Monthly Archives: May 2011

Iranian Winter Festival

Nationality: Persian, Puerto Rican
Age: 18
Occupation: Graphic Design Major at University of Southern California
Residence: Laguna Niguel, CA
Performance Date: April 23rd, 2011
Primary Language: English
Language: spanish, Persian

“In Iranian tradition there exists the winter festival which is kind of like Christmas. The real name is Shab-e Yalda, which in translation means birthday night. I think it’s because we consider it the rebirth of the Sun. It happens every year on the night between December 21st and December 22nd. The reason is because that is the longest night of the year, and after that there is more and more light. Because darkness is considered evil and light is associated with good, during this night fires would be lit outside while inside families would be gathered around. What makes this similar to Christmas is the celebratory aspect I think. Inside the house while the fires protect them from the evil of the night, people and their families would keep each other company while they stay up all night. This would involve music, poetry, stories, anything that could keep the night fun and the energy flowing so that no one would fall asleep. I had only had the pleasure of experiencing this once when my father’s family came to visit, it was extremely fun! Other than that we don’t really celebrate it here, but I really like it and the story of evil vs. good that is the reasoning behind it.”

It is always fascinating to me hearing about different festivities that are parallel to ones in other nations/religions. Though my roommate has chosen to compare this to Christmas, the usual Christmas related activities are barely seen in this tradition. It must be the spirit of the matters that she is talking about, the family time, and the excitement towards the morning. Other than that, from an outside perspective, I don’t see how it is like Christmas at all. Of course it is a couple days away from Christmas, but again I see no relation.

What I do find interesting is the concept of celebrating according to the calendar. This relates back to societies that rely on agriculture. Anais had also happened to mention to me once that during this time the host gives out fruit of the season, and that tradition is to celebrate the past harvest’s produce. It also associates me to the Jewish calendar, which we use in Israel together with the regular one, mainly regarding holidays. The Hebrew calendar or, the Jewish calendar, is a Lunisolar one and most holidays correlate with agriculture.

Though Christmas is a religious holiday, this winter festival is about harvesting season and the fight between dark and light, evil and good, and in my opinion , does not need to relate to Charismas, as it has its unique beauty.

Iranian Tea

Nationality: Persian, Puerto Rican
Age: 18
Occupation: Graphic Design Major at the University of Southern California
Residence: Laguna Niguel, CA
Performance Date: April 23rd, 2011
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish, Persian

“In Iran Tea is one of the most important traditions that exist. In fact, it is actually our national drink. It is also tradition to drink tea after prayer, along with your family, I’m not really sure why… I guess it’s to elongate the moment of prayer and to add more meaningfulness to it.

We drink tea without milk, because the color of the tea is very important. In fact it’s only served in glass so that the color can be appreciated. The usual custom is to serve a cup of tea, with 3 sugars, and a teaspoon. Also the fragrance is important, because the whole tea experience is important taste, smell, and sight are all taken into consideration. It makes tea quite beautiful actually.

It’s amazing how important tea is in Iran. One must always offer a visitor tea as soon as they step into your house. Oh and it must be served hot, otherwise you are disrespecting your guests and simply embarrassing yourself. I guess I don’t really embrace any side of my nationality specifically, but I know that it’s one of the rare traditions my dad still keeps now that he’s in America, so knowing how meaningful it is to him makes it meaningful to me”

Anais has explained to me that she remembers being explained the importance of tea at a very young age, but she is not sure when exactly. As a young girl she learned to love tea, and can’t see it as not being a part of her life, especially when guests are around. Looking back I realize at the importance tea has for my roommate. Whenever she would make tea she would always insist I try some, since I’m not a fan of tea. She would also, let me smell different tea bags in order for me to decide which flavor I’d like to try. I still do not like tea very much, but it was really but it was really interesting to try all the flavors and now I understand why she insisted.

Until Anais shared with me the Iranian tea tradition, I was only aware of the importance of tea tradition in England, and in Japan, which involves completely different customs.

I was surprised to notice the sanctity of tea in Iran and it crossed my mind the importance of tea is due in part of British influence in the past. I think it is a beautiful tradition and the importance is perhaps more in the occasions where tea is used rather than the tea itself. It is, as mentioned before, used when guests arrive and during times of prayer. It seems to me then that tea is a way to show respect both towards God and towards guests. The appreciation of fragrance and taste as well as the looks of the tea perhaps point towards appreciating the little details that surround a person, seeing beauty in everything. I also noticed that unlike the English tea and the Japanese one, the Iranian tea is a very sweet one, and this I tend to relate to the Mediterranean preference of sweet teas. Overall, in my mind, it is also a symbol for the more “warm hearted” and community-oriented aspect of this nation’s nature, in comparison to the English and the Japanese ones.

Rafting Legend – Shanandoa Mountains, Virginia

Nationality: Mexican American/ Slovenian American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student - Neuroscience
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 18 April 2011
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

On a rafting trip her friend’s “mother was saying, ‘Oh, you know you guys should be careful you could drown and I was like, ‘Oh, no. I’m a good swimmer.’ And she was like, ‘No! I know this story about this old woman who was rafting on the river out here and uh, she was a really good swimmer like you Andrea, you know she was a really good swimmer. But she fell out of the raft in the high rapids and she got stuck under one of the rocks cause you know like under it cause the current was so fast going over it that she got stuck and then she drowned and she couldn’t get out.’ And this was used to scare me and my friend. And it definitely worked!”

The informant, originally from Arlington, Virginia, learned this legend was she was in 3rd grade on a rafting trip with her friend’s family. They had gone over some terrifying rapids on a multiple day rafting trip and her friend’s Mom had had them get really low into the boat so they no one would fall out. The informant clearly understands this as a legend told to scare children into behaving well while rafting.

This mother may have exaggerated the dangers of rafting – the logistics of getting caught under a rock are not beyond imagining but out of the real of normal experience. Mentioning this legend served its purpose not so much in being a realistic representation but in controlling child behavior enough to relieve a frightened mother’s anxiety. Especially a mother that was given the task of ensuring the safety of not only her own child but also another’s child who she didn’t as trusting a relationship with.

Hispanic Folk Food way – Chilaquiles and Chinese Folk Food Way – Eggs

Nationality: Hispanic
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: 615 Childs Way, Room Tro368, Los Angels, CA 90007
Performance Date: 4/26/2011
Primary Language: Spanish
Language: English

My informant says this about his background:

“My parents are both um…from Mexico… and then they moved to the uh…Sacramento, California in uh ’88 and had my sister and I was born shortly after that in ’91…um…we lived in a mostly Hispanic neighborhood until the time I was in third grade at which point my Dad’s career brought us to a point where we could move into a high income neighborhood elsewhere in Sacramento and I lived there since until I moved to Los Angeles this year for college.”

My informant was raised in a Catholic family. He provided this Hispanic folk food way in the following conversation:

“Informant: So this is a folk food way, it’s interesting because I’ve heard of it outside of my family’s context and outside of the town that I grew up in, but uh…only rarely and never in the same way that I’ve seen with them. Uh…this food way is Chilaquiles, which are a uh… breakfast food in Mexico umm is basically a uh…chopped up tortilla, fried and served with, in uh… via you mix it with eggs umm, sometimes peppers… and then it’s served with really hot salsa on top and on a rare occasion, served with soul scream on top…that, at least in my home, this was a very uh, weekend-y thing because it takes time to prepare, we didn’t really have time for it on a weekday, um, at least for my parents growing up, it was very much, very much a luxury, um, because this has meat in it, you might get meat once a week and eggs were also…not quite as much and so, these ingredients, so…is very very simple. This was uh, uh, quite the, it was uh, a rare deviation from the usual diet, a very luxurious one.

Collector: What do you think is the significance of this uh, food way?

Informant: Uh, the significance is that it’s rarely reflective of the way that, at least the way that people who grew up in that town, um, it’s a very modest upbringing um…you don’t get fancy breakfast like you see in America where traditional breakfasts are pancakes, eggs, bacon, sausage, orange juice…very very simple, but it’s not as appreciated by the children who grew up with that because they don’t recognize the luxury of that sort of breakfast.”

This folk food way is very much reflective of the living standards of what my informant describes as a modest upbringing in a Mexican village. The addition of meat, eggs and soul cream, which are considered expensive food items in a small town like the one my informant’s parents grew up in, show the Chilaquiles’s role as a luxury or celebratory food–it’s a special food, something different from what is usually consumed. I find that many folk food ways are created out of this situation, where a specific food, such as eggs or meat, are main ingredients of a special dish (special as in special occasion) because it was considered a luxury food back in the day.

To show an example, my father often recounted to me about luxury food items in the past.

Here’s a little background on my father:

My father was born as a farmer’s son into a veteran’s family in Taipei, Taiwan. His father and mother ran away from China to Taipei during the Chinese Civil War. Many of his cultural practices and beliefs are taken from mainland Chinese culture. Because of his background, he is considered a “mainlander” in Taiwan (Chinese in Taiwan are divided into Mainland Chinese, Taiwanese or indigenous). My father graduated from Iowa University with an MBA. His B.A was obtained in Taiwan.

While my father often tells me how precious sweet foodstuffs, such as jawbreakers, watermelon and rock candy, were to him in his childhood, he never forgets to reinforce how precious eggs are. He said that in his childhood, eggs were extremely expensive so much so that families couldn’t afford to eat eggs. The only chance he would have to eat an egg was on his birthday. He came from a family of five and on their birthdays, his mother would make ??? (Yang Chun Mien, which directed translated would be “not complicated noodle” or “simple noodle”), which is basically water, noodles and scallions, and put an egg, one egg, in the soup, as a sort of luxury food. Thus, nowadays, when eggs are a lot cheaper, my father never forgets to add egg into the noodles.

From these recollections, we can see how historically rare food items have shaped folk food ways.

For more information on Chilaquiles, go here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilaquiles

For pictures of Yang Chun Mien, go here: pictures.

Shadow Creature Prank – American

Nationality: American - Caucasian
Age: 26
Occupation: Cinematographer
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 22 April 2011
Primary Language: English

“So, my brothers and I when we were young probably early, I guess eleven or twelveish – that area, um, it was raining outside, we all shared a room you know and bunk beds. And we were looking out the window, just watching the rain and stuff. And I gotta an idea to like scare my brothers, because they were young and gullible, to tell them that I saw a shadow creature sneaking around the rain in in th in the back in the yard and everything. Um, and my middle brother swears he saw it. They got freaked out and scared and it was a good laugh. About a month ago – which is like 10 years later – my brother brought it up, he brought it up to me and he’s like, ‘Remember a long time ago we saw that shadow creature?’ And to this day he still remembers that shadow creature and believes that it was there. And I, I totally made it up.”

The informant is a 26-year-old cinematographer who grew up as a military brat moving every couple of years, before coming to Los Angeles, California for college and to work in the motion picture industry. He is the oldest of three boys and was recently married.

The informant when asked about this prank said that he thought “it was a good prank at the time” and a funny ghost story. He said it was especially funny that his younger brother still believes he saw the creature after being told repeatedly that the informant made the whole thing up. He said he added that he “was always teasing them.”

The informant is has the personality of a prankster and loves to throw people for a loop in order to get a laugh, so I definitely agree with the informant’s analysis in that regard. That the type of day was a slow, rainy sort makes sense as well, as the informant was clearly looking for something to do that day and why not go to his favorite pastime of teasing his brothers. I would mention that the context that his brother, who lives in Northern California and doesn’t get to see the informant very often, was most likely in the hours before the informant’s wedding when the sky was drizzling off and on. This original context definitely lends itself to nostalgia – as a major life change was about to take place.