Baron Pit Dodge ball

Nationality: Chinese
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: May 29, 2022
Primary Language: English

Context: League of Legends is a popular video game in which players are placed into 2 teams of 5 and must fight each other. There is also a wide roster of characters for the players to pick from and use. Due to the free-flowing rule set of League, many community-made mini-games have been created. One such popular one is ‘Baron Pit Dodge ball’. In this game, all the players confine themselves to a small circular part of the arena called the ‘Baron Pit’ and create a line using place-able items. They must also pick characters that have primary abilities that have to be aimed. They then play dodge ball by only using a single aimed ability. There are many adaptations of this game, and every group of friends will have different in-house rules. S. is once such example as she plays this game with her friends quite often.

S: “In a league of legends, my friends and I would play dodge ball in the baron pit, we would put wards in the middle and make a line for the court. We then would only play skill shot champions, if you die, you are out.”

Reflection: ‘Baron Pit Dodge ball’ is an interesting case where the community of a video game has created their own mini-games within the confines of the greater video game without having to change or ‘mod’ the game in any way. It is particularly interesting when these mini-games emerge because that indicates that the rule set of the video game is loose enough to allow for such creativity on the player’s part.

Lechuzas in Mexico

Background information: IJ is a 20-year-old student at USC, who currently lives in Los Angeles, CA. He often visits family members in Mexico, and learns about different types of folklore and traditions during his visits.

IJ: So it’s said that Lechuzas, which is a type of owl, like a barn owl, are actually witches, and they fly around waiting for someone to invite them in. The story comes from this one time that someone saw a bird – it was a barn owl – and threw a rock at it and hit it. And it fell dead on the floor, and the next morning in the same exact spot…there was a nude lady laying there dead. She was a known witch, so they concluded that those bird are the form that witches take sometimes in that town.

Me: Wow, that’s spooky. When did you learn about this?

IJ: Well when I go to Mexico, all my uncles tell me their stories about when they all lived there together back in the day. And they talk about all the paranormal stuff that goes on.

Many different cultures have versions of shapeshifting witches who watch humans in their animal forms, and I think it’s very interesting that folklore from so many different places share this concept. Because IJ learned this from family members while he was visiting Mexico, what he shared with me is entirely oral and specific to the town his family lived in.

For another version of this legend, see https://www.scarymommy.com/la-lechuza.

The Sunset and Death

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: California
Performance Date: April 26th, 2022
Primary Language: English

Text:

“I think about it a lot because I go against it a lot, and that belief is that you should not nap during–you should not nap or be asleep during when the sun sets. Like, I just heard–she just tells me the–the demons will come for you, basically. Like I don’t even know what it really is, it’s just, like, that you shouldn’t be asleep during that time, because, like, the symbolism of the sun setting could mean that, like, you yourself will die soon if you do things like that.”

Context:

Informant (WP) is a student aged 19 from Chino Hills, California. Her parents are from Thailand and Laos. She currently goes to USC. This piece was collected during an interview in the informant’s apartment. She heard this particular folk belief from her mom, who is from Thailand. The informant interprets this belief to mean you shouldn’t be asleep during this time because you might also go down with the sun.

Interpretation:

This belief may be an attempt to prevent children from napping during the sunset. If they nap then, they may stay up late into the night. To prevent this, the parents tell them they might die if they fall asleep while the sun is setting.

Loi Krathong/Loy Kratong

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: California
Performance Date: April 26th, 2022
Primary Language: English

“Ok this one’s a festival–there’s–it’s called

Thai: ลอยกระทง
Phonetic: Loi Krathong
Transliteration: River Goddess Worship Festival
Translation: Loy Kratong

and it’s like a water festival. You make–how do I describe it in English? You make a float. The word in Thai is

Thai:กระทง
Phonetic: Krathong
Transliteration: Float
Translation: Float

it just means like the float or whatever. It’s kind of like a lantern festival. But yeah, that occurs. Why? It’s like semi-religious, but also Thai people just celebrate it in general, for like, the rainy season. Like the end, the end of the rain. There’s like normal festivities for celebrations, like dance and food, but like the main activity is thanking the water goddess, a water goddess for like the entire season that came before. People also use it for like, good vibes. Where it’s like sending a wish or sending a prayer. You’d make it for someone else; like, ‘oh like for my family to be safe,’ and then you’d send it down the river. When I used to go to temple a lot, like, when I was younger when you would have like the festival everyone does it in like one small pond–cause the temple only has one small pond–and it’s really fun when the pond like fills up and like everyone’s wish is like together. Oh, you also–a big part of it is also making the float, to begin with, which is like made traditionally from like banana leaves. But in America, we make–well, no, not in America–but in the modern age, we use styrofoam, which is the funniest thing to me because the most environmentally damaging thing that you could do is to make it using styrofoam. But you have the plant styrofoam and you put like fake flowers in it if you don’t have like the real thing and then you take like three yellow candles and you put them in it and like make your wish on it.”

Context:

Informant (WP) is a student aged 19 from Chino Hills, California. Her parents are from Thailand and Laos. She currently goes to USC. This piece was collected during an interview in the informant’s apartment. She learned this from family and from going to the temple. To her, it is a way to give gratitude for what a person has and to ask for more.

Interpretation:
This festival is very similar to lantern festivals that are prevalent throughout East and Southeast Asia. It is very interesting to see how the festival has changed in the modern era with Thai people being unable to obtain banana leaves in parts of the world and instead resorting to styrofoam. Historically, agriculture has been incredibly important in Thailand. A festival based around thanking a type of water goddess at the end of the rainy season, while also asking for more rain in the future, makes perfect sense for this culture. Add in the variation on lanterns, being floats, and Thailand has a festival that is both related to other Southeast Asian festivals and uniquely Thai.

Don’t Cut Your Hair in the New Year

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: California
Performance Date: April 26th, 2022
Primary Language: English

Text:

“Ok it’s a very common one, it’s like, don’t cut your hair after the new year, and I guess just hearing that growing up definitely made me have more of an attachment to my hair. I think like it definitely like–I’m like oh maybe that’s why oh big hair changes can be big changes in your life, or something, because of like hearing my grandma being like ‘oh you need to time your hair cut because you can’t wash away or cut off your good luck.’ So I think that’s why I attribute hair cutting or hair changes to luck or change in life.”

Context:

Informant (WP) is a student aged 19 from Chino Hills, California. Her parents are from Thailand and Laos. She currently goes to USC. This piece was collected during an interview in the informant’s apartment. She heard this particular folk belief from her grandmother who is Lao-Chinese. She thinks people want to attribute meaning to hair since it’s something that’s always with them, so they attribute luck to it.

Interpretation:

Although many cultures emphasize looking forward in the new year, this could be an attempt to encourage some to hold on to elements of the past. In this case, their hair. Remembering the past is important when stepping towards the future.