Bâū Ća Tôm Cua

Nationality: United States
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Northern California. Currently residing in Los Angeles, CA.
Performance Date: 03/29/2018
Primary Language: English
Language: Vietnamese

Main Piece:

 

The following was recorded from the Participant. They are marked as DD. I am marked as DG.

 

DD: So there’s this game that me and my cousins used to play on the Lunar New Year, and it’s called Bau Ca Tom Cua, and it basically means um Gourd Crab um…it means Fish but it’s referring to a Shrimp, or um and then a Rooster. It’s basically-it’s a simple game where you have a picture of um each of the four items I mentioned, well actually some of them have 6 it’s a fish-a shrimp-, a crab, a rooster, a gourd, and a stag. And you have this little dice where on each of the little sides there’s a picture and you…usually money or candy, usually small change because my cousins and I, you know, small kids you don’t want them gambling with you know, tons of money, and we would put the coins basically on the picture that we thought was going to get rolled. So we would put the dice in a bowl and there’s 3 of them and roll them in the bowl and remove that and the ones on top, if you were right, you got to split the money.

 

DG: Who did you learn it from?

 

DD: Um, I remember playing it with my…cousin, um it must have been something we learned from probably our parents. Yeah its just a pretty common game. And even when I went to the Vietnamese lunar new year festival here, there were a whole bunch of boards.

 

DG: What was the context?

 

DD: It was a game that was traditionally played on the New Year’s, I don’t know if there was a significance for why it was played on the New Year’s… but it makes sense to me that um that at least little kids would have money on the New Year because their relatives would have just given them money.

 

Context:

 

The conversation was recorded while sitting in a classroom during an assigned period to discuss folklore. However, the context that the game would be performed in would most often be on the Vietnamese Lunar New Year.

 

Background:

 

The student was born and raised in Northern California. She is a sophomore at the University of Southern California. Although she was born in Northern California, her entire family is from Vietnam, and she is one of the first generation to be born in the United States.

 

Analysis:

 

This game is good for cross-cultural teaching, as it is rather simple to teach and pick up. It can be adapted to bet on candy, coins, dice, or more. It is also easily taught to small children, meaning it is highly adaptable and good for bringing up through generations. It is also a quick game to teach, making it good for fairs, etc, where all the players may not be familiar with the game. It also has a specific history, being related to the Vietnamese Lunar New Year. Due to this, this is not a game that the majority of the American population will likely know, or have heard of. I personally have learned this game in the past, at a Vietnamese Lunar New Year celebration at my university, and found it very fun to play.

Elf Magic Elves

Nationality: United States
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Marietta, GA. Currently residing in Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 04/15/2018
Primary Language: English

Main Piece:

 

The following was recorded from the Participant. They are marked as AO. I am marked as DG.

 

 

AO: Oh, when I was in umm…fourth grade maybe third grade, um, there were these things called Elf Magic Elves and everyone had them. I don’t know where like it started out or, um, who had the first one but anyways by the time we were in like fifth grade, every single person had one… but the concept of these elves were that if you sprinkled, um, snowflakes on them then they like–and the snowflakes came with the elves, then they would, like, come to life and move around your house or like bake food or make crafts or whatever, play pranks. Um and so everyone had this like these elves that would do things for them and they would come to school, um, they would like come to school with like books that their elves made, or um like fucking can I curse? Fucking um fuckiiiiiiing-that one had like 7 ‘i’s in it, you better put all of these in-fucking like food. So obviously these elves didn’t exist, they weren’t real but, um, all the parents were like really close and everyone that had them-well ok I guess I exaggerated when I said that everyone had them, um but basically only the popular bitches had them but they were the only ones we talked about-but all of their moms were suuuper close so they all like knew these elves and how to move them around and so they kind of did it as like a group thing. But like I found about these elves and me being the little twat I was [laughs] I wanted to be cool, I was like “Mom I want these elves” and like um my mom wasn’t, wasn’t cool she wasn’t a cool mom I wasn’t a cool kid so she didn’t like um she didn’t get in with the crowd so she didn’t know about these elves! But so she got these elves and then presented them to me in the box to which they were shipped to her in but in reality you were supposed to present them on the fireplace like open and like um with crackers or something like that, but she gave them to me in the box. But luckily my brother knew about this tradition so he like moved them around for me and stuff so I still got the experience.

 

Context:

 

The conversation was recorded while in the room of the interviewee. She was fixing up her room while I was sitting and listening to her folklore. This folklore item was a local tradition that lasted about two years in the neighborhood of Marietta. It was enacted by elementary school kids from the grades of 4th to 5th grade, at the time.

 

Background:

 

The interviewee was born in China but raised in Marietta, Georgia. She is a sophomore at the University of Southern California, studying Communication. Her mother and father are both from the United States, and have lived in Georgia for many years.

 

Analysis:

 

This folklore item is very interesting because it is not only one that is particular to a specific region, it was also carried out by one specific group: the popular children’s parents. It also left as quickly as it arrived. Additionally, the tale of the interviewee’s brother enacting the tradition that the parents were unaware of was heartwarming, as well as it being an example of how easily folklore can be lost when it is attempted by an outgroup. Therefore, this piece is actually a great example of a regional folk tradition, needing specific in-group knowledge.

Cinnamon Toast

Nationality: United States
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Marietta, GA. Currently residing in Los Angeles, CA.
Performance Date: 04/15/2018
Primary Language: English

Main Piece:

 

The following was recorded from the Participant. They are marked as AO. I am marked as DG.

 

AO: Ok so basically, um like when I was a kid, whenever I was sick my mom would make me cinnamon toast. And um like, I don’t know why but she swore it would make me feel better. So um literally any time I didn’t feel good or had a sore throat, especially for a sore throat, um, like she would make me this. And like it always seemed to work! Not really sure, um, like how it would, tbh [to be honest], but like, um it always felt like it did [laughs].

 

DG: And when did you learn this?

 

AO: …. Oh I must’ve been like maybe 5 when she first made it? Um like honestly I don’t even know I just know she made it a lot.

 

DG: Do you know the recipe?

 

AO: Yeah! It was like, um first you toast the toast and then you. Oh wait no maybe you put butter on the bread first. And then I think um you maybe toast it. But you might put cinnamon on the butter before toasting it. Or not no I think that the cinnamon was put on after the bread and butter was toasted. Or was it brown sugar? No um like I swear it was cinnamon. Actually no there was brown sugar because that was my favorite part. Um, so yeah.

 

Context:

 

The conversation was recorded while in the room of the interviewee. She was fixing up her room while I was sitting and listening to her folklore. This folk recipe was used in the context of sickness, most often made by the interviewee’s mother.

 

Background:

 

The interviewee was born in China but raised in Marietta, Georgia. She is a sophomore at the University of Southern California, studying Communication. Her mother and father are both from the United States, and have lived in Georgia for many years.

 

Analysis:

 

This folklore item is somewhat common in that most people tend to have a home remedy for when they get sick, passed down from their parents or grandparents. It’s also one of those folklore items where it must have worked at least occasionally, for the interviewee to keep believing in it. Although I personally don’t know if it works or not, I imagine that at the very least the treat of cinnamon and sugar would help cheer up any small child, leading them into a better mood during their cold.

Virgin Mary

Nationality: United States
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Northern California. Currently residing in Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 04/13/2018
Primary Language: English
Language: Tagalog, Spanish

Main Piece:

 

The following was recorded from the Participant. They are marked as BDV. I am marked as DG.

 

BDV: I feel like Filipino’s in general focus a lot on the Virgin Mary… Ok, so yeah there’s this woman named Mary, she marries this man named Joseph and…because I guess you are supposed to marry virgins back then ,she was a virgin so Joseph was like “ok cool”, and then the angel Gabriel comes down and announces to Mary that she is pregnant, and she doesn’t know what to do because she’s a virgin, she’s like “how did this happen,” so she tells Joseph and instead of freaking out-well he probably does freak out-but he says “it’s ok I forgive you. We’ll just deal with this baby.” And and it’s unclear whether he believes she didn’t sleep with anyone else, but but yeah and then she goes to tell her sister Elizabeth and Elizabeth is like wow I’m also having a baby and she’s going to name her son John, because the angel also told her to name-told Elizabeth to name her son John… Um, yeah.

 

DG: Where did you hear it, like from your family?

 

BDV: No, I aggressively went to Sunday school when I was younger because my parents made me, and I-that is how they told it… No they probably told it more eloquently but they told the story. I didn’t read the bible much when I was younger.

 

DG: How old were you when you heard this?

 

BDV: Um, I would say probably 5–kindergarten.

 

Context:

 

The conversation was recorded while sitting outside of a coffee shop at the University of Southern California. The interviewee heard the story of the Virgin Mary while at Sunday School, and also later at home.

 

Background:

 

The student was born and raised in Northern California. She is a sophomore at the University of Southern California. She is the fourth generation to grow up in America, but is Filipino. She speaks several languages, with English being her native language.

 

Analysis:

 

This is one of the most common stories that is known about the Bible. Most people, even if unreligious, know at least part of the story of the Virgin Mary. I did actually find it really interesting, though, because although I’m no longer religious, I did grow up Christian and I had never heard the part about Mary’s sister, Elizabeth, so that was an interesting addition to the story. I also was intrigued by the participant saying that Filipino’s are often very into the Virgin Mary story-it made me wonder what about it in particular made it such an item of interest, more so than in other cultures?

Ancestor Mirror Ghost

Nationality: United States
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Northern California. Currently residing in Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 04/13/2018
Primary Language: English
Language: Tagalog, Spanish

Main Piece:

 

The following was recorded from the Participant. They are marked as BDV. I am marked as DG.

 

BDV: So my mom thinks that ghosts communicate to her, so after my dad’s mom passed away, and we…we were the ones to clean out her house and pack away her stuff and things like that. And my mom kept insisting that every time she passed this mirror, she would see something behind her, and she thought that it was my dad’s mom and we were like, “ok whatever.” And then coming back to our own house, the same thing would happen to the mirror in our living room, and she was like-it happened for a year for her until, like, the year anniversary of my grandma’s passing.

 

DG: And you heard that from your mom?

 

BDV: Yeah, from my mom. And she says that the same thing happens to other people in her family. Like, after her dad passed away, it happened to her eldest sister. And she thinks that since my grandma didn’t have any daughters-she only had my dad-that it, like, passed to her daughter-in-law, which is, like, my mom.”

 

 

Context:

 

The conversation was recorded while sitting outside of a coffee shop at the University of Southern California. The ghost sighting was seen at the house of the interviewee’s grandmother, as well as at the house of the interviewee.

 

Background:

 

The student was born and raised in Northern California. She is a sophomore at the University of Southern California. She is the fourth generation to grow up in America, but is Filipino. She speaks several languages, with English being her native language.

 

Analysis:

 

I’ve heard about stories like this. There seems to be a lot of folklore concerning mirrors and ghosts, leading me to believe that mirrors are a method of communication to the other side. For example, the Bloody Mary game is played in a mirror. I personally have heard folklore about not looking into a mirror in the dark or the spirits will replace your soul with theirs, leaving you trapped in the mirror. So to me, the idea of seeing the deceased behind you in the mirror seems entirely believable, and also incredibly terrifying.