Wake your body, but don’t forget to wake your soul – Mexican Superstition

Nationality: Mexican
Age: 40
Occupation: Factory Worker
Residence: California
Performance Date: 04/04/19
Primary Language: Spanish

Piece: 

If you take your kids with you to the ranch, let’s say when you go work the field, and they fall asleep on the floor, because they are tired or because you are working. And you know how in the field the dirt is loose, and you know, when kids are young they are innocent, they are innocent until they become adults. So when they are kids, their soul is still really innocent too, because they don’t know anything yet. If you tell them that a certain bad spirit is nearby they won’t know what to make of it. So if your kid happens to fall asleep on the ground, the beliefs of the old times are that you have to grab a twig, or a branch and start hitting them. You have to yell their name and hit them at the same time. You do this so that their spirit can return back to their body when they wake up. You’ll know you accomplished this because they wake up crying. The same goes for when you fall somewhere, you know when you fall and you get spooked? It’s like your soul stays in the place where you fell. So when this happens, after someone has fallen, they will go grab a branch and start hitting themselves in order to wake their soul again.

Background Information: The informant was my aunt. She grew up in a small village in Mexico where superstitions and legends are very prominent.

Context: This is a very commonly known superstition amongst farmers in Mexico. Most villagers would take their kids with them to work because they had no babysitters to watch them while they were farming the fields.

Personal Analysis: As I was listening to this superstition, I was reminded of my younger sister. When she was younger, she would always wake up crying. My family and I never understood why, but after hearing this superstition I was introduced to a possible explanation.

七姊誕 (cat1 zi2 daan3), The Annual Meeting of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl – The Chinese Qixi Festival

Nationality: Chinese, Vietnames
Age: 49
Residence: Ewa Beach, HI
Performance Date: April 14, 2019
Primary Language: Chinese
Language: Vietnamese, English

Item:

H: 七姊誕 (cat1 zi2 daan3), I don’t know like, um, July 7*.  Oh I know, 七姊誕係 (cat1 zi2 daan3 hai6) um, the girl is- she’s- she’s number seven so 叫七 (giu3 cat1) and um, loves the boy and the families not, like, agree to- they are marrying so they build the bridge.

[Translation: The Qixi Festival, I don’t know like, um, July 7*. Oh I know, the Qixi Festival is for, um, the girl is- she’s she’s number seven so she’s called 7 and um, loves the boy and the families not, like, agree to- they are marrying so they build the bridge.]

Q: Is it the same story as the one where the boy and the girl can only meet once a year?

H: Mhmm.

Q: Oh, ‘The Cowherd and the Weaver Girl’!

H: Yeah, 牛郎織女 (ngau4 long4 zik1 leoi5)!  牛郎織女係七姊誕 (ngau4 long4 zik1 leoi5 hai6 cat1 zi2 daan3)

[Translation: Yeah, The Cowherd and the Weaver Girl!  The Cowherd and the Weaver Girl is the Qixi Festival]

Q: 點慶祝七姊誕 (dim2 hing3 zuk1 cat1 zi2 daan3)?

[Translation: How do you celebrate the Qixi Festival?]

H: 七姊誕通常人哋會帶 (cat1 zi2 daan3 tun1 soeng4 jan4 dei6 wui5 daai3) seven… different things. Yeah, 你拜七姊拜七樣嘢 (lei5 baai3 cat1 zi2 baai3 cat1 joeng6 je5), but usually buy fruits. Yeah.

[Translation: For the Qixi Festival, people will seven… different things.  Yeah, you pray to the seventh sister with seven different things, usually buy fruits.  Yeah.]

 

Translation and Additional Notes:

The Chinese characters are again followed by the Jyutping Romanization in parentheses, but they will also be followed by a transliteration and a full translation.

 

七姊誕 (cat1 zi2 daan3)

Transliterated: Seventh Sister Birthday

Translation: Qixi Festival

The English name for the festival comes from the Mandarin Chinese pronunciation of the holiday. The characters are 七夕旦 (Mandarin Pinyin Romanization: qi1 xi1 dan4; Transliterated: Seven Night Day; Translated: Seventh Night Festival).  Alternate names is the Seventh Night Festival or the Double Seven Festival

 

牛郎織女 (ngau4 long4 zik1 leoi5)

Transliterated: cow young man weave woman

Translation: The Cowherd and the Weaver Girl

The story of ‘The Cowherd and the Weaver Girl’ is the narrative on which the Qixi Festival was founded upon.

 

*July 7: The informant was referring to July 7 in the lunar calendar commonly used by the Chinese to mark their holidays, rather than July 7 in the Gregorian calendar.  Usually, this date will correspond to August 7 in the Gregorian calendar.

 

Context:

I learned this piece from a Cantonese-English conversation about Chinese culture and traditions.  The informant, denoted by ‘H’ above, can speak Cantonese fluently, but chose to speak with me in both Cantonese and English for my understanding.  The informant is Chinese and was born and raised in Vietnam before immigrating to the United States in her late teens.  She brought up this story when I inquired about when people pray in Chinese culture because the day that this festival lands on is when she prays and sets out seven different fruits as she described above.  Though she had a general knowledge of the plot, she could not recall any more details about why the festival occurs or where she first learned about the story beyond the fact that this story is the basis for the festival.

 

Analysis:

When the informant described the general plot of the story, as seen in the exchange above, I was able to recognize it as ‘The Cowherd and the Weaver Girl’ because of the bridge.  I actually knew of this story before I spoke with the informant, and also knew that it may have originated from legends about the location of two constellations in the sky that are separated by the Milky Way.  These constellations were named the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl, and numerous pieces of authored literature were written based on this story.  The version of the story that the informant knew, with the two lovers separated by family disapproval might be reflective of the tradition of arranged marriages. At least, it seemed as if that was the underlying message of that version of the story because the family disagreement was what the informant recalled first.  Women typically married up in Chinese society, and the wife chosen by the male’s family may be dependent on a number of factors including beauty and health.  In a different version of the story I have seen, more emphasis was placed on the reunion of the lovers itself, focusing on the romance and endurance of true love.  As such, with this particular story and many others, the plot may remain generally the same but the details may change depending on what message is being conveyed.

In regards to the festival, there seems to be a great emphasis on the number seven.  The weaver girl is the seventh sister, and the meeting of the lovers is on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month.  People praying on this date set out seven different fruits.  Furthermore, the various names of the festival include the Seventh Night Festival and the Double Seven Festival.  Since this is the day that the two lovers reunite, and the focus is on their reunion rather than their separation, I believe people may celebrate it to ensure eternal love in relationships.  By extension, people may pray on this day for longevity in their relationships as well.  This is also supported by how seven is seen as a lucky number for relationships in Chinese culture because the pronunciation resembles that of the word “even” in Mandarin.  As such, the seventh day of the seventh month may have been deliberately chosen as the date the lovers unite, to represent harmony and a good relationship, and the ritual celebration of this day may bring good luck in relationships to those who partake in it.

 

Annotation:

For a poem written based on the legend of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl, please see “Immortal at the Magpie Bridge” by Qin Guan on pages 136 and 137 of Songs of the Immortals: An Anthology of Classical Chinese Poetry translated and versified by Xu Yuan Zhong.

Zhong, Xu Yuan. Songs of the Immortals: An Anthology of Classical Chinese Poetry. Penguin Books, 1994.

The Engineer’s Constant – A Stereotype about Engineers

Nationality: USA
Age: 20
Occupation: University Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 3, 2019
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

Item:

The engineer’s constant is 3.  We don’t need to be accurate so we round e to 3 and pi to 3, and also g is 10.

 

Context:

I collected this piece from a physics lab partner who is also an astronautical engineering major at the University of Southern California.  Some of our calculations were off, so he joked about rounding the final answer to three.  When I asked why, he explained that three is the engineer’s constant.  As such, three would be a good alternate answer if we could not find the error in our calculations.  The informant said that he found the engineer’s constant for the first time on an engineering meme page.

 

Analysis:

This short piece actually reveals a bit about the culture of engineers, including their work habits and particularly stereotypes about them.  I have heard of the stereotype that engineers are not always the most accurate, and that they are quite liberal when rounding or making approximations.  There are also jokes about how engineering students should not be trusted with any technical applications of their studies because of this.  I think the stereotype comes from the fact that engineers often do quick, back of the envelope approximations of things in order to get a sense of what they are working with before they dive into the more detailed computations.  Furthermore, sometimes the exact answer is not as significant as getting the correct order of approximation.  My astronautical engineering professor has actually done this during class multiple times because the exact values of the computations were insignificant.  In most cases, he rounds the gravity constant from 9.8 to 10.  By extension, we round commonly used constants such as Euler’s number and pi to 3 for ease of computation as well.  As such, those outside of engineering may mistake this as what we primarily rely on when we work.  The stereotype is not insulting to engineers though, in fact, engineers themselves have also made jokes about it as seen on engineering meme pages.  The potentially insulting stereotype is countered by fully embracing it and taking pride in it as part of the group identity of engineers.  What this short piece reveals is how stereotypes may emerge about a group from those who are not in it, as well as how taking pride in these opinions can counter them and become a part of your identity as a member of that group.  In this case, the stereotype is about how engineers appear to be very generous in approximation, but engineers embrace this by claiming the engineer’s constant.

Origin of the Cheers Clink

Nationality: South African, American
Age: 23
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: Spring 2019
Primary Language: English

Piece:

“So my friend was telling me that the reason why you clink cups together is because back in like the olden times, when if you match really full cups of beer, people used to clink cups together so that a little bit of each person’s drink would slosh into the other persons drink and it was kind of like about a sharing of a drink and also like to make sure that people weren’t getting poisoned because the cups… the liquids would like mix together.”

Analysis:

While there is truth to the amicable aspect of sharing a drink, the mixing of liquids to prove that no poison is present is just a very well-known and well-shared lie. Firstly, sloshing that much liquid would surely produce more waste than desired in olden times when food was much more scarce, but more importantly, proving a lack of poison was at best unnecessary and at worst rude. Often people drank from shared vessels, where drinks were already in a sense mixed, so mixing them again would be redundant. At the other end of the spectrum, requiring proof of safety may be regarded as the same as using a food taster, which displays a lack of trust and hostility. For these reasons, it doesn’t really make sense that clinking would show trust in lack of poison, although the story is interesting and possible enough that it makes sense the story is still told.
Clinking and toasting, in general, are, at their core, a carryover from those more communal days. By clinking cups and drinking together, drinkers can maintain that sense of camaraderie that comes with drinking of the same container. The sound made by clinking is also rumored to complete the fulfillment of the five senses that comes when drinking something like wine. The remaining four are already satisfied, so by adding in the resonating sound of clinking glasses, the drinkers are pleased in all five senses, which is a rather rare sensation, culinarily or otherwise.

Context:


The interviewee is a 23-year-old male who attends the University of Southern California, pursuing a masters degree in computer science. When he was very young, he lived in India, until he moved to South Africa. He lived in South Africa from then until he moved to New York City to pursue his undergraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering. He is very into alcohol and the history and science behind it, which explains why he would know and tell this tidbit, accurate or not.
This interview was conducted in person at the interviewed party’s house. The audio was recorded in order to aid in accurate transcription of the dialogue that took place.

Buddha Reaches Enlightenment

Nationality: American
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: Spring 2019
Primary Language: English

Piece:
C is the interviewed party.
J is the interviewer.

C: “So this is a story about the Buddha. So the Buddha was doing this stuff, and like he reached enlightenment, right? And then he gets up and he’s like, ‘whoa, I’m enlightened,’ right, and he runs into this farmer and the farmers like, ‘wow, you look so radiant, you look like amazing, what is going on?’ And Buddha is like, ‘im enlightened, my dude, I just reached enlightenment.’ [The farmer says] ‘no you didn’t, that ridiculous. How did you — why would you say such a thing?’ And the Buddha is like, ‘that’s weird, can’t he see how radiant I am? Can’t he see that I’m enlightened?’ so the Buddha keeps walking on, you know, in his enlightened state and he runs into a wealthy merchant on a horse, and the merchant is like, ‘ wow you look so radiant. You look amazing. What happened to you? You look so at peace.’ And the Buddha says, ‘I’ve reached enlightenment.’ And [the merchant] is like, ‘get out of here, man. Who are you? What are you talking about?’ So the Buddha keeps trucking along, thinking, ‘no one believes that I’m enlightened. What’s going on?’ Finally, he runs into this old man, and the man is like, ‘you look so radiant. You look at peace, what’s going on?’ Buddha doesn’t say anything. He just asks the man, ‘do you need some help?’ And the man says he could use some help carrying his food. And so the Buddha helps this man take care of his stuff and spends time with this old man. Finally, the old man says to the Buddha, ‘you are enlightened, you’ve reached enlightenment.’ And that man became one of the first people to spread Buddhism because the whole thing is about showing and not telling”

J: “So this was a thing you were told?”

C: “Uh yeah. I was told this.”
J: “Was this like a family story or-”
C: “No. I learned this when I was a monk.”

Analysis:

This story exemplifies a common trope of many stories in many cultures, called ‘the rule of threes’. This rule identified a common theme among stories, wherein change occurs on the third attempt or the number three is significant. In this example, the Buddha approaches three people; the first two are dismissive to his attempts to tell them of his enlightened state, so he changes his approach for the third, who accepts him fully as enlightened.

While those outside of the Buddhist faith may not believe this story at all, and those within may see it more as a way to teach a theme or idea instead of a direct account of history, the story still presents a common trope of religions and faiths. The third man Buddha encounters believes he is enlightened because he is not focused on proving it; the Buddha merely helps the man and acts in a humble, enlightened way, which causes the man to come to his own conclusion that the Buddha has reached enlightenment.

Context:

The interviewed party is a 21-year-old male student at the University of Southern California. Before moving to Los Angeles, he spent large portions of his life in both New York City and Thailand, where his family is from and some still reside.

This interview was conducted over a series of days in person inside the common area of the interviewer’s home. The responses were recorded in order to accurately dictate dialogue.