Tag Archives: children

An Hour Wait Before Swimming

Nationality: American
Age: 22
Occupation: Advertising Sales Assistant
Residence: Yonkers, New York
Performance Date: March 17, 2017
Primary Language: English

Informant: The informant is a twenty-two-year-old named Samantha. She graduated from Providence College last year and is currently working in New York City as an Advertising Sales Assistant for VERANDA Magazine. She lives in Yonkers, New York with her parents and has lived there for her whole life. She is of Italian, English, and Russian descent.

Context of the Performance: We sat next to each other on the living room floor at her house in Yonkers, New York during my spring break from college.

Original Script:

Informant: When I was a kid, my grandma told me that I couldn’t go swimming after eating until one hour had passed. I couldn’t even go out and put my toes in the water. Whether I was at the pool or at the beach, I had to abide by this rule. If I did not, I was told that I would drown immediately, probably because I would get a cramp. My grandmother went so far as timing the hour after their last bite.

Interviewer: Why do you like this piece of folklore?

Informant: I like this piece of folklore because it reminds her of her childhood and going to the beach or the pool with her grandma. Even though this idea is irrational and clearly not true, it created memories for me and my grandma to share and to look back on and laugh. I want to pass this rule on when I have children, even though I understand that the true reason behind this notion is that you can get a cramp if you try to swim too soon after eating. The wait, however, provides  a sense of suspense and excitement and a chance for quality time. I remember that my grandma would tell me stories by the pool while we waited for the hour to go by. It brings back memories of carefree summer days when I was growing up.

Personal Thoughts: I enjoy this piece because I heard the same thing growing up. I never really thought that I would drown if I were to swim less than an hour after eating, but I did fear cramps. I like that Samantha was able to form memories from experiencing this piece and look back on it fondly. This example truly shows how folklore impacts people’s lives and, in particular, their childhood. The fact that she will pass this tradition on so that her children can also form these memories is good to hear, knowing that the folklore will continue. Perhaps, they can pass it on as well and keep the tradition alive.

Dreaming of Buddha

Nationality: Vietnamese-American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Palo Alto, CA
Performance Date: 4/17/17
Primary Language: English

Context: One of my roommates, when he heard me explaining to a friend about how stressful it was to try and find folklore from different sources, offered some of the stories he knew from his childhood.

Background: This is the story of an accident that happened to my roommate’s mother when she was young.

Dialogue: Um… I don’t remember how old she was, probably between, you know, 10 and 13. Um, she was playing hide and seek, and was in a two-story house, um, and she really wanted to be tough to find, so she climbed up out on the balcony, on the railing I think, and held on to the opposite side of the railing. Um… After that she accidentally let go and fell two stories and… landed on the ground, uh…

What happened after that, when she was unconscious. She had this dream where… uh, it was completely dark. She was looking around, and she could see these demons coming up everywhere, um, including the Devil I think, and so, her reaction was like, “What do I do, there’s demons all around me, there’s total darkness?!?” And then this light appears. I think it’s supposed to be the Buddha, is what she said, and it says, “Hey, uh… Don’t go towards those demons! Come towards me, that’s what you should do, that’s gonna be good.” Uh, so she goes on, she, you know, runs past those demons, heads to the light, and when she comes to, um, her whole family is, like, around her cuz she fell two stories, and they say she is completely unharmed. She gets back up, like, good as new, and, um… ever since then she’s been quite a bit more religious.

Analysis: I debated whether or not this deserved a “miracle” tag based on the fact that a two-story fall resulted in absolutely no injuries. I’m impressed by the fact that a single dream brought about a life-long change, but I suppose it is because views on religion in America and views on religion in Vietnam are different. It would be interesting to hear the dream told from the mother herself, though, just to get as much detail as possible on what happened while she was unconscious.

Woodcutter and Angel

Nationality: Korean
Age: 47
Occupation: computer programmer
Residence: LA
Performance Date: 2017-4-25
Primary Language: English
Language: Korean

Main Piece:

 

나무꾼이 나무를 하다가 숲 속에서 도망치는 사슴을 만나게 된다. 사슴은 사냥꾼이 쫓아오고 있으니 자신을 숨겨달라고 말한다. 말하는 사슴을 신기하게 여긴 나무꾼은 사슴을 숨겨주고 뒤쫓아 온 사냥꾼은 다른 곳으로 보내서 구해준다.

 

사슴은 은혜를 갚겠다고 하면서, 나무꾼에게 선녀들이 하늘에서 내려와서 목욕하는 선녀탕이라는 샘을 가르쳐준 다음 선녀를 아내로 삼는 법을 나무꾼에게 알려준다. 나무꾼은 사슴이 가르쳐준 때에 선녀들이 목욕을 하고 있는 샘으로 갔더니 과연, 선녀들이 하늘에서 내려와 날개옷을 벗고 선녀탕에서 목욕을 하자 나무꾼은 사슴이 가르쳐준 대로 날개옷을 하나 훔쳤다.

 

날개옷이 없어진 탓에 한 명의 선녀는 하늘로 올라가지 못했으며 다른 선녀들은 날개옷이 없는 선녀를 내버려두고 간다. 나무꾼이 선녀에게 자신의 부인이 되어달라고 하자 하늘나라로 올라가지 못하게 된 선녀는 할 수 없이 나무꾼의 아내가 된다.

 

사슴이 ‘아이 셋 낳을 때까지는 결코 날개옷을 돌려주면 안 된다’고 경고했었는데 아이가 둘 뿐인 상황에서 애원을 못 이기고 날개옷을 돌려줬다가 선녀가 아이 둘을 양팔에 한 명씩 끼고 그대로 하늘로 날아올라가 버렸다

 

A woodcutter meets a deer who runs away in the woods. The deer tells that a hunter is chasing him. The woodcutter who wondered about the talking deer hides the deer, and tells the hunter who comes after him that the deer has gone to another place.

 

The deer tells the woodcutter that the female angels come down from heaven and bathe in the spring, and how to make one of them his wife. The woodcutter went to the spring and when the women from heaven were having a bath, he hid clothes of one of the women.

 

One woman could not go up to heaven because her wing clothes were gone, and the other women left. She marries the woodcutter.

 

The deer warned, ‘You should never give the wings back until you have 3 children’ When he had only two children, the wife begged for the wing clothes and he gave them to her and she went away with children to heaven leaving the woodcutter.

Background Information:

This story is widespread throughout East Asia. There are different versions with a similar structure. Unlike other stories, it is hard to find any special lessons from this story.

 

Context:

This story is performed as many different forms like puppet animation, song or TV comedy.

 

Personal Analysis:

This is a tragic love story. It’s told to kids but it’s not really about romance. The woodcutter was deceiving to be lying to his wife about the clothes for a long time, but it is sad that she leaves him so suddenly. Her eagerness to leave makes it seem like there was no love to begin with. It might teach a lesson to follow instructions to live a good life, because the woodcutter didn’t listen to the deer.

Lemonade Iced Tea

Nationality: Korean-American
Age: 18
Occupation: undergraduate student
Residence: LA
Performance Date: 2017-4-26
Primary Language: English
Language: Korean

Main piece:

“Lemonade. Iced Tea. Coca cola. Pepsi. turn around *everybody turns around* touch the ground *everyone touches the ground with their hands* kick your brother out of town *kick an imaginary brother with foot* freeze *everybody stays still*”

 

Background information (Why does the informant know or like this piece? Where or who did they learn it from? What does it mean to them?):

You sing it and then freeze. She sang it in elementary school for fun. It was informal and something for entertainment. Usually for songs like this, one person in the friend group would teach the others like, “My older sister taught me this.” and that kid would teach the others to sing together.

Context (When or where would this be performed? Under what circumstance?):

It would happen when she was in elementary school when she was gathered with some friends and they were bored. They would do it during recess or breaks.

Personal Analysis:

I think I grew up with a similar version without the “kick your brother out of town” part. It’s fun to document these children’s informal folklore. It’s not a story even, but all the kids know it by word of mouth. It’s strange how far word of mouth can go even in the current day. Because it’s short and easy to say, it is more likely to be circulated without confusion on the words. The tune is catchy too.

Changelings

Nationality: American
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 4/25/17
Primary Language: English

Background:

My informant is a twenty-two year old student at USC. She is originally from Pennsylvania and came to LA to study screenwriting. As a writer, she makes it her business to be familiar with a variety of legendary creatures from different regions and cultures; she is ethnically Jewish.

Performance:

“This is one of my favorites. There was that Angelina Jolie movie about it, and everything, but that kind of sucked (laughter) so I first heard this from my grandmother sometime in high school, just kind of like, a scary story or something. But I’ve done more research and the basic story shows up across a bunch of different cultures and whatnot. So basically, we think of fairies as like, Tinkerbell, right? Well in most old cultures, fairies were not that fucking benign. Like, at all. Fairies were these sort of horrendous creatures that would sneak into your house and steal your babies and drive you crazy. Like, parents would hang iron over their baby’s crib to keep fairies from getting in and taking their kids. This whole legend grew up around that idea; when people were wondering if their kid was their kid or the fairy replacement, they’d call them ‘changelings.’ Basically, what a fairy leaves behind to mimic your child while the real thing lives on in the fairy realm. Some stories say that these changeling kids were kind of brutal, monstrous little things, and others just say they’re sort of…off, I guess? There’s a lot of variety, which makes it a cool story to build stories off of, if that makes sense. A lot of wiggle room.”

Thoughts:

This legend seems almost mythic, in the sense that it’s a story that was created as a means of explaining and understanding the world around us. As Kieryn mentioned, the changeling story appears in a variety of different traditions; it appears here: https://www.britannica.com/art/changeling-folklore and http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/scanchange.html and elsewhere across print and digital resources. Nowadays, you hear stories about a child one day “changing” and becoming “someone else;” all of a sudden, an otherwise sweet baby grows disobedient or angry or difficult. We would usually go straight to an autism diagnosis or some other psychological explanation, but this offers a more spiritual explanation. According to one of the articles above, there were myths about how to have your child returned from the fairy world, many of which included torture. This story in particular speaks to mankind’s understanding and treatment of mental illness and disability.