Author Archives: Cole Garrett

Work to Live Rather than Live to Work

My informant is my mother. She is 53 years old and is Spanish, Croatian, and Yugoslavian. She was born and raised in Florida, but keeps up many of her ancestors’ traditions from these countries.

My mother really enjoys the culture in Spain. She has traveled there on a few occasions and loves to soak up the culture. She learns a lot about the country every time she goes and she gets to see the places that her ancestors came from. I asked her if she had any Spanish proverbs that she has learned from her parents or her grandparents.

Informant: “I remember one proverb or motto that was brought up many times. It basically goes, “We (Spanish people) work to live, we do not live to work”. Spanish people live much simpler lives than people do in many places in the world, especially the United States. I first heard this saying or proverb from my grandmother. My mother was raised in the United States and although she was raised by my grandmother, my mother has seemingly adopted a much more American view on work and never really used this proverb with me. I can understand why people say it in Spain, but it doesn’t really apply in America. Here it is the exact opposite, everything is a rat race to the top to see who can make the most money and although it isn’t a good thing, if you don’t keep up, you will get left behind”.

Analysis: I thought this proverb was interesting because it says something about an entire country and their views on work ethic. It also shows a nice contrast between America and a country like Spain. The ideals in each country are pretty much the exact opposite. Where in America, “the early bird gets the worm”, and other proverbs like this promote the idea that if you work harder than the guy next to you, then you will succeed past him and make more money. It seems as if every country has proverbs like these. These proverbs not only shift a way of thinking but they tend to shape an entire country’s perspective. People follow these proverbs and they become instilled in the way that they live and guide a way of living for people.

Nothing Riddle

My informant is a 19-year-old college student who grew up in Chicago, Illinois, then moved out to California where she now attends the University of Southern California. Both her parents are from a Jewish background and her ethnicity is Dutch, Russian, Lithuanian, and English.

I asked my informant if she could provide me with any riddles. She quickly perked up and gave me the first one that came to her head which also was her favorite:

Riddle: What’s greater than god, more evil than the devil, poor people have it, rich people need it, and if you eat it you will die.

I sat and guessed a lot of ridiculous things as she smiled at me. I had a feeling it was going to be one of those answers I was not going to like, and low and behold I was right.

Informant: “Do you give up? The answer is nothing. Nothing is greater than god, nothing is more evil than the devil, rich people need nothing, poor people have nothing, and if you eat nothing you will die”

I was not very pleased with the answer, but I think this is the reason of the riddle. It is the same idea behind young children telling riddles. They have an answer to something that they know you will most likely not guess. This knowledge of some unknown gives them a sense of power over the older adult that they are talking to and this creates an element of humor for children.

Informant: “I learned it a long time ago, probably when I was in middle school. Like anything else, I learned it from a friend and then went on to stump all of my friends who then probably went on to stump their friends. I definitely told it to my parents at some point and got a lot of enjoyment out of fooling them”.

Riddles such as this one are considered humorous in some ways because the answer is not apparent. The unknown answer creates this humor and the big reveal of the answer to the unexpected guesser acts almost as a punch line to a joke.

Roll Calls

My informant is an 18-year-old College student who is from San Francisco. His ethnicity is Dutch, Irish, and English, and Italian.

My informant played many sports when he was growing up so I asked him if he had any sort of initiation or rites of passage within any of these sports. He remembered performing what he called, “roll calls”, on buses for football games and this act was in a way a rite of passage for some people.

Informant: “A roll call is just a four line song that you make up on the spot. It always starts the same way. So someone would start by yelling, “break em off break em off 1-2-3”, then the rest of the bus would yell the team’s name who we were on our way to play, so lets just say we were playing the dolphins, they would say, “dolphins dolphins 1-2-3”. Then the person who has the roll call would stand up. The structure of the little songs, I guess they are songs, are all the same also. Ill try to make one up right now, so, “My name is Cole”, and then everyone else on the bus yells, “yeah” in between, so let me start over. “My name is Cole” (yeah), “I’m such a bore” (yeah), “I make my friends” (yeah), “give me folklore”. They are usually really clever and target one single person. They are fun though they aren’t meant to be mean, but sometimes they get a little crazy. I think this in a way can be a rite of passage cuz like, if you are not the most popular guy, but you make a really good roll call, everyone is going to think you’re funny and you kind of earn respect in that way. It is kind of weird I know”

Analysis: I thought this was a really good example of a rite of passage. It is a little different from maybe other rites of passage that are taken more seriously and are recognized as a rite of passage. This rite of passage is not directly referred to as a rite of passage and even my informant made a comment about this and how he did not really see it as a rite of passage as it was happening, but he had realized it much later after the fact. I think there are a lot of small ways that rites of passages are conducted and many of them are not as direct as we might think. Sometimes these rites of passage take some reflecting on in order to realize their effects.

The Doorknob Game

My informant is a close friend who I have known for many years. He is a 23-year-old college student and has lived his whole life in Orange County, California. He currently resides in Los Angeles where he attends the University of Southern California and comes from a prominently Scottish heritage.

I began by asking my informant if he could remember any games that he played as a kid. A game that he learned from his friends and that is perhaps a little less traditional. He smiled and asked me if I had every heard of the “Doorknob Game”?

Informant: “The doorknob game is really funny because of how stupid it is. Basically, someone farts, and if another person hears it, he can shout, “door knob” and the person who farted then has to run to find the nearest doorknob to touch. Anyone in the room at this time can punch him in the arm as many times as they like until the fart perpetrator reaches a doorknob. If a person farts around people who know the game, he can yell out “safety” immediately after he farts, before anyone can yell “doorknob” and then he is safe from having to run and find a doorknob.”

Analysis: This is a good example of a game that is passed down through friends in a group. It exemplifies the “in” versus the “out” people because if you know about this game then you are a part of the group. If you do not know about the game, then you are at risk of being punched several times. It is not until a person learns the rules of the game through watching it performed that he is included and thus becomes part of the inner circle of this group of friends.

Cup of Wine for Elijah

My informant is a 19-year-old college student who grew up in Chicago, Illinois, then moved out to California where she now attends the University of Southern California. Both her parents are from a Jewish background and her ethnicity is Dutch, Russian, Lithuanian, and English.

My informant comes from a long lineage of Jewish ancestors, so I thought it was only appropriate to ask her about some of the Jewish traditions that are passed down to her from her family. The one she decided to share with me is a traditional or ritual that takes place during Passover.

Informant: “Passover represents a celebration of freedom from slavery for Israelis. I think there are a lot of different ways to celebrate Passover and it kind of depends on your family. I know there are a lot of families that have traditions that don’t even have anything to do with Judaism but they just continue to do them because they always have. One thing that my family does that isn’t written in the Torah, but we do it anyway, is leave a cup of wine on the table for Elijah. Supposedly you are supposed to leave the door open too, but we don’t do that. The cup is just an offering more or less so that Elijah, who is a prophet, will visit your house and bless it.”

Analysis: I thought it was interesting that, like many people, we have these rituals or traditions that we follow, although it is not explicitly written anywhere. Once a tradition seems to be followed by one person, they have the ability to hand this down through their lineage, and it continues on years and years later. I also thought it was interesting how my informant brought up that she knows of other families who have very odd traditions for Passover, even as odd as watching the same movie every year. These types of things also become tradition even though it does not state it any where in the religion, but the continuation of performing these rituals allow them to be carried on through generations.