Background:
Informant (W) is a 78 y/o Chinese woman living in China.
Main Piece:
(Interview is translated from Mandarin Chinese.)
I: Can you tell me more about the jade necklace you gave me when I was younger?
W: Oh, I remember that. Your cousin had one, so you were begging me to get one for you too.
I: Why do people wear it? Is there something special about the jade?
W: Jade is a very important stone in China. If you wear a piece of jade, it sucks out all of the impurities in your body (吸毒, lit. “sucking poison”). When you see a dark spot in your piece of jade, that’s the negative energy it took.
I: So it’s stored in that piece of jade forever?
W: Yes, that’s what the jade does.
Context:
This conversation took place over a phone call.
Analysis:
The jade necklace can be loosely defined as a folk object. The existence of a folk object is defined by how it’s used, which changes over time, and are generally created from natural materials. With its staggering popularity, something like a jade necklace is probably mass-produced and distributed, and most likely has a variety of uses, from purely aesthetic reasons to religious ones (many jade necklaces are Buddha carvings or have Chinese zodiac signs). However, the shape of the jade is generally a round circle or donut shape—folk objects usually are slow to change in its form. In what my informant tells me, this particular instance of a jade necklace also uses contagion magic. By contact with the skin, the jade is able to suck out impurities within the body (specifically what this entails, my informant did not specify). This act gives the jade a sacred purpose and a usage other than aesthetics.
Tag Archives: Chinese
Yeet Hay
Background:
Informant (A) is a Chinese-American student at USC.
Main Piece:
A: It’s like, I don’t even know how to explain it well, it’s like, not hot and cold, but some food just have like a hotter energy or colder energy, it’s like all of this [gestures to her lunch], but that’s yeet hay, and it’s like if you eat too much of it you break out, and bad things happen to you and you need to have a balance in your diet and literally my mom would be so horrified by how I eat.
I: Was there anything in particular that you remember? Like just any food that you remember that maybe your mom was like, oh—
A: Just like, in general, like I would be like, “Parents, I have a medical something” or “Please use Western medicine” and they’d be like, “No, you can fix your issue by not eating chips” like eat a fruit, the balance or whatever.
Context:
This conversation was recorded in-person over lunch. The concept of yeet hay was brought up as my informant noted her lunch wouldn’t be conducive with yeet hay.
Analysis:
Yeet hay (熱氣, zheng qi, lit. “hot air”) is a Chinese medicinal concept in relation to food and the body, drawing on ideas of homeopathic magic. As explained by my informant, eating foods with a certain type of energy would either raise or cool down the body’s internal energy/temperature, which in turn affects biological functions and conditions. The longstanding tradition of Chinese medicine is most likely what drives belief in the idea, as opposed to Western medicine which has sprung up only in the last couple hundred years. Of course, in my informant’s case, yeet hay seems to also be applied as a method to get children to eat healthier by using such a traditional/ancient belief as a method of persuasion.
Bill Clinton and the Nine Horse Mountain
Informant (N) is a 53 y/o Chinese woman who is a first-generation immigrant to the US and has lived in the US for around 23 years.
I: Can you tell me about the story about 九马画山 (jiu ma huà shān) we heard by the tour guide when we visited Guilin?
N: (trans.) The Nine Horse Mountain’s rock face has a lot of plants and colors, which is why it’s known as 画山. Legend has it that on this mountain you can “see” nine horses on the rock face, and it’s said that the more horses you can see, the farther that person will go in terms of accomplishments. When President Bill Clinton visited Guilin, he was very excited to see the mountain, but when he got there he wasn’t able to see a single horse, which is saying he’s not very bright.
九马画山的石壁不是有各种植物，颜色啊，所以就称为画山。在这座石壁上呢，传说是能看出九匹马，看得越多人就走的越远，也说越成就。说是Bill Clinton去桂林旅游的时候，他很期待去看这座山，但一到的时候一匹马都看不出，就说他很笨。
I: Why is it that he’s not very bright?
N: (trans.) You can at least see one horse in the mountain, but he couldn’t even see one. But of course, seeing horses is really just saying the person has a vivid imagination.
这因为多少可以看到一匹马的，但他一匹也看不到。当然，能看得出马也只是证明你这个人很有想象力的。
Context:
This conversation took place over the phone. The original performance of this folklore was given by a tour guide while on a boat on the [] River.
Analysis:
The story my informant tells me is a legend, a narrative that is based in the real world but isn’t necessarily factual—both Bill Clinton and the mountain exist, but the number of horses he saw is highly debated. This legend also acts as a subtle dig towards Clinton, which, given the fact that the original performance was in Chinese and given by someone Chinese, makes reasonable sense. Placing a person of importance in such a location also gives the location a heightened sense of fame, making it more alluring to international tourists and participate in the legend (counting the horses on the rock face), which is how belief in this legend also continues.
Don’t Sleep With Wet Hair
Background:
Informant is a Chinese-American student at USC.
Main Piece:
“My family was just so convinced that like, nothing is ever dry until it’s bone dry. So I would go to blow dry my hair, and they’d be convinced, ‘no, it’s still wet’ and I would just keep on going, and they wouldn’t let me like go to sleep with like wet hair because I think they were just being like, ‘Oh, you’re gonna get sick’ and I was like, ‘No, it’s fine.’”
Context:
This conversation was recorded in-person.
Analysis:
Not sleeping with wet hair is something my parents have also told me. It’s a folk belief that is loosely tied with medicine/sickness, with the belief being propagated by the fact that it will scare children into drying their hair properly (though as my informant shows, at a certain age this wears off). There are probably scientific reasons either proving or disputing this claim, but considering that it was much easier to get sick pre-modern era, actions easy to control like drying your hair would probably be focused on the most.
Feng Shui
Background:
Informant is a Malaysian international student with Chinese ancestry at USC.
Main Piece:
“I had my Feng Shui read by an old lady when I was there [hometown in Fujian]. I have fire, fire, fire, wood, so the Feng Shui master gave me a necklace that’s supposed to be water to balance it out.”
Context:
I was discussing Western astrology with a group of friends and my informant, who did not know much about zodiac astrology, started talking about Feng Shui.
Analysis:
Feng Shui is probably one of the most common pieces of Eastern folklore/pseudoscience known to a Western audience, but only in regards to architecture or interior placement (how to design your bedroom, how should your house be facing, etc.). My informant’s piece is more focused on personal astrology, which in its essence, is trying to look into an uncertain/sacred/”other” realm in order to understand oneself better. The necklace my informant receives is an example of a conversion superstition, where something is done to undo the bad luck an action can cause—in this case, to balance out my informant’s energies. While my informant got his necklace for free, selling objects with folk belief attached to them is an easy way to trap unsuspecting people (tourists especially) into buying the objects, especially if the belief attached has same form of connection to the sacred.