Swan Girl

Nationality: Japanese
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 16, 2018
Primary Language: Japanese
Language: English, Mandarin

Folklore:

This story takes place in Japan and starts off by a old man who goes up to the mountains and finds a swan caught in a trap. The old man frees the swan who flies away after being freed. Later that night after the old man has returned home to his wife when they both hear a knocking at their door, it is a young girl who is lost. The old couple invites her to stay the night and provide her with a meal. As the young girl has nowhere to go the old couple adopts her. They provide the girl with her own room next to living room, one day she brings out a beautiful piece of fabric for the old couple. She keeps creating these beautiful piece of cloth and the old man is able to sell them in town for a lot of money. One strange thing the girl does is makes the old couple promise is to never come into her bedroom when she is making the cloths. The old couple agree because they believe she does not want to be disturbed when she is working. However one day the young girl starts to look haggard and tired so the old couple becomes concerned and decide to peek into her room when she making the cloth. Inside the room they see a swan plucking out its own feathers to make the beautiful fabric. When the swan notices the old couple she flies away leaving behind the beautiful fabric.

Background & Context:

This folklore was collected from a current freshman at USC. It was collected in a casual context over lunch after class one day.  The student is an international student who is ethnically Japanese but grew up in various places in Asia. Before coming to USC she lived in Singapore for seven years and before Singapore the longest she lived in a country was Japan for five years. She learned about the folklore through school as folklore was part of school curriculum and in textbooks. The message of this story she says is, “what goes around, comes around” referring to the old man helping the swan first than the swan returning later to help the old man.

Final Thoughts:

My thoughts on this story is that hold an important message. The message I believe the story holds is treat others how you want to be treated. As the old man helped the swan in the beginning of the story and in return the swan came and helped the old man.

 

Bamboo Baby

Nationality: Japanese
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 16, 2018
Primary Language: Japanese
Language: English, Mandarin

Folklore:

This story starts off with a poor old man in Japan who goes up to the mountain into a bamboo forest to collect bamboo. The old man makes a living by selling items made out of a bamboo. In the forest he finds a shiny piece of bamboo, which he decides to cut down. Inside the bamboo he finds a baby girl, he takes this as a sign from the gods to raise the baby. As the little girl grew up she became renowned throughout the country for her beauty, through her beauty  her family was able to gain wealth. Eventually the family gained mass amounts of wealth to move from the countryside to the city, they moved to the city as the father wanted her to marry a rich man. In the city many wealthy individuals including the king wanted to marry her for her beauty. However the girl was unhappy because she hated the superficiality of the men and unconsciously called out for help. When she called out for help she remembered she was originally from the moon, and the people from the moon had heard her cry for help and were coming to bring her back on August 15th. While the girl was unhappy in the city she did not want to return to the moon, she wanted to return to the countryside and live an ordinary life. So her family hired an army to prevent her return to the moon but failed and in the end the girl was forced to return to the moon.

Background & Context:

This folktale was collected from a current freshman at USC. It was collected in a casual context over lunch after class one day. She is an international student who is ethnically Japanese but grew up in various places in Asia. Before coming to USC she lived in Singapore for seven years and before Singapore the longest she lived in a country was Japan for five years. She learned about the folktales through school as folklore was part of her school curriculum and in textbooks.

Final Thoughts:

This story was interesting and gave an important message. The message I got from the story is directed towards parents, saying you don’t alway know what’s best for your children and you should take into consideration your children desires. I believe this is the moral of the story because the old man wants his daughter to marry a rich man so she can be happy but all the daughter wants is to live a comfortable ordinary life. As the father did not listen to the daughter she suffered the consequences and had to return to the moon. This could have been prevented if the father had not pushed the daughter to marry a wealthy man and let her pursue her own desires.  

 

Nezha

Nationality: Chinese American
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 16, 2018
Primary Language: English
Language: Mandarin

Folklore:

The next folktale is titled Nezha and is originally from China. The tale tells the story of a man names Nezha who was the son of a military commander. Before he was born his mother was pregnant with him for three years and three months. Immediately after birth Nezha was able to walk and talk having skipped infancy. As he was born under unusual circumstances his father believed he was a demon and attempted to murder him at birth but failed. One day Nezha and and his friends were playing by the ocean when the Underworld King kidnapped one of his friends. Enraged Nezha searched for his friend and fought with the Underworld King’s son severely injuring him. When the Underworld King hear of Nezha injuring his son he went to the emperor and threatened to dishonor Nezha’s family. To not bring dishonor to his family Nezha dismembered himself. Later his mother build a temple for Nezha, which became well known for granting miracles and wishes to its visitors.

Background & Context:

This story was collected in a casual lunch setting. The informant was a 21 year old junior at USC. She is ethnically Chinese but has grown up in New York her entire life. The way she found about this folktale was by watching a popular Chinese from several years ago, that is a remake of this traditional tale.

Final Thoughts:

I thought this story was interesting because it could be conveying a message about someone who might not fit into the standards set by society and be considered abnormal. Like Nezha someone could suffer discrimination from others only based on their differences from the norm. The story’s message  focuses on how someone who does not fit societal norms can be more severely punished for their mistakes than others and is consequently more likely to suffer from suicidal thoughts and depression. However an aspect I found interesting is how the informant originally heard about this folktale. As she learned about it through mass media. I think learning about folklore through media is unique and good way to teach the newer generation about old traditional folktales.  

 

Dragon Dream

Nationality: Korean American
Age: 20
Occupation: student
Residence: los ángeles, ca
Performance Date: April 22, 2018
Primary Language: English
Language: korean

Folklore:

This is a true story when my informant’s mother was pregnant with him she didn’t tell his grandmother because she became pregnant out of wedlock. At the time his mother lived in the United States while his grandmother in South Korea. However one day out of the blue the grandmother calls his mother asking if anyone is pregnant or dead. As she had dreamed of a huge dragon which in Korean culture signifies that a huge event has happened. The grandmother had called asking because none of their relative in South Korea had anything significant happen to them, so the grandmother knew my informant’s mother was pregnant from a different country. She also had the same dream with a smaller dragon when his mother was pregnant with his younger brother.  

Background and Context:

The informant is a Korean American sophomore at USC. He was born and raised in Northern California but he lived in South Korea for six months right after highschool. I collected the folklore on a Wednesday night in a very casual setting. My informant learned this story when he was young from his parents. He believes this to be a true story.  

Final Thoughts:

I think this is one of the most interesting pieces of folklore I have collected because my informant completely believes it to be true and I find it very believable too. It is also interesting how the dragon can symbolize life or death two completely different aspects of life. What was also amusing was how the dragon in the dream changed sizes for the first born son vs the second born son. This is also a view into Korean culture as usually the first born sons birth is the biggest celebration for births.

 

Three Hatchets

Nationality: Korean American
Age: 20
Occupation: student
Residence: los ángeles, ca
Performance Date: April 22, 2018
Primary Language: English
Language: korean

Folklore:

In Korea there was a boy who had a silver hatchet. One day he was working chopping down tree when he accidentally loses his grip on the hatchet and throws it into river. After he loses his silver hatchet a man comes out of river and and asks the boy one is your hatchet I’ll return it to you. Is it this gold hatchet, is it this silver hatchet or is it this copper hatchet? The man points to each hatchet one by one as he speaks. The boy lies and says the gold hatchet is the one he lost but the old man knows he’s lying and says because he lied and he is greedy he won’t receive any of the hatchets. He also tells the boy if he had spoken the truth he would have received all the hatchets.

Background and Context:

The informant is a Korean American sophomore at USC. He was born and raised in Northern California but he lived in South Korea for six months right after highschool. I collected the folklore on a Wednesday night in a very casual setting. My informant learned this story growing up as bedtime stories from his parents.

Final Thoughts:

I believe this story is used to teach people a lesson. As the moral of the story is not to steal or lie. This is the moral because in the story the boy lied to the river man and was punished by not getting his hatchet back, while he would have been rewarded with all three hatchets if he had told the truth. Overall this story is interesting and unique because instead of creating two parallels between two characters you have one character learning what his opposite actions could have caused.