town, this hill serves as a way to reflect upon both a proud and a tragic part of their American heritage and history. It allows the young and the old to stand in the same spot as Washington and see how the America that he saw has formed over the years.