Author Archives: Nicola Carreon

Post-Joke Toe-Grabbing

The Informant is 21 years old, is a junior at USC studying Screenwriting, and is from Chicago, Illinois.

Me: Okay, so explain what just happened!

Him: Well, we’re all comedians in this house so we like to tell jokes. So we have a lot of joke competitions? It actually started in my dorm with my freshman year roommate. Whenever someone came over and jokes started being told, and mind you, they’re usually SUPER cheesy…just sad jokes…we’d have the guest pick which joke was funniest between me and my roommate. Whoever the guest deemed had told the funnier joke had to have their toes pulled by the losing joker. Don’t ask me how we decided to do that. I think we were pretty drunk and thought it was the most hilarious thing in the world.

Me: So, what do you do now?

Him: Well, now I live with 5 dudes, including my freshman year roommate, so we brought it with us not thinking it would really stick. And now there are ALWAYS people over, so that toe-pulling thing happens all of the time now. It caught on! We’re always just yanking on each others’ feet. It’s embarrassing. Don’t ask me why we do it *laughs*.

Me: Who usually wins?

Him: The person who comes up with the wittiest pun, typically. It’s whoever the guest chooses, also! We don’t really even think about it anymore. The people that come over also know the process now, too, so jokes will be told and someone will  just shout “M*******!” and I have to go pull M*******’s toes for him. Actually, people don’t even have to be over and we’ll just do it between ourselves. It’s rare that I get my toes pulled though *laughs*.

Analysis:

This presents an unique folk gesture by involving competition, humor, and an atypical interaction of body parts. The informant seemed almost embarrassed of his house’s little ritual because of how ridiculous even HE thought it was. I remember when it was first performed I was so confused by the course of events. I looked over at the informant after I deemed him the winner, and he turned red with embarrassment at the little ritual of his toes being pulled. Yet, despite his embarrassment, he clearly enjoyed the ritual in the the ways that it brings him closer to his roommates and friends. This shows that a lot of pride can be created from the establishment of a ritual, despite whatever level of ridiculousness it may involve. It’s this exact reason that we always play pranks on someone when it’s their birthday, why clubs have embarrassing inductions for their new members, and why college seniors always try to pull of the biggest school prank. Though they may be embarrassing at times, these rituals create a self-established sense of pride among those involved.

Hunting for the Wendigo

The Informant is 20 years old, a junior at USC studying Critical Studies in Film, and is from Plymouth, Minnesota.

Him: On the first day of winter, well, we live in Minnesota, so, by the first day of winter it’s already snowing there. On the first day of winter, we hunt for the Wendigo.

Me: What’s a Wendigo?

Him: A Wendigo is like a giant, werewolf-bigfoot-giant-bear creature, and it only comes out on the first day of winter to prey upon the goats and cattle of the area.

Me: Is it real?

Him: That’s the thing! Maybe! But probably not. The tradition started with my Grandpa who really, really believed that the Wendigo was real.

Me: What’s its significance? Why is it so important?

Him: Its meat is supposed to give you long-lasting life. So, on the first day of winter my Grandpa would go out into the woods and try to hunt it. The Wendigo. But, of course, he’d always come home empty-handed. But my Grandma was always there waiting for him and would make him cider for when he came home. And she’d put some nutmeg in it as a ‘secret ingredient’.

Me: So, does your family now like go out and hunt together?

Him: Nowadays, on the first day of winter, my family just likes to go out and appreciate nature. We don’t hunt anything, but we like to go to different national parks for the day, go camping, stuff like that, and just have some general family bonding. We’ve been doing it since probably forever. But we still come home and drink cider!

Analysis:

This example shows the ways in which tradition can change in a household throughout it’s performances. The variation of ways in which the Informant’s family has hunted for the Wendigo are drastic, yet they still hold importance to the family. Even the intentions behind the tradition have changed over the decades.

The ways in which the tradition has changed are probably influenced by the way that society has also changed over the years. Hunting used to be much more popular 80 years ago, but due to hunting laws, registering weapons, attaining of permits, etc., hunting becomes a different type of process. Somewhere along the way, the Informant’s household decided to adapt the manner and reason that their tradition is performed. Now, their goal is to no longer literally hunt the Wendigo in order to attain long-lasting life, but instead to appreciate nature and go on a family-bonding vacation into the wilderness in order to remember their ancestors.

Korean Drinking Etiquette

The Informant is 21 years old, a junior at USC studying Theatre and Narrative Studies, and he’s from San Jose, California.

Him: Usually, within the first few days of a new job, the new employees go out drinking with bosses, who are considered elders. When you drink with an elder in Korea, whether he or she is an employer or simply an older person, you always turn your body away whenever you consume the drink. I saw my cousin not only turn away but also even cover the shot glass with his hand to conceal the fluid entering his mouth. It’s weird to me because it seems that in the culture people drink to bond, and yet there’s this formality that doesn’t seem like it belongs in such an ostensibly casual setting. anyway, learned about this from my dad when he first gave me a sip of his wine when I was maybe a freshman in high school. But sine then, he’s told me that I don’t actually have to turn away whenever I drink with him. it was more just something to keep in mind if I ever find myself having drinks with other Korean adults. And by the way, drinking is a HUGE pastime in the culture, especially among males. I think it has to do with the draft that requires all males past the age of 18 to serve at least 2 years in the military. Somewhere in those two years, the guys basically become alcoholics. So, as they get older, drinking becomes reminiscent of the good ol’ days when you just hung out with your buddies drinking your brains out. It was my dad’s dream come true when I turned 21 and could legally drink with him wherever he went. He’s missed having a drinking buddy. My mom thinks he’s an idiot for it…That was fun! I’m glad I got to share that.

Analysis:

I think it’s clear that when the elders invite the new, younger employees out to drink, it is just another test of whether or not the employee is worthy of working at the company. It’s a final test to see how polite they will be to their bosses, despite the pressures of being in a casual atmosphere. Even though they’ve already been hired, they have to prove their worth in that moment by showing manners to their superiors. I’m left wondering how many Korean homes mimic the Informant’s household where the elders don’t mind if the younger members don’t turn their backs to drink. I’d like to be able to compare a Korean household to a Korean-American household and observe the differences in practices of etiquette.

I also think it’s worth some time to explore why the young men become so involved with alcohol in the military. Is it expected as a part of being a member of the military? Or is it the pressures of training and (perhaps) combat that drive all of the young men to drink? Apparently, they walk away with good memories from their time with alcohol in the military. But, I think it is implied there that once they return to civilian life, they are forced to fit within society’s standards of drinking patterns, meaning that the 2 years they are in the military are their “party” years in some way. This shows why the Informant’s father may have been so excited for his son to be old enough to legally drink.

Gay-Dating Tips

The Informant is 20 years old, a junior at USC studying Screenwriting, and is from Denver, Colorado.

Him: When I first got to college I didn’t really know much about the gay-dating world just because I don’t know I didn’t have much experience in it. But then I would go out with some of my gay friends or I’d hear from them the next day about them making eye contact with people at clubs or bars or something, and I’d be like, “What? I didn’t know that was a thing.”

Me: What is it?

Him: Well, apparently, and this is according to my friends, like, if you make eye contact with a man at a gay bar for 3-seconds, it means that it’s okay to go home with them for the night. But like, it can be funny because you’ll hear stories like, “Nope, he only looked at me for like 2.5 seconds, it’s a no!”

Me: Has it worked for you?

Him: I mean. Yes? I’m pretty sure it’s a thing just because I hear it so much, but I’m afraid to just stare a guy down and him be weirded out, especially if he’s straight and doesn’t know what’s happening.

Me: Where did your friends hear it from?

Him: I’m assuming they also heard it from friends in high school. It’s just something that they came to college already knowing, so I had to pick up on it. This kind of stuff isn’t really talked about a ton so you have to learn by experience or through knowing people that have experience.

Analysis:

I think that this type of folklore is informative due to how specific of a demographic it adheres to. Particularly young, gay, males, which is not a demographic whose idiosyncrasies are often discussed in textbooks, news segments, or a lot of popular culture. If anything it gives view to a different side of the young dating world that most of us are familiar with. It’s also interesting to me that these sorts of tips are the tips that you’d have to go to your peers to learn. It seems that the Informant could only get this information from the demographic itself because of how specific a gesture, or “folklore performance” that it is. The Informant also spoke of other gay-dating tips that he learned, but he had read them previously on gay websites. But this tip he had no clue about and never found when researching gay dating tips and couldn’t experience until he had “lived through it”.

The Last Cookie

The Informant is 20 years old, a junior at USC studying Critical Studies in Film, and is from Plymouth, Minnesota.

Him: It’s extremely Minnesotan to not eat the last cookie.

Me: What?

Him: Yes. You can eat the last muffin, or pancake, or candy, but you never eat the last cookie.

Me: So what do you do with it?

Him: You have to split it in half if you want to eat it. You eat only half. And then the next person comes along and splits that half in half, so into a quarter, and you keep going from there until it reaches a ridiculous point when you’d no longer split it in half.

Me: How do you know that’s strictly a Minnesotan thing? Do you do that a lot?

Him: I was literally raised learning that that was a specific type of manner I need to learn. I honestly remember my mom getting mad at me whenever I’d take the last cookie. Same goes for like whenever I burped in a nice restaurant or something. You just don’t do it.  Also, there’s a story that our Mayor was once fired because he took the last cookie at a party. Which proves that it’s a Minnesotan thing!

Me: Is that true?

Him: I don’t know, but from what I think, it totally could be.

Me: Do you still never take the last cookie?

Him: Never. I split it in half and go on my way!

Analysis:

What’s funny about this is that I later talked to another friend of mine who is also from Minnesota (but from a different city) and she also swears that all of this is true. She was also taught not to take the last cookie. I wonder why it’s specifically Minnesotan, or why they think it is. I’d be interested in asking other folks from the Midwest if they were ever taught this form of etiquette.

I think that as a method for further implementing how closely this form of etiquette is associated with Minnesota, someone made up the urban legend that the Mayor got fired for it just to further punctuate how important not taking the last cookie is to Minnesotans. I’d be surprised if it were actually true.