Fable – The Ant and the Grasshopper

Nationality: Thai
Occupation: USC Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Language: English and Thai

My informant is from Thailand and this is a story they were told by their parents as a child.

The Ant and the Grasshopper:

The story goes that the one Fall, there was a group of ants and a grasshopper. The ants were hard working, collecting food for the upcoming winter. However, the grasshopper was not. All he cared about was having fun and playing around without a care in the world. Later, Winter comes and the ants have food to eat but the grasshopper doesn’t. He begs for food but they scold him and say he can’t have any because he was being lazy and didn’t get it for himself. Since he didn’t work for his own food and the ants won’t give him any, he dies from starvation.

This story would be categorized as a tale, more specifically a fable. This story is a fable because it’s a fictional tale with talking animals who are being used to teach a moral lesson.

The moral lesson of this story is that you shouldn’t be lazy and expect people to help you out when you didn’t do the work you were suppose to. It’s a fable that discourages laziness, shortsightedness, and expecting people to give you things you don’t deserve. It encourages being like the ants who work hard for what they have, practice collective and collaborative labor that benefits them all, and are well equipped for the Winter (hard times) because of their hard work.

Chinese New Year – Folk Origin Myth

Nationality: Chinese and American
Age: 20
Occupation: USC Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA

Context:

My informant is from China. In China they celebrate Chinese New Year, otherwise known as Lunar New Year, which is the most important traditional holiday in their culture. Lunar New Year, marking the start of the lunar calendar year, is said to symbolize a fresh start and the opportunity to leave bad luck behind and welcome what the new year has to offer. The lunar calendar follows the moon’s monthly cycles and is about 354 days, making a leap month necessary to stay in line with the seasons. Lunar New Year is widely celebrated in many other East and Southeast Asian countries. Its significance lies in the blending of ancient traditions with modern day practices.

Conversation pulled from audio:
Informant:

“This is like a Chinese New Year’s story, basically. Like why you have to put like you have to have fireworks and like you have to put up like red stuff or wear red on Chinese New Year’s. It’s because like basically there was like a town in the past that was like always like attacked by like I was like tormented, I guess, whatever, like by a monster that lived in the mountains and it would come down once a year to like eat people. And basically like they realized that like by setting bamboo on fire, it causes like a bang, like a really like loud popping and like banging sound. And like the monster would be like scared of the sound. And then they also realized that like the monster was like scared of red because it’s like really it’s like looks like fire, right? And then so, but this is really out of order, but you guys can Polish it.

{ 1:01 }
And so like they did these things and then the monster would like stay away. And like when it did come down, it would like run away. So yeah.

Me: { 1:10 }
The red scared it off?

Informant: { 1:14 }
The red and then the firecrackers because it’s like when you set the bamboo on fire, it like kind of sounds like a firecracker.

Me: { 1:19 }
A ritual. Gotcha. I like that. That’s awesome. Thank you so much.”

Analysis:

Is this story true? Who knows. That’s what makes it a folk myth. Does it even matter if it’s true? I don’t think so. I find it interesting nonetheless. The fact that my informant was told this story as a child as the origin of Chinese New Year is all that matters. That’s what makes it folklore because this story has been pasted down by the folk, true or not.

What I find interesting is it’s explanations for why people wear red and light firecrackers during this holiday. The monster, symbolic or not, is scared away by the color red and the lighting of firecrackers because it’s scared of fire. Is this symbolic? I think so. I think it could represent bad luck, chaos, hardship, or winter and with the new year you celebrate to ward these things off. Often in folklore monsters are used to represent natural or social fears. This monster could also represent the warding off of doubts about the new year and struggles like famine and fear of invasion from the closing year.

Tale about Shiva’s Tandava

Nationality: American
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Connecticut, United States
Language: English

Context: Told by his grandpa, Shiva, is a powerful Hindu God, who is known as the destroyer of worlds. One time, he performed a dance called the Tandava, a dance that represents destruction. However, Shiva’s tandava was so powerful that it destroyed parts of the world. Initially, his grandpa told him that villagers thought this wasn’t a good thing, as when is destruction a good thing? It doesn’t bring peace. Rather, it was. Demons and corrupt empires fell apart as a result of the tandava, diminishing into rubble. At the conclusion of this dance, the opprotunity for cities to be rebuilt into something bigger, better, and more impactful was possible from this dance, and societal change was brought around.

Interpretation: Ritually, the Tandava is performed at festivals year around, to represent the destruction of evil through a cultural symbol that unites Hindus. This powerful cosmic-representative dance accompanied with a deep and rhythmic beat seems to instill fear for enemies and pride for others symbolizing a contrast of good versus evil in an artistic mean. With the cosmos, also playing a role here, with the destruction of a planet, a non-literal truth is taught here as in order for something good or to be a better person, sometimes you have to challenge yourself and push yourself past your limits to start shaping yourself or something out of an old shell. The cycle in this story ties with an individuals preservation, destruction, and creation of self. I find the hierarchal sort of nature of this tale interesting in the fact that one deity’s action affects everyone, similar to Adam and Eve with the Snake. Eve’s decision of taking the apple altered the course of what happened. While the decision making and implications are different, the similarity lies in the fact that a non-literal truth or sort of psychological thought is created adns tuck with them ever since.

Tales about Hindu God Hanuman

Nationality: American
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Seattle, Washington
Language: English

Context: Hearing from his father, as a kid, he learned about the Hindu Monkey Deity, Hanuman. Known as a sidekick to Lord Rama in his plight to save his wife, Sita from the demon king, Ravana. Hanuman’s childhood was not of the ordinary, he recalls. Being raised amongst a monkey troop, and being curious, he one day flew up to the sun and ate it thinking it was a ripe mango. One of the gods, Indra, was displeased by this, so he struck Hanuman, injuring him and making him fall down back into the Earth. As such, he sustained injuries making him have a unique chin. His dad told him this story with the idea that anything is possible, even if it seems impossible. Eating the sun may not be the easiest thing to do, but Hanuman put his mind to it and was able to do it, almost succeeding. Carrying this same mentality to your goals will allow you to achieve anything your mind and heart desires.

Your Interpretation: From this story, a tale like this involves lunar and external factors where they shape up the story. Rather than a traditional hero and villain dynamic, we see how a character causes physical changes to the main character of the story. Compared to European tales, the environment and setting doesn’t seem to be extraterrestrial or out of the ordinary rather teaching a non-literal truth. Furthermore, it teaches us that children and us, as an individual, have a natural curiosity and innocence that causes us to explore whatever it is unbeknownst of the danger that lies ahead. Going back to the cosmic nature of this tale, by eating the sun he disrupts the natural order of the lunar system that we discussed in class.

Tales about Ganesha

Nationality: American
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Hyderabad, India
Language: English

Context: Learning from his parents, passed down generation to generation, he learned about the Hindu Deity, Ganesha, the son of Hindu Gods Shiva, and Parvati. Being a child, he loved eating, especially modaks, an indian dessert delicacy. It came to a point where his stomach starting hurting because of how much he ate. While his mom, Parvati, tried to help him, the moon starting laughing at his pain, and as such his mom was displeased by this. She cursed the moon for this behavior, and as such Hindu cosmology and current beliefs has made it that on a certain day of the year, he cannot look at the moon as there is bad luck associated with it. This taught him that, no matter what someone is going through, no matter how difficult it is for them, never to judge them.

My Interpretation: The cosmo interaction is common throughout Hindu Tales, as gods represent some sort of order or natural world phenomenon. The ritualistic nature of not looking at the moon, is associated with the calendar year as he is told not to look at the moon annually. Furthermore, I feel that in terms of the relationship between Ganesha and the moon god, the relationship isn’t hero villain rather as someone who is looking down on you, as a school bully on the playground might do to a kid who just got injured on a slide. Ganesha is seen as the remover of obstacles, so having himself face an obstacle like this sort of puts his ego in a check as he has overindulged in something he loves.