Monthly Archives: May 2017

Spiderweb Game

Nationality: Lebanese
Age: 19
Occupation: student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 4/17/17
Primary Language: English

Background: Kayla Saikaly is a 21-year-old student living in Los Angeles, CA. She is a student at UCSD. She was born and raised in Southern California.

Original script: “So there was a game that I used to play all the time when I was kid. So, I was kind of a bully in elementary school. No, seriously. I would always boss all the boys around and I was like the ringleader of the girls, because back then it was always boys versus girls. So, I invented this game – or I thought I did, honestly I probably read or watched it somewhere and forgot about it – called the Spider web game. In the playground, we had this huge spider web playground structure that we called the jail. We would put all the boys in there through physical force – kicking, scratching, punching, slapping was all fair game. They would try to get out and we would give them 10 seconds to run and then we would chase after them to put them back in the cage. There was no real ‘victory’ honestly it was just a bunch of kids fighting each other… but playfully!! I swear, I didn’t make anybody cry or anything. But I did punch a bunch of guys and I kicked a guy in the balls for the first and hopefully only time of my life ”

Background Information about the Piece by the informant: My informant went to an elementary school in Cerritos, CA. It was a magnet school. She said she looks back on elementary school fondly and even though she was a bully, everybody did respect her and she keeps in contact with some of her friends back then

Thoughts about the piece: This game honestly sounds so violent to me, but I’m sure that as kids, it isn’t bad at all. I look back at elementary school and am in constant awe of how much energy I had, so I can see how this game would be entertaining to children – running, kicking, screaming.  

 

Cutting Nails at Night

Nationality: South Korean
Age: 55
Occupation: Homemaker
Residence: Cerritos, CA
Performance Date: 4/10/17
Primary Language: Korean
Language: English

Background: Stella is a 55-year-old woman living in Cerritos, CA. She was born in Seoul and has lived in South Korea for the majority of her life until she moved here for college. She stays at home. Before that, she worked at a hair salon as a beautician. She is married and has two grown children.

Original script: “You must never cut your nails at night because if you do, spirits will come after you and your life will be shorter.”

Background Information about the Piece by the informant: Her mother told her about this old Japanese superstition when she was younger. Apparently people thought nails contained a part of your soul, so by cutting it at night you were releasing parts of your soul into the darkness where spirits rest.

Thoughts about the piece: I found this superstition to be very scary when I was younger. Surprisingly, I still do not cut my nails at night because this superstition scared me so thoroughly. It has stuck with me through the years and now I avoid cutting my nails in darkness.

Ginger Tea Mixture

Nationality: Vietnamese
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 4/14/17
Primary Language: English
Language: Vietnamese

Background: Ivana is a 19-year old student at USC, studying Public Policy and Diplomacy. She is from Ohio and moved to Los Angeles when she started USC as a freshman.

 

Main piece:

So what do you usually do when you’re sick?

Ivana: “My mom always makes me this herbal tea mixture drink… I don’t really know how to describe it. It’s made of ginger and then she adds like oranges and honey and honestly I don’t know how she does it but it tastes pretty good surprisingly and soothes my throat a lot. She also makes me handmade pho which is THE BEST I’m tellin’ ya, my mom makes a hearty bowl of pho and my sickness just goes away.”

Where did your mother learn this from?

Ivana: “I don’t really know, I’m assuming she learned it from her mother or something.”

Does it work?

Stella: “Always.”

Performance Context: I interviewed the informant here at USC because she is my roommate. We were talking about Pho and how every culture has some sort of “soul food” so she started talking about her mom’s homemade Pho.

My Thoughts: this definitely made me think of my own childhood and how my mom treats my sicknesses. There’s nothing quite like a mom’s homemade, piping hot bowl of soup or cup of tea.

 

Senior Retreat

Nationality: Indian
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Santa Barbara, CA
Performance Date: 4/16/17
Primary Language: English

Anshika is a sophomore at UC Santa Barbara. She went to Whitney High School in Cerritos, CA, which was a small public high school that was #1 in the nation.

Anshika told me about her senior retreat she went on in her senior year of high school.

“When I went on retreat with my senior class, I was excited because I had heard about retreats from past years. My upperclassmen friends all said it was the first time that teachers got real with us and that we would get sentimental about graduating high school. I was excited to just camp out with my friends in the woods. Our senior class cabinet I remember themed it around Harry Potter. So, like, cabins were paired together to make houses and we would play games as part of the Triwizard Tournament to win the Cup at the end… It was pretty cool. During the day, we had organized activities but also free time to spend with friends. Then, during the night, teachers would rotate throughout cabins – one man and one woman teacher – and talk about things like sex, drugs, college life, life lessons, etc. They were super real with us and to be honest that was the first time I saw my teachers as humans too. Like, they went through shit in their past when they were our age, and that was super encouraging to hear. They talked about the transition from high school to college and what being an adult meant when you’re out there making your own decisions. It was a safe space. And hearing about the mistakes my teachers had made and how their life wasn’t as perfect as it seemed to be was really… humbling. Seeing them outside of the classroom was.. Weird, but really… insightful. Then, on the last day, we got back the letters we had written to ourselves at the very beginning of the year. Seeing how far we’d come in the span of just one academic school year and how much everything had changed was cool to see… honestly it was probably my favorite part of senior year. I got to know my classmates and teachers a lot more outside of the classroom.

Analysis:

In celebration of students graduating high school and moving on to the next stage of their life, college, or in other words, adulthood, many high schools host some sort of retreat or day where students can ask questions about life in a safe space. I really like the way they organized the retreat from Anshika’s words because they incorporated entertainment and real-life lessons all into one retreat. I appreciated the fact that they thought about the genders of the teachers and how comfortable the students would be asking certain questions with female and male teachers. It was very purposeful and I’m glad that the students had the chance and the safe space to prepare for adulthood together.

 

South Korean Plastic Surgery

Nationality: South Korean
Age: 55
Occupation: Homemaker
Residence: Cerritos, CA
Performance Date: 4/10/17
Primary Language: Korean
Language: English

Background: Stella is a 55-year-old woman living in Cerritos, CA. She was born in Seoul and has lived in South Korea for the majority of her life until she moved here for college. She stays at home. Before that, she worked at a hair salon as a beautician. She is married and has two grown children.

I was watching a Korean music show with my mother. I commented on how gorgeous the idols were and my mother interjected, “you know, they’re all fixed, right? Every idol, no matter how natural they look, has had plastic surgery on some part of their face. Look at them. They all look the same.”

I asked her if she really thought that was true and how she knows they’ve had plastic surgery.

She said, “Korea’s plastic surgery is the best in the world. There’s a reason for that. We have the best, and we want to look the best. You know, I think every Korean citizen probably has or will get their faces and bodies fixed because it’s just, um, part of the culture there, do you know what I mean? Even I’ve had my nose raised and eyes widened, so you see, I can tell if somebody else also had the, um, same procedure.”

I believe my informant is both proud and skeptical of the plastic surgery phenomenon in South Korea. It has caused her to become very jaded about “natural beauty” and very particular about what features are “beautiful” in her eyes. She constantly talks about how Korean people all look the same because they all go to the same plastic surgeon. As a result, she refuses to call anybody “pretty”. But at the same time, as someone who has undergone plastic surgery herself, she begrudgingly recognizes the power of plastic surgery as well.