Tag Archives: story

Orphan gets run over by train

Nationality: Chinese
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: 920 W. 37th Place Suite 3301C
Performance Date: 31 Oct. 11
Primary Language: English
Language: Chinese

Orphan gets run over by a train

In Melbourne, there was this orphanage. I’m not exactly sure how it happened, but the orphanage burned a while back and was finally replaced by a school – like, a boarding school – not too long ago. Apparently, there are these umm…(positions arms perpendicular to each other)… railroad tracks nearby, and an orphan went over to the railroads and was run over by a train. The way the story goes you can see hand prints on the windows when the train passes by on foggy nights. It’s probably the first thing the train…you know…the first point of impact or something like that.

My roommate, E. F.,  heard the story from another friend, who was inspired to share after hearing a similar story on the local news, only a few nights ago. Right away, various elements of this story identify it as a legend. The setting, for one, is the capitol of Australia, a geographically distant but nonetheless real location. The events, for another, comprise the untimely death of an unnamed child and his/her haunting the location, which, although a known motif within ghost stories, present obvious challenges to belief as well as common thought – even for an individual who comes from an East Asian culture in which ghost stories are far more prevalent than here, in the US.

Despite the absence of any discernible proof and his usually pragmatic demeanor, E. F. didn’t altogether reject the possibility of the story’s events. He said he didn’t know any others but later mentioned that “at home [i.e., Hong Kong], parents usually tell their kids stories like this to prevent them from doing anything stupid.” As such, my being elder (even if only by a 3 years) likely removed the value of telling the story which could explain the unimpressed tone and lackadaisical gesture E. F. used.

Unfortunately, I find it difficult to form alternative analytical suppositions without more details. However, lack in this regard also limits potential outcomes. Elders clearly aren’t the only people who tell the story, and children aren’t necessarily the only ones who hear it. Therefore, elements are bound to vary based on circumstances of each telling. Furthermore, the abstract nature of an metaphorical approach to analysis is desirable.

Shaggy Dog Story

Nationality: English
Age: 52
Occupation: Journalist
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/22/11
Primary Language: English

The informant is a caucasian female in her 50s. She was born and raised in England. She, and her three siblings, were raised as orthodox jews. After university, the informant moved to Northern California for graduate school. She later moved to Los Angeles, where she now resides. The informant trained in school as a biologist, but switched to journalism and now works for a large newspaper. She is divorced with one child.

The informant used to tell shaggy dog stories very often. Shaggy dog stories are really long jokes with a usually very disappointing punch line, which makes the audience groan. She used to tell them in grade school, especially with her two brothers. She would tell them among the family or among friends. The stories would usually be told while walking around or during free time. They used the stories to fill the time and amuse themselves during free time. The informant had more time to fill as there was not a television in her family and she and her brothers did not participate in more structured entertainments or activities, such as sports or clubs. She and her brothers would walk to school and back and around town and told these stories during the journeys to fill the time. And in every telling the details and exact structure of the story would change.

Shaggy Dog Story (transcribed as it was told):

This story is about a man and one day he goes to a pet store. He fancies buying a pet. And so he’s looking at the cats, looking at the dogs, and he’s looking at the birds and the rabbits and all the other animals in the pet store and then he sees this really weird little small furry thing. And so the little was about two inches, with round furry feet, you could barely see it because it was just a ball fur. And he went up to the store owner and says, “What’s this?” And the person says, “Oh. Oh, yeah though. Oh, yeah, you don’t see many of them. I call it a rarie.” And so he, um, said, “I’ll buy it. It’s only five pounds.” So he took it home with the rarie food, and was told he could feed it rarie food and scraps, meat or grain. It wasn’t a vegetarian. He fed it and he went to bed and he checked in on it the next morning in its cage and looked in and he went, “Huh.” It seemed to have grown. Really, it was like two inched across the night before and then it looked like it was three inches across now. So he thought, “odd”, put food in the bowl and the rarie ate it all up and started, like, running around the outside of the cage squeaking so he gave it more food and he ate up all that. And, next day he goes to check on the rarie, it’s five inches across. And so it goes until this rarie is pretty much filling the cage and he realizes he’s gonna have to get a larger one. So he goes and buys a larger cage and he puts the rarie in it and he buys a heck a lot of rarie food and um, you know, some loaves of bread and some other stuff, um. The cheap bread, you know, ’cause he figures, this could get expensive. As indeed turns out to be the case. Because every day that rarie has grown. Soon it’s outgrown that second cage and he has to get an even larger one. And then, a week later it’s outgrown the larger cage and he has to put it in the bath. And then, the rarie outgrows the bath. And he goes to the pet store and says, “What’s going on? This rarie is getting bigger and bigger?” And the man says, “Well, sir, I, if you look at the form that you signed when we bought the rarie, it says, you know, all responsibility is transferred to you upon the transaction. And I really can’t be answerable for your problems. But we’ve got some rarie food on twenty percent sale right now. So if you’d like to pick up a few more, uh, bags”. So the man says, “Alright, but how big is it gonna grow?”. He said, “Well don’t really know much about raries, sir. Never had one before”. So, he buys a whole bunch of rarie food and in fact has to borrow his friends pick-up truck and fill it all up. And he has to go into his savings. And he, brings it all back. He buys a huge old metal wash tub basin, for putting water in, because the rarie is so big by this time that he’s basically sort of had to, move the rarie to the yard. And, um, make a very large rarie house and, uh, put him in a big, big pen. The rarie keeps growing. Growing and growing and growing. And he keeps on buying more and more food. And enlarging the enclosure. He’s lucky because he lives in the, uh, semi-countryside and he has a big field so the enclosure, there’s plenty of room for it get larger. But, he’s get worried. I mean now he’s worked through his savings in one bank account. He’s picking up night work to subsidize his income, which is not very much. Uh, to pay for the rarie food and his, and he’s lucky because he lives in England because, you know, you get all the water you want you’re not paying by the metre like in this country. And, or else the water bills would have just started to become astronomical. But even so, he’s getting worried because the field is only so big and by now the rarie is the size of… You know those VW buses? Well if you put two of them end to end that’s about how big the rarie has grown. And so it goes on. And he’s become very fond of the rarie, he combs his fur, and the rarie nuzzles his hand, and licks his face with his big raspy tongue and, but, he doesn’t know what to do. And so it goes. Until the rarie’s now as long as three VW, uh, vans, end to end. And he realizes there’s nothing to be done. He’s gonna have to get rid of this rarie. He doesn’t know what to do. He’s been back to the pet store multiple times and the pet store owner has started ducking into the back room when he sees him coming. And his secretary, and his shop assistant always says something like, “Oh, oh, you just missed him. He’s running errands, sir”. Or, “Oh, no. I don’t know nothing about the rarie. Um, can’t help you. Try tomorrow.” And so one day. After a night of soul searching. A night of soul searching. And it’s all silent outside, except for a gentle “thrrrrrrr, thrrrrr, thrrrrrrrrr”. Which is the rarie snoring. He realizes that he can’t go on anymore and the rarie has got to go. And he doesn’t know what to do with the rarie. And so what he does, he goes buys, rents, one of those big, uh, trucks that are, you know big flat bed trucks. Really big one. And, uh, the next morning he wakes up, he puts a leash on the rarie, and he, he leads the rarie into the truck. He slams the door shut and he starts driving. He drives long and far. He lives right in the middle of the countryside, uh, probably about two hundred miles from the beach. And what he’s decided he’s gonna do is he’s gonna drive to the white cliffs of Dover and toss and rarie over the cliff. ‘Cause what else can he do? The rarie, he hopes, can swim. And he’s, his idea is that maybe once in the water, swimming around, the rarie would, will just be able to feed himself on fish and kelp and anyway he just doesn’t know what to do. The zoos are not interested. So, he drives and he drives and he drives and he drives. He stops at a little coffee shop. And gets himself a coffee. And a doughnut. He gets back in the truck and he drives some more. He has to stop, has to let the rarie out to do, do its business. He has to load the rarie back into the truck. He drives more and more and more and more and more. He stops for lunch. At a little place and has some egg and chips. And gets back in the car. Truck, sorry. And drives and drives and drives and drives. And at last, he, the windows open he smells the brine of the ocean on his nostrils. And he hears the crying seagulls and he know that his destination is close. And by now the lanes that he’s driving are pretty narrow and its extremely difficult to navigate this huge flat bed truck. But, and like he can hear, he can feel the rarie getting lurched around in the back as he turns the tight bends. He arrives at the top of a white chalk cliff. Finds a place where he can park. He goes round. He opens the back door. He puts the leash on the rarie, lures the rarie out. He says, “Look. Rarie. I’m so very sorry, I just don’t know what to do. I, I can’t afford to feed you. I don’t have any room for you anymore. I, I’ve love your company, but this is getting out of hand. I don’t where things are gonna go. I, I’m at my wits end. I can’t afford to spend all this money on rarie food and scraps. Even if I cut out the rarie food entirely and just fed you on wonder bread, or something. Number one, it wouldn’t be very nutritious for you and number two I can’t even afford that anymore. I’ve been cleaning out the super market bread sections.” And the rarie looks at him and says. First of all the rarie licks his face and nuzzles his shoulder. And he says, “I understand. I know there’s nothing else you can do. But I just want to say”. And the man looks, by now there are tears falling down his cheeks and he looks up at the rarie and he says, “What, what is it?” And the rarie says, “It’s a long way to Tipperary”.

Analysis: The “shaggy dog” story/joke type is built for repetition. It is the details of the story, rather than the plot itself, that make the story interesting and worth retelling. It is this aspect of the shaggy dog story that probably led to it being retold so many times among the informant and her siblings, while trying to fill the time. The punchline of this story, although not the most important aspect of the joke, relies on knowledge of geography in Ireland for its humor. That would restrict the humor of the joke to a certain geographic region, centered around the British Isles. This probably contributes to why the informant does not tell this story in the US. The humor in the joke’s structure probably would not be received as well in America either. The punch line is very important in American humor. British humor is not so dependent on the punch line for all of the comedic value of a joke.

Stanford Tradition

Nationality: American
Age: 50s
Occupation: Drama Teacher
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/23/11
Primary Language: English

The informant is a caucasian female in her 50s. She was born in Southern California to an upper middle class family. The informant was raised presbyterian, but now professes to follow no religion. She attended Stanford University and then settled back in Los Angeles. She works part-time as a high school drama teacher. The informant is married with one child.

The informant learned about this tradition from her mother, who also attended Stanford University. As a freshman, the informant decided to act out the tradition. She asked a senior, whom she had never met before, if he would participate in the ritual with her. She dressed up in romantically ripped clothes, wore ribbons in her hair, and gathered a group of her friends to join her, witness the ritual, and take pictures. She planned to send a picture to her mother as a joke. While she did get the picture taken, she never actually kissed the senior while under the arch, because she was too nervous to do so in public. This, however, resulted in her meeting her future husband. The two married within a year of this event and have been together for over 30 years.

Text:

There is a Stanford tradition that a woman going to the school can become an official “Stanford” woman by being kissed by a Stanford boy in his senior year under the Memorial Arch, in front of the Memorial Church, under the fool moon, at midnight. The woman can participate in the ritual at any point in her academic career but the man must be a senior.

Analysis: This story has become a legend in the informant’s family. The tradition itself is interesting, as it was passed down through a generation, but the informant’s individual experience has become the most important as it is the story of how she met her husband. Her performance of this story is interesting as it changes every time she tells it, depending on the audience and situation. When she started telling this story to her young daughter, she downplayed the sexual aspect and focused on the tradition and chance meeting of her husband. To friends the informant focuses on the ridiculousness of her ripped and beribboned garb and her audacity at asking an an older, complete stranger to kiss her in front of an audience. The informant is an active bearer, constantly telling stories. She is generally called upon to entertain at gatherings with her stories. Probably a contributory factor of her success as a bearer of lore is her ability to adapt stories to audiences and situations. Her variations on stories also mean that her audience can hear the same story more than once without becoming bored and that she can retell the same story with animation, as it is actually a slightly different story with each telling.