Tag Archives: husband

Ukranian Blessing

Nationality: Ukrainian
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Language: Ukrainian

Text (Ukrainian): “Дай тобі Боже здоровʼя і доброго чоловіка”

Text (Romanized): Day tobi Bozhe zdorovʼya i dobroho cholovika

Translation: “May God give you good health and a good husband”

Context: The informant said that it’s when she does something good or something for her, instead of ‘thank you’ she says this proverb. The informant says, “So it’s like a little blessing. Her grandmother used to say it to her and now she says it to me”. 

Analysis: In traditional Ukrainian culture, there is a strong emphasis on the paternal line, particularly in regards to marriage. For instance, Ukrainian patronymic middle names combine the father’s first name with a gendered suffix (-vitch/-yvitch for men; -yvna/-ivna for women). Their culture values parental permission for marriage, so the informant’s mom wishing for a good husband reinforces cultural notions of traditional marriage and blesses whoever she does choose. In regards to religion, most Ukrainian families are Eastern Orthodox, so Godly blessings are valued and common. With this blessing combining good health and husbandry, it encourages the importance of finding marriage and a husband that works well with the family. 

Bake Your Own Cookie

Background provided by NN : NN was born and raised in Southern California. They were raised in a Chinese-American household and experienced many different forms of folklore. 

Context: NN was approached about folklore, they conveyed it through a telephone call. NN says that her father tells this tale whenever they are lazy. They also revealed that this particular folklore had evolved to be a joke after they learned how to cook and bake. 

Main Piece Transcription of interview (contains the context of particular performance and additional background information):

NN: “ So … like … my dad tells me this story … ALL the time. He usually tells me … when he thinks I am being … lazy, or whatever. The story kinda … always begins … with “There was once a rich man” (accompanied by air quotes) who had … like everything done for him. He never had to … umm … lifted a finger … like AT ALL. Servants … wiped his butt, like … fed him,  they did everything for him. (Pauses for effect) One, day, after he got married his, ummm … wife had to … like … uhh … visit her family for the … the … holiday. She baked her husband  a large cookie, and like put in on … a … string  and put it on around his neck. AND she left to visit her family … for … like a week. When she came back home,  she …  her husband was dead.  Like … he was in the same position … like when she left him … and like the cookie around his neck was not eaten. He was too lazy … to even lift the cookie … to like … eat … so he died. My dad would always say something, like … (deepens voice to imitate their father) “See … work won’t kill you, but being lazy will. Do you want to have someone bake your cookie for you … or what.” 

Analysis: This particular short story is has morbid humor. The laziness of the man is obviously dramatized to highlight the importance of hard work. It seems like the story is told orally and had even evolved into a joke amongst close family members. The moral of the story remains despite the context of the perfomance. It also acts as a representation of Chinese values. The lazy man can also be interpreted as subtle commentary on the partriarchal society. The wife had provided substance for her husband, but his choice led to his own demise. Another interesting layer to this tale is the financial component; the lazy man had never done anything for himself because he had the financial means to outsource all his tasks. This tale could have originated from the working-class as way of encouraging their chidren to embrace work instead of focusing on the scarcity of money.

Blessed Basil

During the night of Saint John, which is in January the sixth, uh priests orthodox priests would bless the waters. After blessing the waters they would come in every house, and with the blessed waters they would bless the house. But this is a habit going on and on and on that only got interrupted for the pandemia, for the pandemic. Otherwise they would come every year, and they would come to the door and they would knock on the door, and you would open it and the priest would come with blessed song and they would sprinkle that blessed water on your walls. By now its religion, until now the story is not a story, it is a method of uh blessing your house. But from now on superstition begins, and uh when the priest sprinkles the water he does it with a bouquet of basil. A very nice smell comes out from that bouquet, and after blessing the walls, the house, the home uh the young girls would request the priest a little leaf or a little part of that basil bouquet because they say if you put that thing beneath your pillow, you dream the man you marry with, you will marry. It’s valid also for men, but men don’t do it. They are (laughs) more dignified (laughs). And this is the first layer of the story, the second layer is the further the village, the more primitive society, the harsher the habit. Actually in some villages they say that you don’t dream your husband, you see him in the mirrors and it gets freakier and freakier. But even in these days, even now, young girls, shyly or not, request the priest, “Oh could you please give me some basil, I want to dream about my future husband”. 

Background: This informant has lived in Romania their whole life and is very interested in the folk traditions of various countries. They found this piece of folklore from other people in Romania.

Interpretation: This tradition is another example of folklore and religion intertwining. The informant and I interpret it as the young women wanting some sort of blessing from an authority figure in order to think about a man. In this case the figure is a religious authority. The image that the women see is probably the man that they fancy the most. The basil also shows the power both in religion, having been blessed by holy water, and the power of nature with the strong fragrance.

BACHELOR PARTY PRANK

Nationality: American
Age: 52
Occupation: Sales representative and finisher for wood-flooring company
Residence: Vail, CO
Performance Date: April 18, 2021
Primary Language: English

MAIN PIECE:

Informant: They chained a bowling ball to my leg… With a––with a, like chain. And I just kept telling them they had to remember not to push me in the pool that night… And they put me in a 12-year-old’s Superman costume. Like literally stuffed me into it, and everything was so far up my freaking crotch. So I was walking around the streets of Vegas in this Superman costume with a bowling ball chained to my leg. Like a ten- or twelve-pounder… Wasn’t like a kid’s ball.

INFORMANT’S RELATIONSHIP TO THE PIECE:

Informant: It’s what’s expected, you know…? Especially with my friends, there’s always that… I think it boils down to just playfulness? Like close through playfulness, you know. Giving each other a hard time, teasing each other, playing a prank on each other. Um… ‘Cause we know that we can. We’re so close that we can do it to each other without it, you know, offending anybody or, you know, somebody taking it the wrong way, or, you know… I think it symbolizes… At least in my group of friends, like you know… You know that when…  You’re stuffed into a Superman costume that you’re part of the crew. You know? And everybody’s having a good time at your expense, and everyone––and you’re okay with that. Cause it’s… It’s going to be somebody else’s turn at some point. 

REFLECTION:

Bachelor parties are a transitional period where a man is neither married nor single. He is on the threshold of becoming a husband. Bachelor parties often involve pranks at the groom’s expense, as practical jokes mark initiations into new identities. In International Folkloristics: Classic Contributions by the Founders of Folklore, Géza Róheim writes that there is a “tendency to punish the main actor of the drama,” with the groomsmen and bridesmaids “abreacting their Oedipal revolt in humorous, permissible form, against the new ‘father’-to-be” (273). Across cultures, the groom is clowned at the hands of the young people involved in the wedding party; he is being teased before entering his new, serious role as a man (which in some societies or families may entail becoming a patriarch, father, breadwinner, and head of the household).

In this specific case, pranks also showcase a closeness amongst the friends involved. The informant is part of a playful group of people who reveal their trust in one another through pranks. Being involved in the pranks demonstrates that you are part of the “in-group”––that you have earned their trust, and that you trust them––that they know you will respond to the prank in a certain manner (by finding it amusing and not upsetting). By pranking the informant, the men are not only marking the groom’s transition from bachelor to husband, but celebrating him as one of their own––he is still considered a part of the group, despite transitioning into a new identity. 

ANNOTATION:

Source cited above:

Róheim, Géza. “Wedding Ceremonies in European Folklore.” International Folkloristics: Classic Contributions by the Founders of Folklore, by Alan Dundes, Rowman & Littlefield, 1999, pp. 243–274.

Uneaten Food goes on the Husband’s Face

Nationality: Chinese/Vietnamese
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Diamond Bar, CA
Performance Date: 4/26/20
Primary Language: English

Main Piece:

Informant: Maybe another one is that it’s like if I didn’t finish all the rice grains on my bowl then like everything I didn’t finish would end up on my husband’s face. So essentially I’d have, like, an uglier husband, if I didn’t finish all the rice off my bowl.

Interviewer: Wouldn’t a husband with rice on his face, be like a good thing because it’s food?

Informant: It’s not just rice. It’s like any leftover food so I think the idea would be, like that would be like acne. So it’s more to promote not wasting food.

Background:

My informant is a friend and fellow student at USC. She was raised in the LA area but her family is ethnically Chinese and immigrated from Vietnam so she has multiple East Asian influences in her life.

Context:

I had set up a Zoom call with my friend because she said she had some examples of folklore that she could share with me. This sample was shared during that call

Analysis:

This seems like a fairly straightforward superstition to me. Parents want children to finish their food so there’s the motivation. So if a child does not finish their food, it will be transferred to their husband’s face. Even though there is not a strong emphasis, to my knowledge, on the beauty of the groom in traditional Chinese marriages, everyone would prefer a more attractive partner. The idea that it is rice (standing in for acne) that would appear on the husband’s face makes sense as rice plays such a central role in the Chinese diet.