Tag Archives: women

Burmese Protective Women

Nationality: Burmese
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Myanmar
Performance Date: November 2, 2021
Primary Language: English
Language: Burmese

Background: The informant is a student studying in the United States but originally from Myanmar. He did not personally experience the encounter but heard about it from his mother who he trusts greatly. 

Me: Where did you hear the story you’re about to tell? 

KZ: This is from my mom‘s perspective;I heard it from her first. 

Me: Tell me about the encounter. 

KZ: When my mom was in high school, well, I need to tell you more context of everything for it to make sense. So my grandma was a high school teacher and she lived with my mom, my aunt and four siblings. They lived in the city but my grandfather is a cop, or he’s a detective, so he gets assigned random cases around the country so he would do six months in random places. My grandfather was in this town out in the middle of nowhere and then my mom had summer break so he was told well you’re a girl and you’re free so you shouldn’t be here. You should be a volunteer tutoring for summer school so my mom went to his village and it was just my grandfather in this metal Lakehouse. My mom was often alone there and he would be away most of the time. So one day she came home and its traditional houses so with really long legs elevated so it doesn’t get flooded and then there’s like a staircase at the back, right, so my mom was minding her own business, it was like 4pm, and she was cycling back home and she saw a woman with traditional clothes walk up the stairs in the back. So my mom was like oh shit there’s a thief, because my mom is like no bullshit, and she’s like I’m gonna catch this thief. She ran inside and went into all the rooms but she was gone. She didn’t see her come out so she thought the thief had just left.

Me: And I am assuming it wasn’t just a thief? 

KZ: Yeah this was her first encounter she remembers with the ghost thing or whatever. 

Me: When was the next time she remembers encountering the woman? 

KZ: Well, she often had to spend some nights alone because my grandfather had to do shit for his job. Often at night she would be in bed and she would always hear someone walking outside her balcony but thought it was something like water dripping on it. Whatever, my mom was like wow this is annoying and always got up to make sure there’s like no one outside. My moms like OK whatever I don’t have time for this but then it would keep happening so my mom got really pissed. She’s like well if you’re a spirit than fuck you cause I need to work tomorrow and like I don’t have time for this bitch. So she’s like whatever but then her siblings come for a vacation or for like three days and then they also experience the same shit. Like someone was just trying to bother them for no reason. Then my uncle, he gets super annoyed easily right, he would take a nap and someone would poke him. He asked my mother, why are you bothering me but it wasn’t her. So then one time he just pretended to be asleep and when someone poked him, like this, he grabbed it and then he just saw a hairy hand. He was like WHAT THE FUCK. At this point they realized that something was going on. So there’s a storage room and my uncle went in there and then he pulled out his dick and he pissed. He was like fuck you, if you’re a spirit living here then I you can only get my dick! He’s like fuck you don’t fuck with me again. 

Me: Haha I don’t know if that was a smart move. Do you know what this thing was? 

KZ: Yeah, there were other times at night when my grandfather was away and my grandma got haunted. She was in bed with my mom and my aunt and there was someone that kept walking on the roof. My grandma started cussing and then someone dropped something huge, so the whole house just shook. She was then like oh shit what the fuck, are we being attacked by some random people. Also my grandfather found a pink heart, and they are kind of freaked out by now. My grandfather was like “yeah I didn’t tell you guys but there are these different types of spirits in our culture. There are these female spirits whose job is basically to protect certain people and certain places.” They’re just the maintenance workers. He was like yeah there’s two of them who have been very protective of this house and protective of me. So, it turns out they really like my grandfather, they’re possessive of him, so they were really annoyed when my mom came because she’s another girl and when my grandmother came because she’s, you know, another woman that’s in my grandfather’s life. My grandfather was pretty attractive I guess. 

Me: Did they ever go away or anything? Or did the encounters just continue? 

KZ: Well he had promised them that he would bring them back to the main city one day because there is a pagoda in my city, it’s like one of the biggest monuments in the world. He basically promised them that when he goes into the city he would bring them to the pagoda so that they can do some good deeds and they can escape because they wanna move on. He then went to the pagoda and was like do whatever you want now, you’re free to go. After that all of that stuff ended, because all they wanted was to protect my grandfather. They wanted to escape this so when he finally just left them alone like nothing really happened after that. 

Me: What do you think it was?

KZ: I don’t really know. Like I believe that my mother experienced it, but I don’t know how to explain it or like what it actually is. 

The story was told to me in person while sitting next to the informant. 

My Thoughts: It is an interesting situation where the information himself did not experience it, but his mother did, and because he trusts his mother so much he believes this story as much as if he had experienced it.  Personally I think that this story is very interesting and I find myself believing that the experiences were real, although, like the informant, I am sceptical of the explanation for the events. 

Gendered Dining Customs In India

Nationality: Indian
Age: 25
Occupation: Recent Graduate (Master's)
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 5/2/2021
Primary Language: English
Language: Telugu, Hindi

Informant’s Background:

My informant, SV, is a recent graduate with a Master’s from the University of Southern California. He is 25, was born in Hyderabad, Telangana, India, and moved to the United States to attend a graduate program at USC. Post-graduation he remains in Los Angeles hunting for a job.

Context:

My informant, SV, is my roommate and a close friend of mine. I asked him if he could share some Indian traditions, customs, or folklore with me.

Performance:

SV: “So… There’s an Indian tradition where during uh festival or if like, if you’re inviting guests over, like at a gathering the… women are expected to, uhm, when people are having to eat, the women are expected to be the ones to serve, and the men and children are expected to eat first. The women are not allowed to eat until the men and children finish eating. Only once the men and children finish eating, they usually eat, and sometimes they may not even eat at like, the table, they may just eat in like the kitchen. So… this is kind of like, mmm, sort of a general kind of important sort of hierarchy and level of importance that’s sort of present that even when you’re like visiting a house, or like you’re invited to a person’s place as a guest you’re sort of expected to greet people based on their age, that’s one of the criteria, like the older they are the more important they’re are as people and you’re to prioritize them. And also the men are more important than the women, so it’s like you greet the oldest man first and then go down to the youngest man, and then you go down to the women if you’re greeting someone.”

Informant’s Thoughts:

SV: “That’s uhm, kind of a very… I guess sexist way of thinking. Which… was quite prevalent like in older times, where I think more urban and more modern a setting this is less and less common. And for the younger generations, it’s getting close to being more and more equal for men and women, and there’s no kind of like, oh women have to serve and the men just have to chill and wait to get served. Like my grandad, cause he’s quite old, and he follows these traditions a little more like strictly, like even though me and my sis would both be in the room, he kind of rather expected like my sister to be the one to serve and I didn’t have to do anything, and I used to find that odd. I was like “what’s the difference?” Like they’re our guests, and we can both like, serve if we have to serve them. So that’s my kind of-my personal experience with that. “

Thoughts:

Separation of women and men is common in many cultures, especially historically, but the ways in which these gender groups are divided are changing as we move into the modern world. The rate at which these changes occur of course differs from culture to culture, in this case this is a tradition that would most likely be seen as near appalling by Western audiences, yet in India it is still being gradually phased out more recently, but was still by the sounds of it surprisingly common up until not that long ago. The health consequences should also be considered alongside the social ones in this case, as this tradition has to do with the consumption of food. Waiting until after the men are finished eating could easily lead to the women only ending up with scraps of the original dinner, leading to malnutrition, both in themselves and potentially in any babies that they might give birth to. So not only is this tradition without a doubt considered sexist by today’s standards, as SV noted in the interview, but it also could easily lead to negative health effects as well.

Peels for The Initials of Your Spouse

Nationality: American, Ancestral: Scottish and Germanic
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Scotland
Performance Date: 04/27/2021
Primary Language: English
Language: Chinese

Main Content:

M: Me, I: Informant

I:OOOoooo, I don’t know if you want this but there’s a lot of um you know like when you are peeling potatoes, you throw the peel on the floor and it’ll name the initials of who you are going to marry

M: I did not know that

I: There’s a lot of them. That was a thing,  ugh again my grandma, I swear she is a crazy *laughs*. Or or apples if you are peeling anything, you do it in one peel as far as you can get, and if it breaks apart that’s just more letters for you and then you throw it on the floor and it’ll—-

M: Cool, cool!

Context: She learned this growing up cooking with her grandma, who is old fashioned. This was a practice she really enjoyed even if the answer changed from time to time but was also a bit nerve racking. The context brings an added element here as this practice is done in the kitchen, traditionally a place that is deemed for women. Thus this practice is much more used amongst the women.

Analysis: This practice definitely is more geared towards women as I said in the context piece because of where it takes place, but if we dig deeper and see how it reflects the portrayal of women and how while they cook in the kitchen, they wish for their future husbands; it comes across to directly chain domesticity to females and further pushes the age old view that a woman wants to get married and looks forward to finding herself a spouse. Through this way, the older and wiser women encourage the younger and more naive girls to be excited for their domesticity. Especially because of the prevalence of fruits in this practice, which in folklore tends to represent the fertility and virginity of a woman, which is often linked to their marriage.

산후조리 (sanhujori), Korean Postpartum care

Nationality: Korean
Age: early 50s
Occupation: housewife
Residence: south korea
Performance Date: april 17
Primary Language: Korean
Language: English

Main Piece:

This is a translation of a conversation with my mom about “Sanhu-jori” which can vaguely be translated to postpartum care. My mom is identified as M, and I am identified as IC.

IC: Can you tell me about sanhujori? What is it?

M: After you give birth, your body is weak and tired so it is a traditional custom that new mothers should rest and recover. You should be careful and take care of yourself for about three weeks to a month.

IC: What do you have to do to take care of yourself? Are there any precautions you need to take?

M: Yes, typically you don’t eat hard, spicy or cold foods. You also have to stay warm with the baby so it’s harder in the summer since it’s hot. I think the precautions have become laxer now but when I had you and your brother, I wore socks to keep my feet warm and didn’t do any physical labour.

IC: If you can’t have hard, spicy or cold foods, what are you supposed to eat?

M: Traditionally you have mi-yeok-gook, which is Korean traditional seaweed soup. It’s warm, nutritious and easy to eat and I had it for all three meals, every day for three weeks.

IC: Wait, in Korea we eat seaweed soup on our birthday, does this tradition of sanhujori have anything to do with that?

M: Yes, it’s because the mother had it when the baby was born so it just keeps that tradition.

IC: Why is taking care of yourself after birth so important in Korea?

M: It is believed that if you didn’t take care of yourself, you have a higher risk of getting sick later. Like your bones would be weaker so you would have more pain in those areas.

IC: You had me in the US. What do you think are the differences between post-birth procedures and traditions in Korea and the US?

M: It’s very different. I don’t think the US has specific procedures of postpartum care. After you were born, I wasn’t feeling very well, and the nurse came in and asked if I wanted ice cubes to suck on. This was very surprising to me and I didn’t understand why. The first meal they gave me was like bread, orange juice and yogurt and it was very hard for me to stomach it. So, I asked your dad to make seaweed soup at home and bring it for me.

IC: Why do you think it’s so different?

M: I think it has to do with strength, bone structure and physique. When we were bringing you home, we had to put you in a car-seat and bring that to the car. It was very heavy for me and I had to ask your dad to help me but there was this woman who gave birth around the same time I did, and she lifted up the car-seat without any problems.

IC: So, how did you take care of yourself after I was born, since you had to rest?

M: When I was in Korea and had your brother, there was a sanhujori helper we hired to help around the house. And when you were born, my mother—so your grandmother—contacted her and asked if she could go to the US to help care for her daughter who had just given birth. She agreed, and my grandmother paid for the travel expenses and she came and helped me.

Background:

I vaguely knew about sanhujori but didn’t know the details of it since I’ve never experienced it myself. I thought it would be interesting to ask my mom about it and knew that she would have a unique insight into the differences of Asian and Western cultures and traditions since she had me in the US and my brother in Korea.

Context:

This was collected in an interview with my mom in a casual setting. I asked her about specific procedures that a new mom has to follow to take care of her body.

Thoughts:

As this is something, I haven’t experienced myself, I thought it was interesting to hear about the traditions of Korea. It was also fascinating to hear the diffrences between Asian and Western cultures from my mom who has experienced both cultures. The difference really shows the variation of tradition, which is something we’ve talked about in this class. Just as fairytales and myths have variation from country to country and sometimes household to household, even something as simple as post-birth procedures are different. I think if I decide to have kids in the future, I will also try to do sanhujori if I can.

坐月子：Postpartum Confinement

Nationality: Chinese
Age: 23
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 4/12/19
Primary Language: Chinese
Language: English, Korean

Main piece:

The following is transcribed from a conversation between the informant and interviewer.

Informant: In China, there is a big culture of “坐月子(zuo yue zi)”, literally means “sit on the month “, but just refer to like postpartum confinement, like the month after woman deliver their child. Usually it’s one month, but I think my mom did two month. Anyway it just a really big stage of your life, you know, delivering the baby, and then people in China believe that it’s a big event for the body too, so women need to aware of a lot of things for the month following delivery. For example, they should shower less. I mean if it strict, they should be showering at all, but you know in modern world, who can not shower for so long. Anyway, it’s like showering less, brush you teeth with warm water instead of cold, don’t touch cold water, drink warm water all the time. Rest a lot definitely, like that why it’s “Sit on the month” you know, not like “run on the month”. Avoid wind, if it’s really windy outside then don’t go out side, because they think the wind and the cold is easier to get into the body at that period of time. And also you know food is big part, like they have certain food to eat to one on hand help with milking, and help body get nutrition on the other. They will consider some kind of food has a cold character (寒性- han xing) and some kind of food is hot character(热性-re xing) and something in between. So you need to choose food character according to your body type. Like for example, if you have ulcer in your mouth that means you body is getting too hot, so you will need something that has a colder character like green tea.

Interviewer: How do you define cold or hot for food?

Informant: Ummm…Good questions. I honestly don’t know. You just grew up learning their character from you parents. It’s like if I eat too much mango all at once, my mom would say something like: “your body will be getting too hot.” or something like that I don’t know. So yea, I think older generation definitely have more restriction, but I don’t think younger generation follow it as strict, they kinda do a little modification according to their needs.

Background:

My informant was born in Beijing, China. She knows about this tradition because almost everyone practices it in China and her mom does it too. She will definitely practice postpartum confinement by the time she delivers a baby because she thinks that it is such an important phase of woman’s life and she needs to take the time to take care of her body. She always believes that giving birth to a kid in a way is a rebirth of that woman as well. And because the body undergoes such a big incident, the body is recovering itself too. So with proper care, it helps the body to recover better and even takes away some existing illness.

Context

My informant is my roommate. She finished high school in China and came to the States after. I invited her to have a brief interview session with me to talk about Chinese folklore in general because I feel there is lot of interesting folklore in China that is very different from the rest of the world. And this conversation was conducted when we were cooking for dinner, so both of us are pretty relaxed.

Thoughts

“Sitting the month” is definitely a huge culture difference between China and America. I know that a lot of people in the United States go right back to work within ten days after delivering the baby, which sounds crazy to Chinese people. Though there is some debate on whether it is scientific of postpartum confinement, most people still practice it because it is a tradition that has been around for thousands of years. As my informant mentions, the stricter rule in the past is minimal shower times within a month after delivery, and that is because in older time period, the condition is pretty bad, so people are more likely to catch a cold when showering, especially during winter time. Nowadays, with technology getting better and people living on a higher quality life, more rules are bent towards favor, but the cultural of “sitting the month” still applies.