Tag Archives: religious

Korean Holidays

Nationality: Korean
Age: 24
Occupation: Student
Residence: Daegu, South Korea
Performance Date: February 9, 2013
Primary Language: Korean
Language: English

This story was told to me by my friend who had come from Korea recently. It was the day right before Seollal and I wanted to know more about how it was celebrated in Korea. He had experienced this tradition every year for all of his life, and he had learned most of what he did from his parents and grandparents. In telling me how they celebrated the New Years and “Thanksgiving,” he also informed me of what it meant to him personally. He said that he believed these properly reflect how you should be thankful to nature and to your parents. Both of these holidays involve filial piety in that you honor your parents and the ones who came before you. You thank them for providing for you, and you thank nature for being bountiful as well, providing for your own needs. He believed that these holidays were also a very unifying time. Families come together during this time period to talk about anything and everything, catching up on the latest family gossip or simply asking how other people were doing. Family is an essential part of his life, and so anything that helped strengthen the bonds that family made were exceedingly important to him.

추석 (Chuseok)

Chuseok is a traditional Korean holiday. It is celebrated on August 15th according to the lunar calendar. As a result, its date moves around from year to year according to the calendar that we use. It can be considered as the Korean equivalent to Thanksgiving, but it is also very different. Chuseok is a holiday that is meant to celebrate the newly harvested grain. It celebrates that the earth had been fertile and provided so much grain that everybody could have food for the following wintertime.

It is a very important time when it comes to family. There is a three day holiday from work, and everybody is not expected to do anything work related. Everybody goes back to their hometown from wherever they are. So what happens is that in order to celebrate, people leave on their first day off to drive back to wherever it is that they came from. It is such a big holiday, that there are even special buses that are meant for taking people back home. However, because everybody is going back to their hometown to visit their family, the traffic is really bad. It is well known that the traffic jams are impossible to the point that it takes up to 20 hours just to move from city to city. It doesn’t matter to the people though. Regardless of how many people or there, or how long it takes, people will work their way just to get back to their families.

When you get back home, you must reunite with your family. Traditionally, you will eat dinner together and talk about your lives while you have been apart. Or if you have been living together the whole time, then you talk about what it is that you appreciate most and be cheerful. It is usually a very lively party. Everyone will make a Korean dish called songpyeon. It is a dessert, and is essentially a sweet rice cake filled with different fillings. Some are made with eggs, others are made with sesame seed paste, and some are just made with sweet filling. It is a family event, and usually everybody will learn it from their grandmothers. After they make it, everybody will come together to happily eat it. It is a very enjoyable time, and will also end up being a way to wish for revitalization for the land so that it may be “fertile” once again, and that good fortune will come for the following year.

Earlier in the day, the family will go the grave mounds where their ancestors are buried. They will clean the mound by trimming the plants around it and making it look presentable. Then they will hold a ceremony that will honor the dead, hoping to placate the spirits that guard the family and have them continue to bestow their blessings. They will usually offer food up to their ancestors, and some of them will provide pleasures that their ancestors enjoyed during life. However, the placement of the food is ultimately very important. Rice and soup are placed on the north side while fruits and vegetables are placed on the south side. On the west are the meat dishes, and on the east are the drinks. They do vary from region to region, but otherwise it is pretty consistent. Some people light cigarettes and leave them in a dish nearby. Others buy liquor and pour it all over the burial mound. All of this is done in order to respect the dead.

Around dinnertime, before or after the eating, there are usually games that are played. One notable one is Ssireum, which is essentially Korean wrestling. It happens between two people, and the winner is determined based on who can push the other one out of the ring. People also have archery competitions. However, this tradition is only for the men. The girls traditionally play much more childish games, and do not really do more active things. The most noticeable thing for girls in this holiday is a dance called the Ganggangsullae. The name has no meaning; it is just the phrase that follows the verse from the song that this is danced to. Essentially, the girls of the village will hold hands and dance around in a circle. They will wear their traditional Korean clothes called hanboks, and they will just circle around singing Ganggangsullae. With all of these festivities though, the people will simply enjoy their time together and get to know their families even better.

설날 (Seollal)

Seollal is the Korean New Years. It is also placed according to the lunar calendar. It changes dates quite often, but it is usually around January to February, in line with the Chinese New Years. This is the other big holiday in Korea where people will go back to visit their families from wherever it is that they may be staying. Another three day holiday is provided to the people so that they are able to do so.

The customs of Seollal are very similar to those of Chuseok. The family will again go back to the burial mounds of their ancestors and take care of them. They will snip away the weeds and make the grass growing on top of the mounds look presentable. They will talk to the dead ancestors and make their wishes for a good afterlife for them. They will also provide food set in the traditional manner for the dead as well.

The food of Seollal is very traditional. People will eat rice cake soup, which is usually prepared with meat, rice cake, egg, and seaweed. This recipe will vary regionally, but at the very least, the rice cake part will be included. According to Korean tradition, people turn gain a year at the new lunar calendar year. They are one when they are born, and become two when Seollal occurs. However, they only gain a year if they eat the rice cake soup. That is why every year, people at it so that they can gain a year of age.

Children will be very traditional and wear traditional clothes that are called hanboks. They will bow to their parents, grandparents, and elders. They will wish them blessing and a long life with the phrase “새해 복 많이 받으세요,” which means “I hope you receive many new blessings for the new year.” The bowing is very traditionalized, as the children will first get on their knees and then bow, putting their head to the floor. Then they will get back up on their knees, and then stand one again. As a reward for the children’s filial piety, they usually receive money in beautiful money pouches. Inside the money pouches are also contained sayings and phrases that are meant to instruct the children to live moral lives, but that has become less popular in the recent days.

Then everybody plays games. The girls will play on a seesaw. Rather than sitting on it, two girls will stand on the ends of it. One will jump, and then the other girl will be launched into the air. In falling back down, the first girl will be launched into the air. It is a very amusing game, and that is how they spend their time. The boys would play jegichagi, which is very much like hacky sack in America. Once that is done, everybody will play Yutnori together. Yutnori is a board game that involves throwing sticks. You move your pieces around the board in a circle to try and make it to the finish line. However, there are two teams. Each team takes turns throwing sticks, and depending on the way they land, you must move a certain distance. If the other team throws a number and lands on the exact same spot, then the first team’s piece is taken off the board and they must start over again. It is a race to finish, as each team usually has 4 pieces. If it is not racing to finish, then it is a race to catch the other team to make them start all over again. It is a friendly competition between family members, and usually the winning team will get a monetary reward.

These holidays are celebrated very differently in America than they are in Korea. In America it’s much more relaxed and less focused on the family. Knowing that this still exists in Korea is actually very meaningful. I had wanted to celebrate the holidays with my own family, and we do—but it is not as important to us as it is to them. In addition, this also seems to reflect the religious nature of Korean people. The idea of honoring the dead ancestors is a very Confucian ideal. Personally, my family does not celebrate that part of the holidays because we are Christian and we believe otherwise. I definitely respect these holidays for being such a unifying factor between families and even between Korean people as a whole.

This appears in a children’s book:

Miller, Jennifer A. South Korea. Minneapolis: Lerner, 2010. Print.

Know How To Make God Laugh?

Nationality: Irish, German
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Nashville, Tennessee
Performance Date: March 28, 2013
Primary Language: English
Language: None

“You know how to make god laugh? Tell him your plans.”

Clip from Interview

Informant: I know a saying, I think its pretty common though:

“You know how to make god laugh? Tell him your plans.”

Interviewer: “Who did you hear that from, was there any background to the occasion you heard this saying?”

Informant: “I don’t know who told me, I think it was my mom, I want to say. I don’t know, I come from the south so it is like bible belt, so I definitely heard it while I was back home in Nashville. I don’t know it is just a very Christian community, I think I was like telling someone about what I wanted er what I what I wanted to do with my life or something and that is what they came back with. I think it was like you never know sort of what lies ahead of you. God has it all planned out and you have no idea what it is.”

Interviewer: “Why did you like this saying, like why did you remember it until now?”

Informant: “I just think that it’s a good way to look at the world. I believe in God and I believe he does have a plan for all of us. Um, and I also just I never thought I would be a screenwriting major um until junior year and its like you know you just…” “and I also believe that… I’ve just been looking back on my life and I go there is no way this is all just circumstance or this is all just random. It was obviously because A has led to B which has led to C which has eventually led me here. I just think it is a good saying and like you know, just trust in God cause he has answers. You never really know what’s in store”

 

The informant is a student at the University of Southern California studying screenwriting. She is a Caucasian female and comes from Nashville. She is Christian herself and comes from a religious background. The informant heard this folklore from another person in her community, possibly her mother, when asked about her college plans.

As stated in the interview, the informant was impacted by the saying. She still remembers it and can recall the saying rather quickly. She does believe in Christianity and so she found the statement to ring true with her beliefs that God is an omniscient figure who “has it all planned out.” The informant interpreted this saying as an instruction to have faith in God because he will take care of it. The informant related her understanding of this saying to the movie Marley and Me stating that although the main character “had all these plans, they didn’t work out, but she was happy in the end.”

In comparison to some of the other folk beliefs I was able to gather, this informant had a very close connection to this saying; a connection which was apparent in her mannerisms and speech during the interview.

 

God Helps Those Who Help Themselves

Nationality: Bulgarian
Age: 46
Occupation: Bookkeeper
Residence: Palos Verdes, CA
Performance Date: March 16, 2013
Primary Language: English
Language: Bulgarian

Proverb: Помогни си сам да ти помогне и Господ.

Transliteration: Pomogni ci cam da ti pomogne i Gospod.

Literal Translation: Help yourself so that God may help you too.

Meaning: God helps those who help themselves.

Analysis:

This proverb urges people to act as well as to have faith in God. Not many things can be accomplished only through prayer or self-pity, so actions must be taken in order to reach success.

My mother told me this during spring break when she was urging me to apply for a program I wanted to get into but I wasn’t sure I had a chance. She encouraged me with this proverb, claiming that I had to put in the effort so I could at least have the potential, and theoretically, if God saw how hardworking I was, he would reward me.

This saying is similar to the American one, “You can’t win until you try,” though with a more religious emphasis. The proverb indicates that the Orthodox Church is prevalent inBulgaria, and that the culture encourages people to both work hard and to be strong in their faith.

Kissing The Mezuzah

Nationality: United States
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/12/13
Primary Language: English

The informant is from Malibu, California and grew up in a Jewish household. She was the president of “Malijew”, her high school’s Jewish club.

This tradition was taught to the informant by her mother when she was very young. The informant grew up in a Jewish household and her mother was of particularly strong faith. Before explaining the tradition as a whole, the informant first described what a mezuzah is. It is a metal tube with Hebrew prayers inscribed on it and it also usually contains a scroll of Holy prayers. These prayers are inscribed by designated scribes and are not considered holy or authentic if they are written by anyone else. The literal Hebrew translation of mezuzah is “doorpost”. This is because they are hung on top of or on the side of a door frame. The informant was always told that this was to protect the house from evil and also to be reminded to obey the instructions of the holy verses contained in the mezuzah.

Beyond hanging the mezuzah, the informant also always makes sure to touch the mezuzah and then kiss her fingers whenever she enters or exits a room with one hung on the door. When asked why she does this, the informant said “because it says so in the Torah”. While it is true that the Torah commands, the act of kissing the mezuzah seems to be a calming act. Though it may be a small, simple thing, it is a way of acknowledging one’s faith throughout the day and keeping God in one’s thoughts. The use was obviously first disseminated through the institution of the Jewish religion, but it is spread today mostly through familial lines.

Notation:

To some extent, mezuzahs have been a point of contention. This is because they are often left nailed to the doorway after the Jewish owner moves out. When a new owner moves in, they often keep the mezuzah, regardless of their faith. Some owners reportedly kiss it even though they are not Jewish, which has caused some controversy with the Jewish community. The informant recalls going to  a friend’s new apartment in New York City and kissing his mezuzah before entering. Her friend was not Jewish and asked her why she did that, having never seen the tradition take place. As far as the informant knows, he has not taken it down. Kissing the mezuzah is not just a cultural or regional tradition; it is seen as a sacred, religious act. People hold these acts dearly and can take it personally if they feel they are being robbed of them.

Farmer, Ann. “In Mezuzas, a Custom Inherited by Gentiles.” New York Times. September (2010): n. page. Print. <http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/18/nyregion/18mezuzahs.html?_r=1&>.

Abdul-Beha looses his pants in Paris

Nationality: Iranian
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/26/13
Primary Language: English
Language: Farsi

In the following, my informant recalls a childhood story which he still remembers and finds significant:

This next account is one that comes from Baha’i tradition, more so in the Baha’i faith, which was founded in the mid eighteen hundreds by our prophet founder Bahá’u’lláh, you can Google that, it means “glory of god,” um, he founded the Baha’i faith, and uh, Baha’i all around the world look to this figure, the son of Bahá’u’lláh, his name is Abdul-Beha, it means servant of god, and Abdul-Beha for Baha’i all around the world, his title is “the perfect example,” so there are many stories of his life recorded, and it’s very common to tell children stories of his life as an example of a perfect example, and how one should emulate their life by him. A story that stuck out to me that was told when I was a child was: One day Abdul-Beha was walking in the streets of Paris. He was walking in the streets of Paris and – I’m gonna fast forward, he answers the home of one of the Baha’i who was hosting him, and he has a cloak wrapped around himself, he’s laughing very heartily, he comes in in a kind of strange way – why is he laughing? all this stuff, they ask him why he’s laughing, and he pulls the robe up a little bit and they see that he’s not wearing any pants, his pants are gone, and they ask him “Abdul-beha” and he’as a very, hes a very revered, respected, intelligent, divine figure, “why are your pants gone, what’s happened?” and Abdul-beha tell the story of how, as he was walking, he comes across a homeless person, who, in the weather of Paris, which is very cold, he was cold, and his pants were very tattered, and they have holes in them, and the man was cold, and Abdul-beha, his title is the servant of god, so to be servant of god he is the servant of god‘s children, so he removes his pants, this extremely holy and divine figure, and gives it to the beggar, and he just clothes himself in his cloak, which was customary to wear in the day, and comes back to the believers, and that’s a sign of humility, and a sign of selflessness, and all of the stories of Abdul-beha have a certain similar message,  that, like, all Baha’i can learn from – all people can learn from – but are specifically told to children.

In this story, my informant claimed to be affected morally and religiously, and remembers it even today as guidance for his life. He said that many similar stories are told to children, and the idea behind them is that they will remember the stories and the messages within them when they grow up, and guide their lives accordingly.