Author Archives: jadendav@usc.edu

Oplatek

Transcription:

Interviewer: “Where are you from?”

Informant: “Litchfield, New Hampshire”

Interviewer: “Okay can you tell me about your family traditions?”

Informant: “Um…yes I am…so I’m French, Polish, Irish, Lithuanian, Hungarian, and Italian but…the thing is…equal parts everything except for two parts Irish, umm just for context. But the thing is my family has only ever celebrated like…actively in my Polish and Irish side. Um…we tend to celebrate St.Patrick’s day pretty hardily. He have a lot of like traditions. We listen to a lot of traditional…like uh traditional Gaelic music. Um…bands like The Berry McNeals and so on so forth. We very much tend to listen to those types of music. And our Irish heritage just generally throughout something that we’re pretty proud of. Um…but in terms of actual traditions…we uh picked up a polish tradition called the Oplatek on Christmas Eve where um… there’s this… basically we don’t follow it strictly because the story behind it is a little bit more long form than we have time for. But um…essentially what would happen would be…a priest I believe would distribute loaves of bread…to…um…to each…to every house or something like that then like towards the start of the Christmas season I think. And then like they would break that load of bread like um…on Christmas Eve. As I understand it. Um…but the important part is the breaking of it on Christmas Eve and um…saying ‘This blessing may have health, wealth, and happiness in the golden crown of heaven.” Um saying that blessing over it then I believe it’s the oldest member starts…the head of household starts and then they pass to the left. Until everyone has a piece of bread. Then they all eat it and it’s like just a part of like a ceremonial kinda thing.”

Interviewer: “So it’s religious?”

Informant: “Yes but no. It’s um…it’s religious based but it’s culturally religious. It’s a culturally specific celebration of a religious thing. My family is Catholic and so um generally practices Catholic holidays. Even though I’m atheist, I still observe Catholic holidays with them just because at this point, it’s not anymore about the religion side of it so much as celebration with family and experiencing those celebrations together.”

Summary:

The informant talks about a Christmas tradition in his family. In it, there is bread and on Christmas Eve, the eldest or head of household takes the bread, breaks it, and passes it to the left. Once everyone has bread in their possession, they bless it and then eat it. This tradition is a Polish tradition and has roots in Catholicism. However, I find it very interesting that it isn’t about Catholicism anymore. I asked the informant and he said that he still celebrates it even though he’s atheist. He claims that the tradition has lost it’s original meaning and is now more about spending time with family. It’s very similar to Christmas as a whole. It’s also slightly reminiscent of Folklorismus. More like Folkloristmas I guess.

The Haunted Restaurant

Transcription:

Interviewer: “Do you believe in ghosts?”

Informant: “Aw hell no.”

Interviewer: “Do you know any ghost stories that happened to your family or friends?”

Informant: “I don’t know about my family, but I did used to have a friend who like…there was a restaurant in my town that’s like…supposedly…it’s supposedly haunted. It’s like a really old-there’s a lot of really old buildings in my town. But like…quote unquote allegedly one of my friends went there when she was younger. She like…was in the restaurant sorta in the evening. And the power went out for seemingly no reason because there wasn’t like a storm going on outside or anything. And she looked up and saw, cuz it was sorta like two levels with like a balcony up on the second story and she supposedly saw an old woman looking down and when she looked up the old woman was gone or when the power came back on she was gone or something. And that is the one…ghost story that I’ve ever heard from someone in person.

Summary:

The informant talks about a childhood friend who encountered a ghost at a supposedly haunted restaurant. One evening the power goes off in the restaurant for seemingly no reason. On the balcony of the restaurant she thought she saw an old woman staring down at her. However, upon looking closer or the power coming back, the old lady was no longer there. This is one of the ghost stories that strikes me more as being a possible trick of the light. When you’re dark and especially if you have a preconceived notion of a place being haunted, it’s easy for your mind to play tricks on you. This may be one of the reasons why the informant isn’t quick to believe  in the story’s paranormality.

Creepypastas

Transcription:

Interviewer: “What do you know about Creepypastas?”

Informant: “Uh…I know they are uh…well generally speaking it’s kind of an umbrella term for like…short horror stories written on the internet. Typically, they somehow involve like…technology like I know there’s a lot about like creepy video games like ‘Oh I bought this video game and it was fucked up. Sonic came into my house and killed me’ or something. And like other ones that involve the internet in general or like…technology but they don’t necessarily have to. And uh…sorry I got distracted by the cute dog video. But uh… I think they originated on a site called Creepypasta hence the name but I think now it just sort of refers to any story of that…uh likeness.”

Interviewer: “Are you familiar with Sonix.exe?”

Informant: “Yes. The…I don’t remember it precisely but I know the gist of it. It’s like uh…from my recollection somebody like…somebody buys like a sketchy Sonic like used Sonic game. And then, there’s a bunch of creepy shit, hyper realistic blood, and other Creepypasta tropes. And then they die? I don’t remember the end of the story.”

Interviewer: “I noticed you said hyper realistic blood.”

Informant: “Yeah it’s kind of a Creepypasta staple.”

Interviewer: “Is that a term that’s used a lot?”

Informant: “I feel like it is. Like I haven’t read that many but I feel like whenever people joke about Creepypastas, they’re like ‘yeah the hyper realistic blood in this otherwise innocent video game’.”

Summary:

The informant talks about creepypastas, a type of story that is circulated around the internet. They are known to be about technology and video games. It’s possible they first originated from a site of the same name but now they can be found anywhere. I asked about one of the more popular creepypastas Sonic.exe. Despite never having read the story herself, the informant was able to remember the general gist of the story. It stood out to me that she mentioned hyper realistic blood so I asked about that as. She says it’s a line that’s said often in creepypastas. I found it interesting that despite not having read many creepypastas, she is still very aware of the tropes and jokes regarding them, showing how widespread they are, at least in the gaming community.

The title screen for the sonic.exe creepypasta game

The title screen for the sonic.exe creepypasta game

Reunion and Games

Transcription:

Interviewer: “Do you have any cool family traditions?”

Informant: “Hm… that’s an interesting question…um…because I don’t…I have a really small immediate family um… cuz I don’t have many living grandparents. It’s just- and I’m an only child of my mom and so…um we don’t- we as a small family don’t have any but I have a larger family…um…of step siblings and half siblings who I’m close to. And with them we do a family reunion every year…out in Ohio which is like the big tradition that we all partake in. Yeah.

Interviewer: “What kind of things do you do there?”

Informant: “Um…we…so we gather in this…in the house that my…dad’s…not my stepmom but my dad’s ex-wife lives in. Um on an island called ‘Balast Island’(?). Uh…she’s awesome. She was excommunicated from the catholic church for being secretly ordained as a female priest. Um and so she’s weird and great. Um…so we all gather there and it’s about anywhere from 20 to 45 people depending…cuz on how many people come…um cuz yeah I have uh 6 half siblings. Yeah we play games, we cook. Um…one thing is the kids always play Ghosts in the Graveyard, where we wait til the final night and have like a bonfire and roast marshmallows, we do that. Um… yeah that’s all I can think of off the top of my head.”

Summary:

The informant doesn’t have any big family traditions with his immediate family. However he does have a big family reunion with his step family. They have a tradition of meeting up in Ohio and having a bonfire as well as a multitude of activities. The kids have a tradition of playing Ghosts in the Graveyard. The informant tried to bring Ghosts in the Graveyard to our school when he was helping us plan an event. He was spreading a folk game that many of us hadn’t heard of at the point. The plans ultimately fell through but we were introduced to a new game nonetheless.

Christmas Sukiyaki

Transcription:

Interviewer: “What’s your family tradition?”

Informant: “Okay…in Japan it is pretty traditional and normal that in the beginning of the New Year,in January, you eat sukiyaki. It is a winter food so It’s really only made in winter. Uh…my grandmother is a native from Japan. As a native from Japan, she takes a lot of the traditions with her. One of the…key being…actually that’s the only one we really celebrate anymore, one of the key ones being that. So on January 1st every year we all pile into my Aunt Judy’s house in the morning around 11am or so and she, and my dad, and all of my aunts, who are her children, spend the entire morning making sukiyaki and preparing all the rice, and the meat, and the vegetables, and the noodles, etc. And by 5 o’ clock it’s finally finished and we all get in line and we pack our plates with sukiyaki and rice and we mix it up, we eat it, and we have a grand old time. And it’s not too cold here in Southern California but if it was cold, I would imagine that sukiyaki would feel like a warm hug on a cold winter day. “

Summary:

The informant has a family tradition where her family gathers together for New Years. When they do, her grandmother, father, and aunts all cook a big sukiyaki meal. This is based on a Japanese tradition. Since her grandmother is native Japanese, she held onto this tradition. We have a similar tradition where my grandmother would make black eyed peas on New Years. It was supposed to be good luck.