Text: My grandfather was about 9 years old when this had happened to him in the Philippines. In the middle of the night at around 2 am, he had woken up to use the restroom. My dad added the fact that he and his siblings all slept on the floor in the same room. Since it is the Philippines, the bathroom was outside.

He started urinating and about 100 feet away saw what was probably a small person, maybe an old lady pacing in a circle. The lady starting walking towards papa and with each step seem to be growing until she was giant. My grandfather screamed and ran back inside the house.

Context: I had asked my dad for some stories for this project. He had told me a story that his father had told him when he was a little boy. Beforehand, my father had been listening to the other stories my grandma and aunt were telling me, so I believe he wanted to share this story because of how similar it was to the ones he heard growing up.

Analysis: Although I have written another story focusing on the kapre, I wanted to share this one specifically because of the context in which I heard it. After asking my dad for some folklore stories, he had told me this specific one of his father from the Philippines. My dad had never been to the Philippines before and has lived in America his whole life, so I thought it was interesting that his stories of the supernatural belonged to his parents. As my family continues growing, I wonder how these supernatural stories will evolve with them. I had never heard of a folklore type story coming from my parents. It’s only my grandma’s generation or older. Once I become my grandma’s age, will I continue to tell her stories? How much will my retellings change it? It seemed to me that new stories with these creatures had begun with each generation, but moving to America has stopped these stories and started the recirculation of legends and myths from my grandma’s generation. I become fearful that I will lose the culture that these stories hold so dearly to my family. As a third-generation child with parents that also feel very removed from the culture, these stories put into perspective my fear for the future and how I will continue to feel even more far away from my culture than I do right now. However, writing down these stories, I hope to somewhat perserve some of that cultural signifance and the feeling that my family has when we first hear these stories being told to us.