Tag Archives: birthday

Pabitin at Birthday Parties

“A pabitin is a grid of bamboo wrapped in cellophane.  We have those at birthday parties and what you do is you essentially buy a bunch of small toys like those packs of sushi erasers or something.  Small dollar action figurines or crayons or candy… you tie or tape all of it onto the grid so it’s all hanging off.  Then you tie a large string to the grid and put it up basically like a piñata with one person handling the end of the rope.  You gather all of the kids under the pabitin and the person holding the rope can decide how far down he’ll let the grid fall to the children, and they have to jump up to try to grab the goodies.  Half of the fun is setting up how the toys and gifts are scattered and preparing the children.  I also like watching the children’s creativity get teased as they jump for the toys.  Bamboo is used for everything, like building houses… I don’t really know how we ended up making our native products out of bamboo, heheh.  So the material in itself already has cultural roots.   If in Mexican parties you always have a pinata, it’s the same idea for us Filipinos, where our children’s parties are characterized by pabitin.”

Background: The informant is a 20-year old college student who has witnessed several Filipino birthday parties in the past.  She has only been a witness, however, as she uses a wheelchair for transportation.

Context: This piece was told to me during a luncheon after our Sunday services.

This tradition puts a more competitive and high-energy spin on the normal act of providing gift bags to party guests.  The kids have fun as the adults tease them out of getting the goodies from the grid, and there are often bigger prizes than others that the children are already eyeing before they get to compete.  The grids can also be made of bamboo, which is light and flexible, and also one of our cultural agricultural products.

Filipino Debuts

“My experience with the debut was centered around presenting me to the world as a woman.  I know there’s stuff from before about, like… presenting women to the men of the community as of age or ready to be, like, married off.  But when Filipina girls turn 18, the community typically throws them a huge party called a debut (day-boo) and it’s just like the big birthday where everyone now considers them an adult.  For mine, my parents picked 9 aunts and 9 uncles to be my godparents for the party… well some of them were my actual godparents from baptism, but the others were people I’ve gotten close to as I’ve grown up.  Everyone gave me a speech, and the men danced with me.  I think at my mom’s debut though, they actually had her dance with, like… dudes her age as like a courtship thing.  That would be really weird and creepy now and, ugh, there’s no way I would ever do that.  But I guess that’s what was normal then.  And I mean, that’s also what the debut was for in its origins, where it was the sign that men could finally begin courting the woman for marriage.”

Background: The informant is a 20 year-old who had her own debut in 2019.  She was born and raised in the United States and is the daughter of Filipino immigrants.  She has never been to the Philippines, but was raised with her parents’ values.

Context: The piece was shared to me over Facebook Messenger video chat.

It is interesting how customs change in different countries and timelines.  Debuts in the Philippines in earlier decades served a more practical purpose, to present women to the bachelors of the community and to officially dub her as available.  This party also represents the liminal space between being a child and a woman with adult responsibilities, as this party also occurs around the same time where the celebrant goes to college.  Many Filipino-Americans also tend to leave home around this time, while those who have been raised in the Philippines tend to stay in their parents’ homes until they are married and have a new family to preside over.  Such customs around marriage do not exist as prevalently for those who were raised in the United States, as we place less of an emphasis around only leaving our parents’ household to raise one of our own.

Birthday Soups

Background: The informant (J) is the son of two Korean immigrants. He moved to a city on the west coast when he was two years old and grew up there, but he was born in Korea and spent many summers there with his family.

J: On new years you eat this soup called tteokguk. Basically the reason why is that you don’t age by your birthday, you age by the year. Which is why when you’re born you’re like already one year old technically. It’s just different in Korea, like you just age every new year instead of on your birthday. I don’t know exactly why you eat it but it just symbolizes how you’ve aged a year. So according to tradition if you didn’t eat tteokguk on new years then you wouldn’t age, like, as in you have to eat it so you can age.

Me: Do you guys celebrate the new year with the western calendar or lunar or something

J: Uh… I don’t really know but I think it’s the same as Chinese New Year.

Me: Oh that’s the lunar calendar then.

J: Oh also tteokguk is rice cake soup, it’s a pretty light soup. And there’s also another birthday food, it’s called seaweed soup. Or i mean it’s not called seaweed soup it just is seaweed soup

Me: Do you know what it’s called in Korean?

J: Miyuk guk.

Me: Why do you eat that for birthdays?

J: It’s supposed to symbolize all the hard work your mom goes through like, birthing you.

Me: Why does it symbolize that?

J: Cause like, it’s supposed to be like your mom ate the soup when she had you and was recovering, so you eating is supposed to be like you honoring that and remembering…if that makes sense

Me: Wait so do women always eat it while they’re recovering from giving birth? Is it like a healing type soup or something?

J: Uhhh I don’t know…I think they just eat it because it…goes down easy? Like you don’t really have to like…chew a lot cause it’s really light and it’s just seaweed and soup. It’s probably kind of…nutritious too I guess.

Me: Do you eat seaweed soup on your day of birth or also on the new year when you’re like…considered to have aged?

J: No, I eat it on my day of birth. Because we don’t age on our birthday but the soup symbolizes your actual birth and like..the…struggles…of your mom

Me: I assume that everyone eats the rice cake on new year since everyone ages at the same time but does everyone eat the seaweed soup or just the person whose birthday it is

J: No only the..birthday person. Like my mom would eat it on her birthday and my dad would eat it on his birthday.

Context: This was told to me and recorded during an in person interview.

No Early Birthday Wishes in Germany

The informant is the daughter of two German immigrants. She was born in Germany, spent time in France, and grew up in the US. She is a college student.

Informant: In Germany it’s a big no-no to say happy birthday to people early or celebrate early or anything. If you do that it’s supposed to like… give them a year of bad luck so we just…don’t do that. And if you do that to someone else they definitely won’t be happy.

Me: Ohh my god I definitely wished you a happy early birthday this year several times 

Informant: Haha it’s okay it doesn’t really matter. Oh also, for my birthday this year I wanted to come home the day before my birthday to see my parents and ‘cause they wanted to give me a gift too but they were like, “No that’s bad”. So I ended up driving home a few days after my birthday because they’d rather celebrate it late than early.

Context: This was told to me during a recorded in person conversation.

MIYEOK GUK

MAIN PIECE:

Informant: So in Korea there’s this soup called Miyeok Guk. It is…  Essentially like a seaweed soup. And um… Seaweed has like iron in it, I believe. And in your blood… Your like hemoglobin has iron in it as well? So Korean reasoning is that, whenever a woman gives birth, she loses a lot of blood with that. So to make up for it, you should have food that can supply your body with iron, such as Miyeok Guk and seaweed. So on birthdays, in addition to like cake and just like normal birthday routines, the traditional side of it is eating Miyeok Guk and seaweed… For the iron that your mom lost. 

INFORMANT’S RELATIONSHIP TO THE PIECE: 

Informant: I do practice this. Cause I like Miyeok Guk.

Interviewer: So you’re really consuming it for the taste? 

Informant: Yeah… I mean… I also think that we all have a desire to keep our culture going. I think when we’re younger it was easy to forget about and not care. Like, “Who cares what they’ve done for a thousand years, Imma do me…” My dad was born in Korea but moved to Guam and later Hawaii and later Anaheim. So he’s very Americanized. My mom didn’t leave Korea until college, so she was always the more traditional Korean side of the family… But my dad and I are more Americanized. Um… But yeah, as time has gone on, I feel like it’s good to keep some things, even if it has zero significance or importance… Even if it’s just soup that reminds me of my mom, it’s nice to continue on with those little traditions. 

REFLECTION:

Korean birthday tradition honors the mother by including food that recognizes the hardship of childbirth. The informant, while also consuming Miyeok Guk for taste, has grown to appreciate this food as a symbol of his mother. This is multifaceted, as Miyeok Guk is both a Korean symbol of the mother in general, but also a reminder of the informant’s mother specifically, who passed this tradition onto him. This demonstrates how food can have a “broad” cultural significance, but also a more intimate, immediate, familial significance. Thus, there are several reasons that food traditions might be upheld. This tradition also seems to hint at an appreciation for the mother within Korean culture.