Tag Archives: China

Wearing Dots on New Years Eve – Holiday Ritual/Folk Magic

Nationality: Filipino
Age: 51
Occupation: IT Help Desk
Residence: Naperville, IL
Language: English

Text:

If you wear dots on your clothing (shirt, pants, underwear, socks, etc.), you will manifest wealth for the new year.

Context:

Since the performer can remember, her family always celebrated New Years together and everyone in her town (a small, rural town in the Philippines) would get together and all wear polkadots on New Years Eve. She brought the tradition to America and passed it on to her kids. The other Filipino-Americans she knows also wears dots on their clothes when they celebrate the new year.

“Prosperity for the whole year because the dots are like money. If you have money at the strike of midnight then the whole year you will have money.” “It’s Chinese, the circle is the symbol of something like wealth.” “We just know growing up. But it’s Chinese related but Filipino culture likes to mix cultures.”

Analysis:

Dots are circular shaped, and circles look like coin, and coins symbolize prosperity. Therefore, wearing dots is a form of homoeopathic magic. By wearing “dots,” it produces the like of “prosperity.” This new years tradition is often coupled with using movement, sound, and taste for good luck as well with many Filipinos also jumping at midnight to grow taller, shaking coins to ward off evil spirits, and opening doors and windows to “let in the good luck.” Many of these traditions are similar to Chinese values as in Chinese culture, round objects symbolize harmony, wholeness, and wealth. Therefore, for Chinese New Years, they also include many “round” items such as round fruits (ex: oranges) or giving out coins in red envelopes. The influence of this culture can be greatly attributed centuries of migration and trade from Southern China which is why there is even a sub-section of Filipino communities known as Tsinoy.

Cold remedy

fields:
AGE: 45
Date_of_performance: 2001-2017
Language: English
Nationality: Canadian ( learned from china)
Occupation: artist/ retail
Primary Language: Enlish
Residence: Toronto Canada

When we were suffering with a cold as a child our mother would boil Coke-cola with ginger and starniese a trick she had learned when she lived at 北大University, from a classmate. the ginger and staraniese act as healing remedy; thought to heat up the body and help healing. the Coke was used like honey as electrolytes but also has some licorice in it so it is known for helping with nausea, and finally boiling it because in chinese culture people really drink cold water or things. it is believed that drinking hot drinks even in the summer keeps one healthy.

Recipe:

coke, ginger, staraniese boiled for 10 minuets.

I think like many people coke is a miracle cure; it is no different to my mother, when we were ill we were given coke; stomach ache coke, sick coke. many people have miracle cures and coke happened to be ours.

Dragon Boat Festival

Text:

JK: Dragon Boat Festival, an Asian festival, you can see it in Taiwan, in China, in a lot of different places. I’m not exactly sure, but it’s the 5th day of the 5th month in the Chinese calendar, so around June for us. It’s about this guy called Qu Yuan who was the Prime Minister and known for his wisdom but there’s a story where he was correct about something he told the king, but his enemies convinced the king to kill him. So the king did not believe him and the kingdom fell to ruin. Qu Yuan committed suicide by falling into a river. The villagers were so upset, they wanted to make sure his body wasn’t eaten by fish. So they dropped wrapped “zongzi” into the river so the fish would eat that instead. So now the Dragon Boat Festival exists because there are a lot of Dragon Boats and races across the river. So we eat the zongzi as a way of remembering Qu Yuan and thanking him for his wisdom and his service.

It’s near the summer equinox and you can also balance eggs on the floor. 

Context:

JK’s family is from Taiwan, he grew up celebrating this festival every year. He has participated in eating zongzi and balancing eggs for the Dragon Boat Festival. 

Analysis:

Festivals surrounding other folklore are fairly common. In this case, the festival is surrounding the legend of Qu Yuan. Similarly to other festivals around the world, the Dragon Boat Festival honors a historical event through ritualistic storytelling. It also involved communal activities designed to foster a sense of community and cultural identity through the use of culturally significant objects like zongzi and dragon boats. Its practice of honoring historical events and culture bears similarities to the Japanese Obon Festival, a vibrant festival celebrating deceased ancestors similar to the Day of the Dead in Latin America. Another example is the Korean Dano Festival that involves cultural foods similar to zongzi in the form of rice cakes.

Yunnan/Sichuan Torch Festival

This is a story from when my informant, who is Chinese-American, went back to the rural town in Yunnan, China that her father’s family hails from when she was around 10 years old.

Text

“So in Yunnan, China (and Sichuan, which I’ve learned from outside research) there’s this festival that happens at the end of summer called the torch festival, with a lot of stuff like people dancing around bonfires, lighting paper lanterns, lighting torches, etc. When I was younger and in China during that time, I participated in the festival at the rural town that my grandparents live in called Xiangyun. One of the activities I remember most about it is people gathering in a circle around the fire and jumping over it. I accidentally ran towards it as the same time as another person and burned a hole in my shoe haha.”

Context

“When I asked my parents about it, they said it was to ward off insects as the harvest season started. When I did more research on it, I found out it was based around a specific legend of how a hero warded off a swarm of locusts with fire (I believe this story comes from the Yi people, but double check me on that). As far as I know, I think the custom is endemic to that specific area of Yunnan, cause I couldn’t find it in the resources on the torch festival online. Although I was only looking at sources in English, so that might’ve affected it.”

Interpretation

This festival shares a lot of similarities with many holidays that occur at the end of summer and usher in autumn and winter. It focuses on the presence of light and warmth (lighting torches and lanterns) to ward off the increased darkness of the following days and emphasizes creating a bountiful harvest by warding off harmful insects. The ritual of people jumping over a fire is interesting because it seems like people want to take the risk of being burned to heighten their spirits and get ready for the gloominess of winter.

Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival Myth

Nationality: Chinese-American
Age: 19
Occupation: Barista/Student
Residence: Mercer Island, WA

Text

A very long time ago, there were 10 suns in the sky. Crops and people were dying because of the excess heat from too many suns. One day, a really good archer named Houyi decided he’d solve the problem by shooting down the suns. He succeeded, shooting down nine out of ten of them. The people were happy, and afterwards, Houyi married a girl name Chang’e. He was rewarded for his feat with a special medicine ball, but told only to eat it when he was about to die. Later, Houyi went hunting, leaving his wife at home. Thieves broke into their house and demanded that Chang’e give them the medicine ball. Chang’e refused, but when the thieves insisted, she ate it rather than risk it falling into their hands. As a result, she floated all the way up to the moon. Houyi was extremely sad. Chang’e is said to still be there today. There are other versions of this story where Chang’e chooses to eat the ball without the intervention of thieves or where Houyi grows evil and Chang’e eats the ball to prevent Houyi from using it.

Context

AZ was between 4 and 5 when she first heard this legend. She can’t remember where she first first it, but recalls that it’s generally told during the Mid-Autumn Festival or in school. This celebration is all about the moon at its brightest and roundest, and the legend is shared to honor Chang’e for eating the ball to protect it from being used for bad things. AZ says this story is the origin of the Mid-Autumn Festival. The story is very nostalgic for her. AZ told me that she prefers the version she told over the alternate versions. She doesn’t know what the story might mean or represent.

Analysis

There’s a lot to this myth, which seems to have many variations and hold lots of value in Chinese culture. I designate this as a myth because it is not only a creation story, but also appears to be sacred. It’s the origin of a large, annual celebration, denoting its importance in China. I think that this myth expresses the importance of the Sun and moon in Chinese culture, as well as their intrinsic connection to human beings. This is because both bodies have major importance in the story: Houyi is reason there’s only one sun, and his shooting down of the other nine leads to his to his ownership of the ball; and Chang’e’s choice to eat the ball takes her to the moon, where she remains to this day. Chang’e’s and Houyi’s decisions to take action in order to protect the world around them highlights the importance of strength, virtue, and courage in Chinese culture. This is further emphasized by alternate versions of the tale mentioned by AZ. In the one in which Houyi turns evil, Chang’e’s choice to eat the ball is still courageous, strong, and virtuous. In the one in which Chang’e chooses to eat the ball, being stranded on the moon is her punishment, warning others to choose virtue over desire. Since this myth still shapes an important celebration in China and continues to be told, I believe that these values are still important to the culture in the modern day.