The Tale of Nian

Nationality: Chinese
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Beijing, China
Performance Date: April 10 2017
Primary Language: Chinese

Background of informant:

My informant SS is an international student from Beijing, China.

The conversation was in Chinese.

Main piece:

SS: “Once upon a time, there was a village, and villagers were living happily together [Laugh]. One day, a monster whose name is “Nian” (means “year” in Chinese) came to the village and smashed people’s habitat. Something like that. People were so afraid of him. Nian came to the village and committed the massive destruction every year. Finally, the villager couldn’t bear Nian anymore, so they planned to fight back. I think, they went to ask help from an expert.”

SH: Aha!

SS: “This expert told the villagers to hang up red items on their house, like red Chinese couplets (Duilian), and also to light red firecrackers that has huge noise to frighten Nian. Because Nian was afraid of color red and loud sound. And the villagers did that and they successfully frightened Nian away. So every year in New Year Eve, which is the time when Nian comes to destroy, people would hang up red things and light firecrackers.”

SH: How did you know about this story? 

SS: “Elementary school textbook.” [laugh]

 

Context of the performance:

This is a section in our conversation about Chinese Spring Festival.

 

My thoughts about the piece:

When SS talked about the villagers went to find an expert, I reacted with an “Aha” since it reminds me of the help from a donor in Propp’s 31 functions.

The tale of Nian fits into Vladimir Propp’s 31 sequenced functions in tales. Just due to this performance that SS gave, it includes: 3 (Violation of Interdiction) –> 8 (Villainy) –> 9 (Mediation) –> 10 (Beginning Counter-Action) –>12 (First Fuction of the Donor) –> 14 (Receipt of a Magical Agent) –> 16 (Struggle) –> 18 (Victory).

Beside the structuralist approach to Nian’s story, I found the way that my informant learned about this tale somehow tricky. The tale was learned through “elementary school textbook”. Given the definition of folklore as the “official study of unofficial knowledge”, as since textbook, or school, or teacher are more as “official” concepts, this situation is problematic. And this is not the only case. During all of my conversations with Chinese informants, when I asked about how did they know about that folklore piece, the answer always has to do with school or other official institution.

Halloween Horrors

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/17/17
Primary Language: English
Language: Tamil

Informant Information:

Vivek Ramachandran is a student at the University of Southern California studying Computer Science and Business Administration. He is originally from Milton, WA and moved to Los Angeles, CA for college. He is from an Indian background and enjoys watching the Seahawks win.

Story:

“We always used to go trick or treating in my friend’s neighborhood and there was always this one house that was never decorated and never lit up except for this one room that had this little blue light. We always thought that there was someone in the house and we thought we could see someone moving. One time, my friends actually decided that we were going up the said house and he went up to the door but before he could knock we just saw him running away. He swore that somebody grabbed him, and that was that.”

Q: Was this house well known for being haunted?

“It was just like a normal looking house that was just not decorated. To us it was haunted but to everyone else it wasn’t really considered haunted”

Q: Did your friend ever tell you what he thought was grabbing him?

“Nope, he just said someone grabbed him and he ran away.”

Q: What are your thoughts on it?

“I think it was just somebody that didn’t want to be bothered on Halloween. I think my friend was probably pulling a prank on us, but whoever lives there really needs to fix the lighting because I can imagine that single blue light is annoying for everyone involved.”

Analysis:

From listening to the informant’s story, I can tell that the fact that this incident not only took place on Halloween, but also when he was a child, made this “haunted house” more difficult to believe. Because Halloween is associated with darkness, a child’s senses can be heightened which can make normal looking places seem infinitely more terrifying. In this case, when the informant looked back on the experience, he thought that the whole scenario was a prank made up by his friend. This notion, along with the fact that the house wasn’t recognized as “haunted” by other people in his area, makes this incident seem like a one time thing.

Kolu Tradition

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/16/17
Primary Language: English
Language: Tamil

Informant Information:

Vivek Ramachandran is a student at the University of Southern California studying Computer Science and Business Administration. He is originally from Milton, WA and moved to Los Angeles, CA for college. He is from an Indian background and enjoys watching the Seahawks win.

Tradition:

“So my family celebrates this Indian festival called “Kolu” yeah and it’s basically a festival where you… basically it entails displaying trinkets and dolls and figures of various Indian gods and then you have a bunch of people over at your house. It’s generally a good time because you get to see a lot of people. And then like my family liked to make it a potluck style so you’d always have a lot of good Indian food. I was a popular child so I always got to have my friends over and that would result in a lot of Smash tournaments or Pokemon tournaments or in one very specific case Star Wars the Force Unleashed tournaments.”

Q: What is “Kolu” for exactly?

“I’m not exactly sure which Holy day it falls on because it is a celebration of a Holy day and there are many of them. I think it’s to like welcome a god or celebrate the beginning of some season but I really couldn’t tell you.

Q: Is your celebration of “Kolu” similar to other people?

“Yes, so there’s actually… not like a correct way, but it generally does involve displaying dolls/figurines and most other families do that as well so I’d say we have a very standard celebration. I think that the biggest difference was that, at least for me, I had an excuse to have a ‘kid party’. So I found that pretty fun.”

Analysis:

Though the informant didn’t seem to know much about Kolu and only participated with his family, I was able to find some more information about Kolu from other sources. Kolu, otherwise known as Bommai Kolu/ Bomma Golu/ Bombe Habba, is a festival that praises the goddesses Saraswati, Parvati and Lakshmi. It takes place during the Dasara festival which is a festival that celebrates the victory of good over evil. The way the informant’s family celebrates is somewhat similar to other Indian families in that it involves food, but it is less “religious/ritualistic” than other celebrations.

Haunted Dead End

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/16/17
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

Informant Information:

Ace Spade is a student at the University of Southern California. He is from New York and moved to California for college.

Story:

“When I was little I lived in a dead end. At the end of the dead end there was an abandoned house and all of the neighborhood children used to think it was a haunted house. We later found out it was a gang/drug house but it was still very spooky”

Q: What made the house seem scary or haunted?

“Have you ever seen Monster House? It looked like that but with trash all over the area and with gated fences. People said that they would see figures enter and exit the house”

Q: What was your personal experience with the house?

“We used to use it to cross the dead end so we would walk by it and everything was boarded up. I didn’t see any figures and crap but it still spooked me.”

Analysis:

It seems as though the primary reason for the “spookiness” of the house was the atmosphere. As the informant mentioned, the house was extremely unkempt and had been long abandoned for some time. Because the background of the house involved gangs, and some of the children saw dark figures in the house, it can be assumed that there might have been deaths in that house. If this is true, then the figures might have been the deceased people, or they could have just been figments of the children’s imaginations.

A Baseball Pre-Season Tradition – Burying a Fish

Nationality: American
Age: 17
Occupation: Student
Residence: Phoenix, Arizona
Performance Date: April 15, 2017
Primary Language: English

My informant is currently on his high school baseball team and I remember him telling me about this strange legend that morphed into a tradition for every season thereafter, here is what he said.

“Once year, these few guys on our baseball team, like one night they were really drunk and had gone fishing at the lake near school, and had caught a fight. They thought it would be funny if they buried under the visitor’s bullpen and it would smell or something. Then they snuck into the Camelback Inn Hotel for fun and because they were drunk, and hung out in the hot tub. The season before had been a loosing season, and yet somehow that season we nearly got to state and they all thought it was the fish. So every then out, as a team we catch or buy a fish, bury under the visitor’s bullpen and then sneak in to the hotel and hang out in the hot tub. It’s for good luck, we call it team bonding, they told me we have always just done it. And every year there are new, funny things for the new player to do. Everyone does it, one scoop of dirt at a time per person, a team effort, no special attention.”

Analysis:

Sports, especially baseball have quite a lot of superstitions, legends and taboos because of the uncertainty of the game. A lot of the game and the season is out of complete control so these superstitions and traditions have a lot to do of putting control back into the player’s hands. In this case, the control is of the whole season. They continue this tradition in the interest of having a good season and if they do not do this strange tradition, they will not have a good season. It is not merely good luck, but defining the whole season based on this occurrence. Baseball players are truly creatures of habit who don’t stray from routines, traditions or habits unless they are in a slump then, they will venture a change, but in this case it is a long-standing tradition. This not only bonds the team together, but it is also performing identity as part of a team. Only the varsity team at this school performs this and thus only they would get to know and appreciate this experience.