Tag Archives: children

The Goddess and 1,000 Sandals

Nationality: Japanese American
Age: 19
Occupation: student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 17, 2018
Primary Language: English
Language: Japanese

Folklore:

This is a Japanese story about a goddess who comes to visit earth. When she visits earth she goes swimming in a lake naked leaving her clothes on a rock. A man sees her swimming and falls in love with her so he steals her clothes and hides them. The goddess cannot leave earth without her clothes, so the man helps her to his house. Eventually they fall in love and have children, but she soon finds the clothes the man hid and leaves earth with their children. The man wants to join his wife and children and learns he can join them if he makes 1,000 straw sandals and buries them. The buried sandals will grow into a beanstalk that will allow him to leave earth, so the man makes 1,000 sandals and buries them. A beanstalk grows from the sandals and the man climbs the beanstalk. At the very top he realizes he can see his wife and kids but cannot reach them because the beanstalk is not tall enough to reach. As the man had miscounted and had only mad 999 straw sandals.  

Background and Context:

This story was told to me in a casual interview like setting in the evening on a weekday. It was told to me by a Japanese American USC freshman, who has grown up in Honolulu, Hawaii but has visited Japan several times. The student grew up listening to these stories either as bedtime stories or just for fun. These stories were told by her parent or grandparents who reside with her family. Something she also explained was that she did not remember the direct Japanese translation for the title of the story. She also told me this story is suppose to be an origin story for the four seasons but she cannot remember the rest of the story.  

Final Thoughts:

This is a popular story in East Asian culture because I have similar stories with similar aspects but with major differences. I believe this story is telling the listener about true love because even though the man lied and stole from the goddess she was still willing to forgive him and let him join her outside of earth. While I do not agree with the message of the story, it is romantic and entertaining for the listeners as they feel pity for the man.

 

Peach Boy

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

Folklore:

This story is a Japanese folktale and begins with an old woman going to the river to do her laundry, at the river she finds a huge peach floating down towards her. Inside the peach she finds a baby boy and decides to raise him with her husband. The old couple names the boy “peach” and he grows up to be a very energetic boy. When the boy grows older he decides to save the village from the demons who torment them. To get to the demons he must journey to the mountains, for the journey his mother packs for him four mochis. During his journey he eats one mochi. He meets a dog and convinces him to join him against his fight with the demons by giving him a mochi. He also meets a peacock and monkey who join him, as he offers them a piece of mochi. Eventually they arrive at the demons hideout and waits for the demons to get drunk, when the demons are drunk the boy and his animal companions attack. While the boy is strong the animals use their individual strengths to fight, an example being the peacock who uses his beak to peck at the demons. In the end they defeat the demons and take the demons treasures back to the boy’s village.

Background and 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. In the story she refers to the boy’s name as peach but is traditionally peach in Japanese. However she does not recall the Japanese translation for the name. She also explains what a mochi is, a traditional Japanese rice cake usually shaped into a ball.

Final Thoughts:

My thoughts on the story is that it gave an important message. The message of the story is be kind and good to others, as all the characters in the story are rewarded for their good deeds. Examples being the old couple who take the boy in and raise him as eventually he saves their village from demons. Another example being the boy as he gives each animal a mochi so they decide to help him in his journey. Other morals that can be taken from this story is don’t be afraid to ask for help as the boy asked the animals he just met to help him defeat the demons and they agreed. Overall the story is an interesting and unique intriguing it’s readers.

Annotation:

Another place you can find this piece of folklore is in the children’s book Peach Boy: A Japanese Legend by Gail Sakurai.

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.

 

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.

 

How to get kids to finish their meal (Taiwanese)

Nationality: Taiwanese/American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Performance Date: 04/23/18
Primary Language: English
Language: Mandarin Chinese

Background information:

My friend introduced me to a piece of folklore about how one can effectively get children to finish their meals. He is of Taiwanese descent, as he was born in San Francisco, California and both of his parents were born in Taipei, Taiwan. His family moved to California since before he was born and have assimilated into the American lifestyle but still stay very true to their Taiwanese roots.

 

Main piece:

My friend explained to me a saying that is often used in Taiwan to get children to finish their meals and not leave any food on the plate. The saying goes that if one wants a child to finish their meal and eat everything on the plate, they tell the child that if he or she does not finish their meal, they will marry someone with facial blemishes growing up. He said that his interpretation of this as a child was that he always thought of the remaining food pieces on his plate as signifying the multitude of blemishes that would be on the future spouse’s face when he grew up. Therefore, in order not to risk this, he would always quickly finish his food.

 

Personal thoughts:

I think that this piece of folklore is quite comical because there is no way that there could possibly be any correlation between finishing a plate of food and one’s future partner having acne. I enjoyed that this was a very different saying than what I was used to hearing in the culture that I am immersed in today, as it is refreshing to hear something that I have not heard before. I did find it a bit strange, however, that it would be considered a fear factor to have a partner with acne or facial blemishes because I do not think that this is what one should focus on when considering potential future partners.