Author Archives: birer@usc.edu

My dad’s whistle

“Growing up, I loved running errands with my dad. He always took me to, what seemed to me at the time, the coolest places. Realistically it was just like home depot or ace hardware, but all of the fun tools and stuff fascinated me. Being a kid though, I always had the tendency to wander off and explore on my own and see what I could find.”

“It’s not really safe for a kid to be wandering around the store alone, especially in that day and age, so my dad sort of developed a call to let me know where he was so I could find him. It was a whistle with three different tones. The first tone was lower, and then the second tone went higher, and then the third tone went lower again. It’s not like it was the most unique of calls, realistically anybody could do it, but I always knew that it was him whenever I heard it. I knew that if I heard that whistle that I was needed somewhere for some reason and immediately had to find my dad, even if it wasn’t an urgent situation.”

“I asked my dad where he learned that tune from and he said that he just kind of made it up. He said growing up he was never able to whistle and that when he finally learned to a little bit, those were the only three pitches he could hit, and together they made that tone. That was the tone he always whistled to I guess I just associated it with him. Now I do that whistle too when I’m looking for people, even though they probably don’t know what it is.”

 

My Interpretations on the story:
The whistle in this story can be considered a symbol to that family. The tone is specific to that family because of the way it originated, therefor can be looked at as symbolic to that family. Because the father generated that call through the only tones he was able to whistle, it is unique to him and his family. Additionally, this call has imprinted a meaning in the mind of his family as something that is specific to their father or husband and represents him, giving the call more of a purpose than just finding other family members. I think that it is also gives the family a sense of uniqueness, because this tone is specific to them rather than taken from other wavelengths of life.

Yom Kippur

“Yom Kippur is the holiday after Rosh Hashanah, which is the Jewish New Year. It is celebrated exactly 10 days after Rosh Hashanah every year. Growing up, my family always went to temple for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur to celebrate the holidays and fullfil their purpose. Yom Kippur is a holiday that allows the Jewish people to think about their mishaps and their sins and improve yourself in the coming year. In temple, we were always given a couple minutes to have self-reflection, but what my family did differently was we also did it afterwards at the break fast. On top of self-reflection, we had a tradition of passing around a roll of challah, each taking a piece, and then once everybody had a piece, we would throw it at each other.”

“There is a common tradition in Jewish culture that does something similar to this. People usually put a piece of bread into a bowl of water as a sign of repenting their sins. I guess you could say that this is my families version of that.”

“None of my family is super religious, but we do follow the general holidays and ideologies of our religion. Like, we go to temple for major holidays and have a Passover Seder, but nobody turns off all their technology and walk to work like you are supposed to on Shabbat.  I guess this tradition can be looked at as the reformed version of the other bread in water tradition, just like we are the reformed version of the Jewish people.”

 

My Interpretations of the story:

 

I personally enjoy the fact that this family has taken a broader tradition and altered it slightly to personalize it. With this being said, it is important to note that by doing this, the tradition isn’t technically the tradition it was before. While there are certain aspects that remain consistent, there are reasons for the original tradition being the way it is. In changing or altering the tradition, many important parts of the tradition can be lost and therefor change its meaning or purpose. In this specific case, the tradition is supposed be a symbol of repenting for your sins, while the rendition version seems like more of a fun, family bonding experience. Traditions, when applied to specific cultures, have much history going into their making, purpose, and requirements, and can be somewhat exclusive to their specific culture. When these traditions are altered and spread to others, the cultural uniqueness can be lost in addition to the ultimate goal of the tradition.

Annual Pizza Competition

“Every summer my whole family comes together in Malibu for a pizza making competition. It’s usually me and my direct family, and then also like my grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins.”

“It starts by us all going to Ralphs together. We each have to buy our own ingredients. You can buy anything you want that you think will make a good pizza. I always get the basics, the dough, the sauce, and cheese, but I usually add different other ingredients every year. I’ve never won so I figured I might as well keep switching it up. Some of my family comes up with some crazy pizzas. One year my cousin won because she made a dessert pizza. It was so good, the crust was made out of brownies and the sauce was frosting. The toppings we all different kinds of dessert items, like M&M’s and sprinkles and gummy worms. Then we’d all go back to my Uncle’s house, it was just down the street, and start cooking.”

“He had a giant kitchen and we all had different stations. It became really competitive at points, nobody wanted someone else to steal their ideas! We had 30 minutes to prepare our pizza before it went in the oven, so everybody would be running around all hectic. Once the 30 minutes were up, we put all of them in the oven at the same time, the oven was super packed haha.”

“Once all the pizzas were done we would cut all of them into at least 12 slices so everybody could have one. After everybody tried each pizza we would all write our favorite on a piece of paper. You weren’t allowed to vote for yourself, which makes a lot of sense if you knew my family. Then everybody would vote for themselves and nobody would win.”

“The winner got the right to choose all of our meals for the next couple days that we would all be together. I’m not sure who came up with this prize, because my families been doing this competition since before I was born, but I’m not really sure how I feel about it. I think there could probably be a better prize, but every time I bring it up I’m immediately shut down because it’s part of the ‘tradition’.”

 

My Interpretation of the story:

 

It is very common for larger families to have annual reunions in order to get the whole family together. Most families end up moving all over the country or even the world as they start to move into their own personal lives. Because of this, families grow and get additions that weren’t originally part of the family and most likely were raised differently with different traditions. This is why family reunions are so important, to solidify your family and the new additions and create a greater sense of in group. By having the whole family participate in a competition like this every year, it allows each person of the family the opportunity to develop a sense of in group competition, which drives you to learn more about your competitors, in this case being your family members. This offers a greater bonding experience, not only because it forces family members to be more aware of their opponents but also, because this happens every year, it allows them to attribute specific characteristics to each family member and know them on a deeper level. Competitions such as these at family reunions, that don’t have specific ties to cultural or religious beliefs, allow families to become closer and know each other better and in turn, develop future traditions that appeal to every member of the family.

Soccer Voodoo

“I played competitive soccer through most of my grade school experience. I started when I was 4 years old, in a recreational league, and then eventually moved up to different travel leagues and varsity soccer for my high school. Because I had played for most of my life, I was always really competitive when it came to specific teams that I had encountered in previous games. I always remembered specific girls that were either really good or played super dirty.”

“Before every game we would gather in a circle with our coach and discuss our game plan, lineup, and players on the other team to look out for. He didn’t know this, but after he left one girl on my team would bring out this little doll that she had gotten in Jamaica. She told us originally that it was a voodoo doll, and that if we wanted to win we had to kick around the doll and that would make their best player have a bad game. Obviously I didn’t actually believe that this would work, but we did it before every game. Each person would have to kick the doll at least once to make sure it worked. If it didn’t work we would all come up with different reasons or excuses as to why it didn’t work, like maybe we didn’t all touch it or did something wrong.”

“The girl was one of my good friends, and that I know of didn’t have any personal reasons behind this doll. She said she just saw it in a random tourist shop in Jamaica, and because she was a competitive player like the rest of us, figured that this doll could give us the pregame boost and confidence that we needed. Honestly, I think it did help us a lot. Even though we knew that kicking around a little doll wasn’t actually going to have an effect on the girls on the other team, it helped us better mentally prepare for the game and come out stronger.”

 

My Interpretation of the story:

 

It is clear throughout the story that the girls on the team did not exactly believe that this voodoo doll was directly effecting the girls on the opposing team. It seems as though it was primarily used as a mental game, for the girls to think that they have an advantage and in turn play better than they would have without performing this ritual. Traditionally, voodoo dolls have a lot of prerequisites to get them working and commonly have to be activated and have some sort of relation to the individual that it is effecting. Usually, voodoo dolls are tailored to a specific person, rather than able to be used for multiple different people. If the voodoo doll were to be used on different people, there would be no specific link between the doll or the person, which is a vital part of creating a voodoo doll. This ritual allows the team to become closer and prepare themselves as a group for the game they are about to play, but does not actually paranormally hurt anyone on the opposing team.

Happy Birthday Song

“Growing up, on my birthday my mom would always sing an interesting rendition of Happy Birthday. It wasn’t the normal happy birthday song that people usually brush their teeth to or something to make sure they brushed them for long enough. I’m not sure exactly where she got this version from, but I do know that her mom sang it to her every year on her birthday.”

“It goes like this, ‘Happy Birthday Sophia, Sophia it’s your birthday” over an and over again and she does this little dance with her arms. I think it’s really cute but whenever I sing it to my friends or my roommates on their birthday they always look so confused. I was actually called out for it once, like ‘Sophia what is that, that is not happy birthday’.”

“So my mom’s mom always sang it to her growing up, so I assume that’s why she does it too. When I’ve asked her in the past, she always just said that’s what my mom sang to me. Her mom was born in America and lived in New Jersey and she said that she has no idea where her mom got the rendition from, but knew it was important to keep it going in the family.”

“I don’t think there are any like cultural or religious ties to it, I mean I am Jewish but all of my friends who are also Jewish have never heard of it before.”

 

My Interpretation of the story:

 

This tradition seems as though it is rooted deeply in the family rather than in a specific culture or heritage. I find it interesting that most people have not heard this rendition before, as to there are many different versions and tunes to the song happy birthday. Traditions within a family, I feel, tend to last longer and go into further generations than larger cultural traditions. Larger cultural traditions can be lost in the mix as well as be interpreted differently by different followers. Because of this, the tradition can be altered within different groups of a larger group and lose its original purpose or meaning. Keeping smaller traditions within a family can allow that tradition to remain intact and exclusive, preserving those that practice its’ ideologies and beliefs. It is important for families to somewhat separate themselves from the rest of the world with their own traditions and customs to generate tighter bonds and also, keep them on the same page because they are bound for life. I think that this rendition of Happy Birthday and the fact that it is an annual occurrence allows the family to have a sort of uniqueness that differentiates them from other families and people, and gives them the opportunity to create a personal, in group tradition.