Monthly Archives: May 2011

Marchen-Mexican

Nationality: Mexican
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 22, 2011
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

“Well when I was little my dad told me this story about a greedy dog who had stolen a torta, which is a sandwich pretty much. The dog was walking by a river and when he looked at his reflection he thought it was another dog carrying another sandwich, so he jumped into the water wanting to take the other dog’s sandwich and in doing so he lost his own. My dad told me this in order to teach me not to be greedy.”

Daniel was born in the United States and lives in Los Angeles. His parents are from Mexico. He studies occupational therapy at the University of Southern California. His father used to tell him this tale as a child to keep him from being greedy.

While this tale does warn against greed, I believe it sends many more messages. For example, it teaches children that it is not good to value things based on their appearances. When the dog jumps in the water, it does not find in the depths what it sees on the water’s surface. In chasing the superficial, it loses what it has that is real, particularly its own sandwich.

This tale is reminiscent of the proverb “A bird in a hand is worth two in a bush,” in that they both dismiss the pursuit of overly-ambitious goals, favoring certainty over chance. In many cases, risk is identified as noble, but in this story of the dog and the sandwich, risk is seen as the result of poor perception. What was a risk in the dog’s mind should have been interpreted as a certain failure, given the fact that the dog in the river was merely his reflection. Risk, thus given its negative connotation, is a result of greed.

Annotation: A variation of this story called “The Dog and the Bone” can be found documented in Aesop’s Fables.

Aesop, and Jerry Pinkney. Aesop’s Fables. New York: SeaStar, 2000. Print.

Folk Speech/Metaphor

Nationality: American
Age: 14
Occupation: Student
Residence: Mount Kisco, NY
Performance Date: April 16, 2011
Primary Language: English

“We’re gonna smack patties.”

The informant stated that they learned the above folk metaphor from a friend, approximately two years ago in middle school. The metaphor is sometimes used prior to the beginning of any form of competition, such as a game, with another group, and usually would not be said outside of this context, and even here, the informant claims, it is not used very often. According to the informant, the metaphor is “just a silly, dumb statement” which not many people say—the only two that he knows of being himself and a close friend.

With the exception of this informant, I do not believe I have ever heard the above folk metaphor used in any context. Nevertheless, I have two possible explanations for why it may be used, especially in the context of (group) competition. The first is that the phrase may refer to the literal smacking of meat patties on a grill by a cook with a spatula. Accordingly, this form of folk speech could be used before the onset of group competition as a sort of rallying cry, suggesting that group’s impending domination over the other (the patties), as in the case of patties being easily smacked all around a grill by the spatula of a cook. Such a cooking, and even more specifically, grilling metaphor might not seem so out of place in the context of sport if we, for instance, consider the common use of the term “gridiron”  in reference to the field used in American football, or to the sport itself (as in “Gridiron Football”).

Another, perhaps more remote, possibility is that this folk metaphor connotes domination in competition by referring to punitive measures (“smacking”) taken against a group inferior in some respect (the “patties”). Interestingly enough, the word “patty” sounds familiar to “paddy,” or a derogatory slang term for an Irishman, though no connection is necessarily suggested here. On either interpretation of the metaphor, it is clear that the phrase could serve, especially in the context of group competition, to portend a future victory.

Swedish Graduation Custom

Nationality: Swedish
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA, USA
Performance Date: April 27, 2011
Primary Language: English
Language: Swedish

“When people graduate from high school, it is one of the most important days in someone’s life. It’s called ‘studenten.’ The idea is in Swedish if you are a ‘student,’ you are a graduate that year, and ‘studenten’ is ‘graduation.’ Alright, so, there is kind of a framework for that day: it starts early in the morning at about nine, everyone has a hat that looks exactly like a captain’s hat. It even has the small shield in front and white puffiness. Everyone’s dressed up…guys in suits, and girls in white dresses. This is when you are 18 or 19, so you will generally be old enough to drink. So after the pictures, there is a champagne breakfast. Then you eat strawberries. That’s usually at school, the drinking part. Parents are not there yet…just classmates. Then we go to a park in the city, and other graduates from other schools are also there. It can even carry on for days and days,  that is the period when different schools are ending at different times. You continue drinking at the park with these other students. And then, for lunch, you usually go have lunch with your teachers. It’s usually held at a nice venue. Everyone’s together drinking together and eating lunch. The lunch usually last 2-3 hours, and people speak about the last 3 years (high school is 3 in Sweden.) You kinda joke around…it’s basically joking about nostalgia. Then you go to the bar, or park…whatever it is, you’re drinking. So you continue drinking until ‘utsläppet,’ which is when students run from inside the school out onto a stage outside, where everyone is gathered (not just parents or immediate family, but the extended family, the whole sha-bam. And so you basically stand on this elevated platform or whatever for 3-4 minutes just shouting and still holding champagne glasses. After, you get flowers and gifts, and thin ribbon in blue and yellow…everything is blue and yellow (Swedish flag.) Then you go home, where the parents have generally been preparing dinner all day. All the students take off to ride around the city…at any given day during this period, traffic can be stopped. And people have all done this before, so they’ll walk up to you and scream, and you scream back. After the ride, there is dinner…at mine there were about 35 people. Then you get more gifts, usually more expensive gifts. By this time everyone is just wasted…parents are celebrating that their child made it, you are happy because you are now an adult, and everyone is just happy. Those dinners usually last from 6 or 7 until 9 or 10pm. Then you go to night clubs with other graduates. When you are done, you have been pretty much been drinking for 24 hours. There is saying, ‘If you remember your studenten, you didn’t do it properly.’ By the time you get home from the night club, the family is gone, and you crash. It’s the most important day of your life.”

The informant and I had completely the same views of this tradition. It is definitely a part of the life cycle and partaking in the liminal stage of transition from childhood into adulthood. The details of the celebration reveal the values held important to those partaking in the tradition. The Swedish colors represent nationalism, the pride of being a Swedish citizen and fulfilling your duty after having been educated to the social well-being of the country. In the United States, a very capitalistic country in which the individual surmounts the community, we do not celebrate graduation adorned in red, white, and blue, but rather with what we want to wear, or what identifies us with our classmates and school (school colors). Finally, this level of celebration indicates the importance placed on education and one’s ability to contribute to society as an educated adult.

Chelm

“There’s a whole vein of Jewish humor which refers to the Polish town of Chelm [which is] full of fools, who consistently do unwise things.  So, for instance, at one point, they decide they need to build a new synagogue.  In order to do so, they need to go into the mountains and get large rocks.  Several men go up and carry these rocks down.  When they get to the bottom, one of the townspeople (it may have been the rabbi) is all, “Why didn’t you just roll them down?”  They all think this is a fantastic suggestion, so they take the rocks back up the mountain, and roll them down.”

Leslee was born and raised in a Jewish community in Kansas and currently lives in Illinois. She shared this folklore and remarked (re: the jokes about Chelm), “The town actually exists, though the folklore doesn’t really relate to the actual town.”

Her observation is a very prescient one, because the Chelm jokes are classic examples of blason populaire, folklore designed to perpetuate group stereotypes (often negative) and establish identity in opposition. The idea that one define who one is by defining who one is not. In this case, the idea is “At least we’re not those fools in Chelm.”

The choice of Chelm is interesting, and although there is not a definitive answer as to why Chelm is the town of choice, it is worth noting that it is a place that has had a thriving Jewish community since at least the 14th century, although historically, there was longstanding tension between Jews and gentiles, including a massacre in the 17th century and a violent takeover by the Nazis in 1940. Today, the Jewish community makes up approximately 51% of the population of Chelm. It would seem (although there is clearly no historical basis for the choice) that the decision to base the “fools of [X]” jokes in Chelm was one made affectionately and in good (forgive the pun) humor.

More information on the history of Chelm itself can be found here.

Annotation: More funny stories of Chelm can be found in A Treasury of Jewish Folklore, edited by Nathan Asubel (New York: Crown Publishers, 1948).

Folk Medicine-Persian

Nationality: Persian
Age: 82
Occupation: Homemaker
Residence: Santa Ana, CA
Performance Date: April 12, 2011
Primary Language: Persian

Whenever someone has an irritated eye or eyes, my grandma suggests to them that they should pour tea in their eyes, once it has been cooled, of course. My grandma was born in a village outside Tehran called Aghasht. She moved to Tehran when she got married and moved to the United States in 1986. She prepares this tea in the same way she prepares the tea we drink, using tea leaves and a samovar on the stove. She assures me that the health benefits of tea are lost in the “dust” that is used for the tea bags sold in stores. Once the tea cools, it can be poured in the eye with a spoon a few times, as she does sometimes, or one can be more innovative and use an eye dropper. The tea reduces the redness and itching associated with eye irritations and sometimes infection.

My entire family has adopted this as a first resort to eye irritation, probably because it has a high success rate. I have used this remedy myself to fix eye irritation and for me, it helped. I was surprised to find that the tea did not feel like water; it felt almost like it was scratching my eye. It caused me to tear up quite a bit, but after putting the tea in and washing it out, the redness and irritation had reduced.

I have heard recently that people put teabags on their eyelids to reduce redness, puffiness, and dark circles. This seems like a modified version of my grandma’s remedy.

Annotation: This remedy can be found in the following book:

Roberts, Theresa K. ABC’s of Bumps & Bruises: a Guide to Home & Herbal Remedies for Children. Houghton Lake, MI: Theresa K. Roberts, 2008. Print.