The Monster Nian, Chinese New Year, and Red

Age: 19

Text:

Interviewee:

On the first day of Chinese Spring Festival (New Year’s Eve), my family and I would set off firecrackers and fireworks, and it’s best if they are very loud ones. It was then that I was told about the myth of a monster named Nian. The physical appearance of Nian looks like a lion, with pointed teeth and a scary, ugly face. According to the myth, on the first day of the Chinese Spring Festival, Nian will come out from the mountains to the neighborhoods of every Chinese family. Nian will be hunting for children to eat.

In the past, people had no idea what to do when Nian came, until one day, someone set off a firecracker exactly when Nian visited their house. It was then that the firecracker brought out “fire,” and Nian was very scared of fire, so it ran away.

There are other sayings about what drove Nian away. Some people say that Nian is very scared of the color red. Therefore, during Spring Festival, everyone will wear clothes in red in order to drive the monster away and protect themselves and their families. For instance, I was born in the Year of the Pig, and my grandmother always tells me to wear red socks during the Year of the Snake, because the two zodiac signs conflict (snake eats pig), according to Chinese traditional beliefs.

Red also became a symbol of good luck in the context of the Lunar Chinese New Year. For instance, people will hang up red lanterns to decorate the house, elders will prepare red envelopes to give out Lucky Money or [压岁钱 ya sui qian] to children in the family, and the window papercut we use specifically to celebrate Chinese New Year is always red.

Context:

The interviewee learned the myth of monster Nian as a child, around 6 or 7 years old. This myth was shared by the elders of his family when they were celebrating the Chinese New Year together. The interviewee’s thoughts: he found Nian a scary figure as a child, but got used to this belief (and the rituals around wearing clothes in Red during Chinese New Years) gradually as he grew up.

Analysis:

Myth as an explanation for ritual: Monster Nian’s story is an example of how a myth has led to the emergence of a ritual, long practiced by the Chinese when celebrating the Spring Festival (Chinese New Year) every year.

Temporal Liminality: New Year is a threshold moment, marking the end of the old year and the beginning of a new year, and Nian comes exactly on New Year’s Eve. This is representative of liminality being a time when the line between the human world and the supernatural world gets blurred. Nian’s presence on New Year’s Eve makes the distance between the human world and the supernatural world closer and thinner.

Development of a set of rituals, including ones related to fireworks and the color red: The development of a set of rituals following Nian’s story is representative of a growing Communitas: a community spirit or “togetherness” that grows from a ritual or being in a liminal zone together. This applies to the practice of setting off fireworks or putting on clothes in red when it’s Chinese New Year—as this became a ritual, everyone around is doing the same, and going through the same “liminal” phase of entering the new year.

The Gold that Has Legs

Text:

Interviewee:

My grandparents told me that “gold has legs” when we were in a jewelry shop. There were many things made of gold: gold rings, gold bracelets, gold necklaces… When they saw the gold, my grandparents told me, “Do you know that gold has legs and can run?”

I was very surprised and confused at first. I was like, what? Gold can run?

My grandma then explained that when my father was younger, he tried to hide gold underneath the floor of our house as a way of keeping it safe. However, he failed—after several years, when he tried to dig it out, he was unable to find the gold he had previously stored.

This then led to my grandparents’ conclusion: since it was hidden at home, and nobody has ever taken it or checked it—everything seemed to be very secure—it must be that the gold has run away by itself.

Context:

My informant learned of this folk belief last year, when he and his grandparents were browsing gold jewelries in a jewelry shop in his hometown. He was then told of this belief when his grandparents started telling him how his father used to use the soil to “store” gold underneath their floor, while failing to find it later after time passed.
My informant’s interpretation: He believes that by telling him of this belief, his grandparents were telling him, “Don’t try to hide your expensive things in a place for too long.”


Analysis:

This is a folk belief (and a superstition) shared by the elderly generation in China.

This folk belief exemplifies the use of folklore to fill an explanatory gap: The belief that “gold has legs and can run” is a way to explain the seemingly weird, inexplicable situation that happened to the informant’s father when he tried to store gold underneath the ground. The scientific reason, in reality, is that the ground shifts over time due to geological reasons and crustal movement. In addition, gold has weight, so it is reasonable from a scientific aspect that the gold has either changed its location or sunken into deeper parts of the ground (soil).

Lake Monster

Age: 19

Interviewee:

This story was told by my father when both of us were swimming in a lake in my hometown, a town in China. My dad told me that there was a lake monster who dwelled in this lake. This lake monster will punish travelers who have done something evil recently, and the way that the monster acts out this, sort of, punishment, is that they will kill them in the water. According to my father, victims often described that something held on to their legs and pulled them down to the deep water. They were either killed or deeply injured.

Interviewer: Does this monster only haunt you if you have done something wrong? And if you are a morally good person, it will not haunt you?
Interviewee: According to the myth, yes.

Interviewer: Has this story been used to explain, or was it proved to be “real” in any real incidents?
Interviewee: Yes. A few years ago, a person in my hometown died in that lake, and his family explained this as him being killed by the water monster. That day, he went to swim in the lake near a reservoir. When they found the deceased person, folks in my hometown believed it was the lake monster who caused his death. While scientifically speaking, it’s seaweeds. He couldn’t really swim well, and it was wild water, so some seaweeds must have trapped him from the bottom.

Interviewer: When you’re swimming in the lake, are you scared of the monster?
Interviewee: No. Cuz I didn’t do anything bad (laughs).

Context:

In the words of the interviewee: “This story was shared by my father, a middle-aged man who grew up in a small town in China. He told it to me while we were actually swimming together in the very lake he was describing—it’s a lake in the wild, without much protection and very close to nature.”


Analysis:

  • Vernacular transmission: This story was told to the informant by his father when they were swimming in a local lake in his hometown. The monster is very specific to that lake. The way the informant’s father tells him of this monster legend makes it very vernacular—informal, local to their hometown, a small town in China.
  • Moral story and cautionary tale: This legend serves the purpose of “education” under Bascom’s functionalist framework. The informant’s father, by telling this legend, educates the informant to be a good person and live with integrity—when being asked if he was scared, the interviewee said he wasn’t scared “because he hasn’t done bad things.” This mirrors exactly what this legend is used for—to caution people not to do morally bad things, or they will get into trouble. Thus, certain moral ideologies are reinforced by telling a scary story. This makes this legend a mixture of a cautionary tale and a moral story.

Hammer and Nail

Text

Interviewee: In a summer camp I attended while in elementary school, my teacher told us about this proverb: “If you are holding a hammer, everything you see is a nail.” In Chinese: “手里拿着锤子，看什么都像钉子.”

Hammer and nail are a perfect duo. However, when a hammer becomes the only tool you reach for, it distorts perception. In this proverb, the message is that if you always hold a hammer and see everything as a nail, you will forever be seeing this world through a single, fixed way of thinking.

It was a simple, concrete way for my teacher to educate me about not being hindered by my preconceived notions—my “hammer”—when seeing the world. It’s about teaching kids to have an open mind and think outside of the box sometimes.

Context:

My interviewee first encountered this proverb in China, shared by a teacher when she was attending a summer camp as an elementary school student.

Analysis:

This proverb is an educative proverb that teaches the audience about cognitive bias using the metaphor of a hammer and nail. It is vernacular because, while this was shared in a summer camp by a teacher, this proverb wasn’t in the textbook, and neither was it formally written down. It’s essentially a metaphor about having an open mindset: it warns against the human tendency to fit problems to our existing solutions rather than seeking solutions suited to the actual problem.

Genre analysis:
Metaphorical structure: This proverb’s metaphorical structure—using a concrete, well-known physical object to metaphorically render an abstract lesson—is characteristic of a proverb.

Sentence structure / phoenetics: In addition, the sentence structure in Chinese—each clause having the exact same number of Chinese characters—makes this proverb rhyme and easier to remember and tell from a structural/phonetic perspective.

Willy’s Story

Age: 22

Text:

Interviewee:
The story is kind of a monster-ghost story from my hometown, Thousand Oaks, California. It’s about Willy, the moster.

There is this forest area behind my neighbor’s house, and they always warn their kids “Don’t go in the forest after dark, because there is a monster in the woods named Willy, and he’s gonna grab you.”  Willy was like a old, mean, adult figure that’s kind of a spirit in a sense, and he came with a cane. Then, this story got circulated around my neighborhood, and all the kids know this story.

Essentially, if kids disobeyed, like went into the forest, they would get taken. It’s kind of like the classic, like, be weary of stranger danger story. So yeah, that basically is the gist of the story itself. All the kids in my neighborhood know this story. We always tease each other, “Be careful of Willy, don’t go in the forest.” It kind of has that local legend feel, which is kind of interesting.

I was never brave enough to go in the forest and check on that, like I didn’t want to be the person to see that Willy’s real, you know, so I trusted everyone’s judgement.


Interviewer: This story kind of reminds me of Little Red Riding Hood, like don’t go off the track.
Interviewee: Yeah, yeah. Otherwise you will get into trouble.


Interviewer: Is there a prototype, or, is there someone who was actually taken, that you know of?
Interviewee: Lucky for my neighborhood—no. No one got taken by the monster. It was more of
just a cautionary tale. There is no specific people who got taken, but my parents would joke around and, like, have items being taken from my backyard, when I was like, “Oh where did my ball go?” They’d be like, “Oh, Willy took it,” and they probably just donated it or something.

Context:

When the interviewee was growing up, around 8 to 9 years old, he was told this story by his parents. All the kids in his neighborhood know this story, and some of the parents even brought this up too——according to the interviewee, “I think that’s actually where it originated, a friend’s parent told them this story.”

Analysis:

“Stranger Danger” Cautionary Tale: Willy’s Story is a local cautionary tale. This tale functions to regulate children’s behavior. Willy is an archetype of the stranger danger—an outsider who is dangerous and must be avoided by the children. On an emotional level, this stranger, who is old and carries a cane, contrasts with the safe domestic environment in which children grow up. Children are told this story because parents would like them to be cautious of the outside world, the strangers, and the forest.

Transmission: According to the informant, a parent in the neighborhood started telling this story to their kids, and then “all the kids (in his neighborhood) know this story,” and sometimes parents know too. This represents a vernacular transmission that is local and informal, and it is also one that goes in various directions. For instance, first it was transmitted in a top-down way, but it was later transmitted peer-to-peer by the children.