Cutting Hairs in the 1st Lunar Month

Nationality: China
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Tsingtao, Shandong, China
Performance Date: 5/1/2021
Primary Language: Chinese

Backgrounds:

DerShann is currently a student at USC, majoring in Philoshophy. His family are from Tsingtao, Shandong, China. He likes to play the game League of Legends, and the following folklore is collected during some of the games we played together via the voice chat chanel.

The Main Piece:

DerShann: Let me think of some folklore…… Right! If you cut your hair in the 1st lunar month, your uncle (from the mother’s side) dies.

Me: Yea, I know. Do you really believe that?

DerShann: Well, not really. But I do try not to cut my hair in the first month, to kind of show respect for my uncle, and also, this is like some kind of tradition, and it’s fun to keep it.

Analysis:

This is, of course, a folk belief. That your uncle will die if you cut your hair in THE 1st lunar month. But, personally, I would also want to classify it as a proverb:

the original text is :正月剃头死舅舅

Phonetic：zheng yue ti tou si jiu jiu

Translation: If you cut your hair in the 1st lunar month, your uncle dies.

The key her is that “tou” rhymes with “jiu” in Chinese. And I do believe this sentence is used to warn people, but not really about cutting their hairs or about their uncles.

Zheng yue, the 1st lunar month, is the month that follows the Chinese New Year. Baiscally, the whole month is going to be filled with holiday atmosphere, and everyone’s supposed to have a good rest and prepare for the next year, and, of course, be with their family. Getting your hair cut can be an inconvenient thing: you must leave your home and go to a barber, the barber has to cut your hair, etc. And even if you don’t cut your hair, it’s not that much of a big deal. So I think the act of cutting one’s hair actually represents spending lots of time and efforts on business matters that are not urgent, which in a way ruins the Chinese New Year Experience. So, with my understanding of these words as a proverb, it is warning people to put off unnecessary works during the New Year.



Playing with Fire and Wetting the Bed

Nationality: China
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Tsingtao, Shandong, China
Performance Date: 5/1/2021
Primary Language: Chinese

Backgrounds:

DerShann is currently a student at USC, majoring in Philoshophy. His family are from Tsingtao, Shandong, China. He likes to play the game League of Legends, and the following folklore is collected during some of the games we played together via the voice chat chanel.

The Main Piece:

DerShann: If you wanna know about folklores, I know a lot. One big folk belief is that if a kid plays with fire, he will wet the bed.

Me: Cool. So, where did you learn that from, and what do you think it means?

Dershann: I just heard it from other people in my hometown. Everyone says that. What it means? I think it is just a way to warn kids so that they don’t do dangerous stuff.

Analysis:

Fire stands for, of course, fire. And wetting the bed is connected to urine, or water. If we look at it in this way, we find that in this folk belief, people draw on two extremes, or two opposing elements. People are using one side to warn against the opposite side.

I found an interesting part in the book Dora, Fragments of an Analysis of a Case of Hysteria written by Freud. In the book, Freud also connects fire with bedwetting. He draws the links between 1. Dora’s habit of bedwetting, 2. the fire in Dora’s dreams, 3. Dora’s habit of masturbation, or her sexual impulse. Freud first points out the interconnectedness between fire(both the dream and playing with fire) and bedwetting, then expanded the idea of playing with fire, or just “fire,” to the implication of sex, which points to Dora’s masturbation.

I think this kind of Freudian interpretation might also be employed to explain this folk belief, or, maybe it’s the other way around, that this folk belief might be utilized to explain the Freudian analysis.

The Minus One Horse

Nationality: China
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Shanghai China
Performance Date: 5/2/2021
Primary Language: English
Language: Chinese

Backgrounds:

P-M was born in China and finsihed his middle school and high school in LA, California. He is currently studying at USC. P-M shared this piece of folklore with me after I asked him whether he know of any interesting folklore when we were chatting after dinner.

Some Background Knowledge:

三国杀（san guo sha）is a very popular board game in China, which is based on historical events in late Han Dynasty. In this game, there is an equipment called 减一马（jian yi ma）, word to word translation, minus one horse. The function doesn’t matter.


The Main Piece:

P-M: Bro, what should I say if someone thinks only kids who cannot make it into good universities in China study abroad?

Me: WTF? I though only people who cannot afford studying abroad go to Chinese universities.

P-M: I’ll give him jian yi ma.

Me: What does that mean?

P-M: Word by word, he’ll have minus one horse. (in chinese, the word “horse”, ma, sounds super similar to the word “mother”, ma) Every San Guo Sha player knows that.

Me: Duuuude!! That’s sooooo cool.

Analysis:

P-M gives the other guy minus one horse, which means minus one mother. In other words, his mother is dead. This is a very offensive curse in the Chinese language. However, by using a card in a game to refer to this curse, it seems a lot more gentle and humorous, and therefore more acceptable. This shows how board games has influenced our everyday life and how curse words can be expressed in humorous ways by refering to games.

Seeing a Black Cat at Night

Nationality: China
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Shanghai China
Performance Date: 5/2/2021
Primary Language: English
Language: Chinese

Backgrounds:

P-M was born in China and finsihed his middle school and high school in LA, California. He is currently studying at USC. P-M shared this piece of folklore with me after I asked him whether he know of any interesting folklore when we were chatting after dinner.

The Main Piece:

P-M: Do you know that, if you see a black cat, at night, it means…… it means something bad is gonna happen.

Me: Like a sign for bad luck?

P-M: Yea.

Me: Is there anyway you can avoid the bad luck?

P-M: No, I don’t think so. Or I don’t know of any way you can escape.

Me: Where did you heard of that black cat thing?

P-M: It’s so common in America. Sooooooooo so so so so so common.

 

Analysis:

Walking at night, cats are considered to be a creature that is connected to some supernatural forces or to the other world in many cultures. Black is also associated with darkness or death. Therefore, the combination of black, and cat, brings the symbol of supernaturality and death together, creating a sign for bad luck. This is especially meaningful when one encounters a black cat at night, a time that has a closer connection with black.

 

For another version, see Russian Superstition about Black Cats by Ellen Feldman. http://uscfolklorearc.wpenginepowered.com/russian-superstition-about-black-cats/

The Ladder by the Wall

Nationality: China
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Shanghai China
Performance Date: 5/2/2021
Primary Language: English
Language: Chinese

Backgrounds:

P-M was born in China and finsihed his middle school and high school in LA, California. He is currently studying at USC. P-M shared this piece of folklore with me after I asked him whether he know of any interesting folklore when we were chatting after dinner.

The Main Piece:

P-M: There’s another one about not growing tall.

Me: what?

P-M: The ladder. Like, if you see a ladder that leans on a wall or something, you should try your best to stay away from it. Otherwise, if you walk by it, you, again, won’t grow tall. Similar to opening an umbrella indoor (see Free Guan’s post on USC Folklore Archive).

Analysis:

I found a lot of folk beliefs about not growing tall in China. I think the reason why such folklores exist is because Chinese people used to be not as tall as we are today, due to lack of food and exercise. By the time the People’s Republic of China was first established in 1949, the whole country was suffering from lack of wheat and rice, and meat was in great shortage. Food, meat, even oil and salt, were provided to each person at a fixed amount every month and there’s no way one can buy more of them, because there isn’t any. This might be a reason why some Chinese people couldn’t get as tall as they could be, and that leaves a trauma in us, being afraid to be short. That might be how such folklores emerged.