Tag Archives: Chinese

“The wolves are coming!” 狼來了!

Nationality: Chinese
Age: 51
Occupation: Housewife
Residence: Arcadia, CA
Performance Date: 4/27/2013
Primary Language: Chinese
Language: English

“So a long long time ago, there was a kid… he has to release the sheep at home.  So everyday he would run up the top of a mountain, watching the sheep eat grass and the like.  So everyday is like this and he thinks it’s really boring.  When he was bored, he would look everywhere and when he looked down he would see a lot of farmers, they’re there tilling the soil.  So the boy thinks, “Eeeh?  I’m this bored, why don’t I fool them first!”  So, really loudly… then… so he thinks, “how do I fool them?” And he loudly yells “Save me!  Wolves are coming!” So… the farmers at the foot of the mountain go, “Eh?  The kid on the mountain is yelling for help… he says there’s a wolf,” so they immediately put down all their work, run up the mountain to save the boy.  So the boy is watching the farmers, so he sees the farmers running up the mountain and thinks it’s really funny, and very entertaining, like watching them do a show or something, so he… then the farmers run up and are exhausted, panting, and when they reach the boy, the boy happily claps his hands “Yay, yay, I fooled you guys!  I fooled you guys, there wasn’t a wolf in the first place, seeing you all run up, so cute!”  So the farmers say “Huh, this kid, playing with us like this,”  so they unhappily descend the mountain.  So okay, an amount of time passes, the boy still has to go up the mountain every day to tend to the sheep, and he sits and thinks “Ughh, so boring… last time was pretty fun though!  Again!”  So for a second time… then… he tries it again, yelling “Save me, save me!  Wolves are coming, the wolves are coming and carrying all my sheep away!  Save me, you better come quickly and save me!”  Then the farmers, at first, see him yelling like that and have… have… hesit-hesitate, have some hesitation, thinking “Hm?  Is this kid… is it true this time?”  But the kid, seeing the farmers… he calls the farmer and sees they are ignoring them and continues, acting really afraid and yelling “Save me, save me!”  The farmers don’t want to risk having wolves eating the sheep, so at the end the farmers decide to run up the mountain and save the kid, and they run, run, run, run up the mountain and the kid, again, goes, “Yay, yay, you’re all dense, you’re all silly, hahaha!  You’re all really silly!”  So this time the farmers are really angry… “This kid really is naughty, so ill-disciplined, right?”  “He’s like this, tricking us, wanting us to abandon our work to run up and save him, he… it turns out he’s joking with us.”  Then, an amount of time passes, and the kid goes up the mountain to tend to the flock again, and this time he’s really unlucky, there really is a wolf coming.  When the wolf is actually coming, it carries away his sheep, bites his goat…his sheep.  This time he’s actually terrified and screams “Save me! Save me!  Farmers below, hurry up and save, there’s really a wolf!  Faster, save me!”  Then the farmers hear it this time and think  “This kid is fooling us again?  He’s already fooled us twice… let’s not go save him.”  This time the farmers decide to ignore the kid.  Unfortunately, this time, a wolf really does come down.  So the wolf ate… carried away all the sheep and wounded the kid as well.  This kid, at this time, is really regretful.  He thinks, “why did I have to lie in the past to trick people?  Now that I’ve tricked people, they no longer have trust, they don’t trust me, so this time when I really have hardship, no one is willing to help me.”  So this story teaches children to be honest, don’t lie; if you lie, no one will trust you, and if there’s really danger, no one will save you.”

My mother heard this story from her mother as a child.  Her mother would tell her this story, usually like a bedtime story, and teach her the lesson of not lying.  My mother and her sisters would often rely on their mother to tell stories like this to pass the time.

At first, I didn’t recognize the story because the title was “Wolf is coming!”  in Cantonese (狼來了!)  But when I heard the story I recognized it as a version of the folk story, “The Boy Who Cried Wolf.”  I think the difference in the titles comes down to the fact that “狼來了!” is catchier (long loi liu!) and that “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” does not have a particularly smooth Cantonese translation.

In this telling in particular, the “kid” is referred to in Cantonese as siu peng you (xiao peng you, 小朋友), which refers to kids in general but is also understood to refer to boys more often than girls.  Perhaps this is because most other versions of the story feature a boy.  I also found it interesting that the kid sees farmers, instead of being part of a village and yelling to the villagers for help.  The comments of the boy towards the farmers are likely different with each performance.  The “hahahas” were added as a sort of flavor by my mother in this particular performance of the piece.

In other versions I’ve heard, the resolution is adverse but not particularly violent; for example, the sheep would run away at the sight of the wolf.  I was surprised that this version, which my mother learned as a child, has the kid injured and the sheep eaten.  There is also no seen with the farmers teaching the kid a lesson – the lesson comes from the kid reflecting on his mistake.

A variation of this tale in literature can be found in B.G. Hennessy’s children’s book, The Boy Who Cried Wolf.  It seems that there’s yet another variation in this authored text;  at some point the boy’s friend gets involved.  The information of this book is below:

Hennessy, B. G., and Boris Kulikov. The Boy Who Cried Wolf. New York: Simon & Schuster for Young Readers, 2006. Print.

七彩豬毛釘 (Rainbow pig-hair nail)

Nationality: Chinese
Age: 51
Occupation: Housewife
Residence: Arcadia, CA
Performance Date: 4/27/2013
Primary Language: Chinese
Language: English

Phonetic pronunciation of 七彩豬毛釘: chut choi ju mo deng
My mother grew up in a working-class family in Hong Kong.  On one hand, my mother’s family was living in an industrialzing culture; on the other hand, her parents came from Southern Chinese villages.  So there’s a lot of beliefs and practices that they carried over from their village lives.

My mother learned a folk medicinal practice from her mother when she had a fever as a child.  Her mother used an old folk remedy, the 七彩豬毛釘, to cure my mother of her fever.

The 七彩豬毛釘 is made of rice flour, hot water, and an egg.  The preparation of the remedy is really simple – you heat some water and add the rice flour and egg to it.  There is no specified amount of each ingredient that you have to put into the remedy.  You just have to create the right consistency that lets you knead the mixture into a piece of dough.  While it is still hot, you roll the ball of dough along the back of the sick person.

The person who prepared the 七彩豬毛釘 then breaks open the ball.  If the treatment worked properly, there should be tiny hairs of all colors stuck in the dough (七彩 means “rainbow” in Chinese – the hairs are also described as looking like pig-hairs, 豬毛).  My mother attests that she saw her mother break the ball open and found rainbow-colored hairs inside.  After the treatment, her fever reduced.
My mother recreated the treatment for me (I was curious), but since I did not have a fever, she was unable to actually apply the remedy.

What I find very interesting is that the remedy has a visual confirmation associated with it.  The remedy’s power comes from contagious magic — the illness of the patient transfers into the piece of dough when it contacts the patient’s skin.  My mother didn’t particularly remember any explanation as to why the illness would turn into rainbow-colored hairs, she just knows that it reduced her fever.  Nobody is allowed to eat the dough after the treatment either, which would make sense since contagious magic has transferred what’s causing the illness into the dough.

Cantonese Wedding Comb Tradition

Nationality: Chinese
Age: 51
Occupation: Housewife
Residence: Arcadia, CA
Performance Date: 4/27/2013
Primary Language: Chinese
Language: English

My mother said that when she was about to get married, she learned of a tradition that takes place before the day of the wedding.  Her older sister combed her hair the night before, and said the following lines:

一梳梳到老 (yi shu, shu dao lao)

二梳白髮齊眉 (er shu, bai fa jing wei)

三梳兒孫滿地 (san shu, er sun man di)

四梳有田有地 (si shu, you tian you di)

Each line is delivered with a stroke from a comb.

The first line translates to, “one stroke, stroke until old age.”  The first stroke comes with a wish for the bride-to-be to have a long life.

The second line translates to, “two strokes, your brows become white together.”  The second stroke wishes for the bride-to-be to have white eyebrows at the same time her husband does.  In other words, this stroke wishes for the couple to grow old together.

The third line translates to, “three strokes, children and grandchildren cover the ground.”  This third stroke wishes for the bride to have many children, and children who survive to raise grandchildren.

The fourth line translates to, “four strokes, you’ll have fields and have land.”   This wishes for the wife-to-be to own property.

There are other significant gestures in this ritual as well.  The reason why my mother’s older sister combed her hair was because she was happily married, had children, and had a home.  Elder members of either family can comb the wife-to-be’s hair so long as they’re happily married and generally have experienced the wishes of this combing ceremony.  Widows or sickly wives can not perform this action.

After the combing ceremony, the wife-to-be can not sleep and must preserve the hair until the wedding.

There’s a lot going on in the gestures of this combing ceremony.  A happy marriage and future is very important, so it would make sense that this combing ceremony takes place.  The stressed need for a happily-wedded wife to perform this ceremony shows that theres is a form of contagious and homeopathic magic going on in the performance.  Since homeopathic magic follows a “like produces like” rationale, a happy wife combing a wife-to-be’s hair hopefully produces another happy wife.  On the other hand, the wife combing the wife-to-be’s hair acts as a form of transferrence.  She is transferring her happiness and successful marriage to the wife-to-be.

My mother noted that the fourth line was a recent addition.  With expanded rights and social roles for women, the wish for her ability to own property became very relevant.  This shows that the incantation and the practice of combing the wife-to-be’s hair is adaptive to changing circumstances.

Origin of Chinese New Year

Nationality: Taiwanese American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/12/2013
Primary Language: English
Language: Mandarin Chinese

Click here for video.

“So the background story for Chinese new year is usually told to all Asian American children. Basically there was a monster called ‘Nian’ which means ‘year’ and he would prey on the villagers and eat small children and so he came every year basically. The old wise man in the village said that if everyone in the village made a lot of noise it would scare Nian away. And Nian was also apparently afraid of the color red. So that’s why every year on Chinese New Year Chinese people celebrate with a lot of firecrackers because they are very very noisy and their favorite color to string up on houses is the color red.”

In many other tellings (told to me in my youth by Chinese teachers and parents) of this piece of folklore, the monster is called the “Nianguai” most literally meaning “year monster”. Additionally, the old wise man is not a villager, but a passing god thanking the villagers for their hospitality. There are often more details about how the passing god is treated by the villagers and the sorts of celebrations that go on with the banishment of the Nianguai, but the purpose of the story stays the same: the narrative explains why Chinese people celebrate the lunar new year using copious amounts of red decorations and firecrackers.

Firecrackers and all manner of fireworks are lit during Chinese New Year because they have the elements of cleansing fire while being ostentatious and festive. Red adds to the boldness of New Year celebrations as its the most visible color. Additionally, we might place significance in the color red because it is the color our our blood. Blood gives us life, but when its visible, we are hurt or dying. Due to this association, it is fitting for the celebration of a New Year. In a New Year’s celebration, we celebrate the death of an old year and the birth of a New Year.

See:
Yuan, Haiwang. The magic lotus lantern and other tales from the Han Chinese. Westport, Conn: Libraries Unlimited, 2006. Print. 168-169

Chinese Changzhou Combs

Nationality: Chinese
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: April 22, 2013
Primary Language: English
Language: Chinese, some French

Interview Extraction:

Informant: “There’s this special brush, or comb I guess is more accurate, that girls get when they graduate high school, or any sort of graduation beyond that, although I think is mostly for high school. But the comb is supposed to be meaningful and it’s made out of this special wood, and you’re not supposed to like, get any water on it.

Me: “Do you ever use it?”

Informant: “I do. And yeah, the wood’s supposed to be good for hair and you can stroke your hair with it however many times and it makes it healthier, I think.

Me: “Who gave it to you?”

Informant: “My mom’s cousin. She said she got one from her mom, and it’s all about womanhood and all that blah blah blah.”

Me: “Who typically gives the comb?”

Informant: “Family, relatives, mothers usually I guess.”

Me: “Do you think you’ll get one when you graduate college too?”

Informant: “Oh, no.”

 Analysis:

It’s interesting that the comb is given to girls at graduation, and my informant stressed the fact that this is an upper education graduation gift. Yet at the same time, she mentioned how it was relevant to womanhood, and indeed it can seem like an appropriate gift to a girl who is transitioning into becoming a woman. Traditionally, I would have assumed that this process would be celebrated earlier, but since it is education-based, this custom would evidently be a more modern one, even if the item itself is older.

My informant also remarked that it’s typically a high school graduation gift, indicating again that it is part of the shift from living with one’s parents and being a girl to living elsewhere in the world and becoming an adult.

My informant didn’t know the name of the special wood used, but her gift is presumably aChangzhoucomb, which can be made out of mahogany, jujube wood, heather, and boxwood.Changzhoucombs have been in production for over 2000 years and have been traditionally used only by royalty, making them a popular and valuable award or present to anyone who may deserve it. Additionally, though the combs can be good for the hair, they seem to be mostly decorative in purpose. They are hand-painted and can often be very intricate, emphasizing the importance of beauty in a young woman.

I’m not sure how popular throughout Chinese culture it may be to give these combs as graduation presents, but no doubt they will be in use for a long, long time, bestowed as various gifts for any occasions.