Tag Archives: Chinese

Chinese Housewarming Tradition

Residence: Chicago, IL
Performance Date: 4/29/20
Primary Language: English

Main Piece:

According to RE, there is a Chinese tradition for when you buy a home. “When you first buy a house, before you enter for the first time you have to throw new, shiny coins into the house then the first three items you bring in is oil, sugar, and rice. The meaning behind it is that the coins bring money into the house. Oil sugar and rice bring prosperity.”

Context:

RE, is a sophomore at USC and is familiar with Chinese traditions. She is very invested in this culture and knows a lot about it. This was taken from a conversion over text regarding these traditions.

Thoughts:

I think this traditions is interesting. One thing I know about eastern cultures is that they have values and traditions that have to go with omens. One trend I notice is that omens play a big part in their lives whether good or bad. Symbolize matters a lot and this piece speaks to that part of Chinese culture. Throwing new coins into the house as the first item is obviously a symbol of money, which is a goal for people in life. Another symbol is the oil, sugar, and rice. These being signs of prosperity make sense as they are basic ingredients in food. Prosperity is the idea of living a good life and the start to that is always having food on the table. This helps add to the idea that symbols play a huge role in Eastern Asian culture.

Red Egg Party

Residence: Chicago, IL
Performance Date: 4/29/20
Primary Language: English

Main Piece:

According to RE, a traditional Chinese celebration for newborn babies is called a Red Egg Party. “The red egg party is to celebrate the one month birthday of a new baby. You rub their head with green onion sticks and a red egg, and throw a celebration with red dyed eggs. Right of passage sort of thing. Belief of good health, intelligence, long life etc.”

Context:

RE, is a sophomore at USC and is familiar with Chinese traditions. She is very invested in this culture and knows a lot about it. This was taken from a conversion over text regarding these traditions.

Thoughts:

What immediately comes to mind when I think of this is its similarities to a baptism. The purpose of both is a right of passage into a new light and they are both typically done in the first month of a human’s life. One thing I was not able to investigate into is why a red egg and green onions. Though theses are to represent “good health, intelligence, long life etc.”, I was not sure why. This as a right of passage makes a lot of sense. It instills Chinese values into the child one month into their lives and brings them into the culture.

Chinese Proverb of “To Kill Two Birds with One Stone”

Nationality: Chinese/ french
Age: 23
Occupation: Accountant
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/21/2020
Primary Language: English
Language: Mandarin/ French

Main Story: 

“There is a common saying in Chinese (Mandarin) : 箭双雕” 

Original Script : 箭双雕 

Phonetic: Yi (Yee) Jian Shuang Diao

Transliteration: Complete two tasks with one job 

Full translation: to shoot two birds with one arrow

This saying is also present in English, it is the same concept as “to kill two birds with one stone”. The theory being you can complete two separate tasks with one action. For example: say a person has to go get a test done at the doctor’s office and also a check up with a different doctor. But both doctors happen to operate out of the same medical office building. By scheduling the appointments back to back, the person is able to complete two tasks (the doctors’ appointments) with one action (driving to the medical office building). 

Background: 

The informant of this info is my friend and she is Chinese and used to live in Shanghai. She always found it interesting that this phrase exists in both English and in Chinese in an almost synonymous context. She can’t find anywhere as to which phrase came first and who got it from who or if the similarity is purely coincidental, and if it is a coincidental likeness then she wanders what does that say about human nature? 

Context:

The informant is a friend of mine and we were video calling over the phone during quarantine and just chatting about life and funny coincidences across cultures.

My thoughts: 

I kind of agree with my friend on how she feels about the odd coincidence between the two languages and the same phrase. It is interesting that they are so similar in literally every aspect of their meaning. 

Legend behind Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival

Nationality: French/ Chinese
Age: 23
Occupation: Accountant
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 2/25/2020
Primary Language: English
Language: French, Mandarin

The following story was told to me by my friend:

So in China we have the Mid-Autumn festival, as I am sure you have heard of, the mooncakes are famous. But, what a lot of people do not know is the myth of how it came to be. It all became long ago. There is a princess who lives on the moon in her moon castle with her little bunny. And as it goes, on the full moon -the 15th day of the month on the Lunar calendar- the princess could see Earth at its fullest. Every full moon she would look down at earth and she would always look at this one farmer and she eventually fell in love with him from afar. So one day, she went down to Earth and disguised herself as a human. Her and the farmer fell in love and she was happy on Earth. Then one day her brother noticed she was missing, so he searched for her and found her on Earth having married a mortal human. Outraged, he came down to Earth, and took her from her lover since it was a disgrace that a god would marry a human and he took her back to the moon. There, he imprisoned her in her castle and she could no longer see her lover. Eventually, the other gods felt bad for her because she was so very sad. So they made the agreement that in Autumn on the full moon she is allowed to go down once a year to visit her lover. So, the festival happens on the full moon on the 15th in Mid-Autumn every year and it is all about reunion and time with loved ones. 

Background: 

The informant is ½ Chinese and ½ French. While she spent the first 13 years of her life in Paris, she moved to Shanghai for high School to reconnect with her Chinese heritage. This story is one of her all time favorite stories from Chinese culture that her grandmother would tell her. She holds it very close to her. 

Context: 

The informant is a good friend of mine, and the conversation was held organically as she was reminiscing about things she loves about her culture one night over dinner at an Italian restaurant in downtown Los Angeles. 

My thoughts: 

I found this to be such a cute and lovely legend to how the festival came to be. Another one of my friends loves the Mid-Autumn festival. He is from Vietnam though, and while he never mentioned this moon princess story, he also loves the festival and what it signified for him and his friends and family spending time together. I love how this festival brings up such good memories for many of the people I have spoken to and it shows such a wholesome lineage between cultures.

Chinese Sleeping Superstitions

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: student
Residence: Fullerton, CA
Performance Date: 4/29/2020
Primary Language: English
Language: Mandarin, Vietnamese

Text:

Informant: Chinese people say that you can’t sleep with the fan on or else it will suck up the air out of the room. Then you’ll die of suffocation. You can’t sleep with your stomach showing or else you’ll wake up with a stomach ache. You can’t watch a baby sleep because it’s bad for the baby. It will make it so they don’t grow up correctly. They’re crazy, but I learned them from my parents.

Context:

I asked a group of friends about any superstitions they were raised with. This was one of their responses. The informant is of Chinese descent.

Thoughts: I am not of East Asian descent and have never hear of any superstitions regarding sleep, but the other people present when the informant shared these with me were and had heard all of these. This may reflect a greater importance of sleep in East Asian societies.