Monthly Archives: April 2019

Shrove Day

Nationality: English
Age: 22
Occupation: Barista
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 4/2/19
Primary Language: English

Context

Coming from my Jewish background, I had minimal knowledge of Christian holidays besides Christmas. My informant taught me about Shrove Tuesday and the special treat associated with it.

Main Piece

So, Shrove Tuesday — S-H-R-O-V-E Tuesday, otherwise known as Pancake Day, is a religious holiday celebrated in the United Kingdom, mostly by Christians, um, but sometimes Catholics, Lutherans, etcetera etcetera. Um, basically, it’s, it’s before Lent, so it’s, it’s a holiday of self-reflection and, uh, y’know, like Thanksgiving, I guess. But basically, the whole country goes nuts, they make these pancakes, which are more like crepes, with the traditional toppings of lemon and sugar. You would drizzle, uh, lemon juice on top and then dust it with sugar, and then you would wrap it up and eat it. It’s actually really f__king good. But basically at school, every Shrove Tuesday we would get… it was like, an exciting day because you could eat something sweet that didn’t taste like wet cardboard. So that was just a fun thing that we’d all get very excited for… of course, it being school lunch it wasn’t really that yummy, anyway… but that was just a fun thing to look forward to in the school year.

shrove-tuesday-uk

 

Notes

While I had not heard of Shrove Tuesday, the interesting thing to me about this piece, as with the Guy Fawkes Day entry, was how removed the informant’s celebration of the holiday is from its origin and meaning. My informant does not come from a religious background, but looked forward to Shrove Tuesday solely because of its association with pancakes — the day was even known by the alternate name “Pancake Tuesday.” To him, the holiday had little to do with Christianity. Worldwide, particularly in the United States, Christmas has become secularized and fairly non-denominational. I would be interested to know how many children who grow up participating in festive, secular versions of these holidays end up continuing to practice the religion.

Annotation

Godlewski, Nina. “What Is the Meaning of Fat Tuesday or Shrove Tuesday?” Newsweek, Newsweek, 5 Mar. 2019, www.newsweek.com/fat-shrove-tuesday-what-meaning-tradition-1351332.

Guy Fawkes Day

Nationality: English
Age: 22
Occupation: Barista
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 4/2/19
Primary Language: English

Context

Because this was my only non-American informant, I was particularly interested in customs or holidays specific to England. My informant had vivid memories of Guy Fawkes Day/Night through the lens of a child.

Main Piece

So, the fifth of November is a big deal in the U.K. It’s Guy Fawkes Day. Basically what we do is, we all gang together — gang together and we’ll, uh, go to the bonfire. Beforehand, sometimes you’ll have like a meal or something, you’ll get together, have drinks, etcetera. But basically the highlight of the evening is going to watch Guy Fawkes burn on this big bonfire. Usually we’d go to our local park — my local park was Battersea Park, in case you cared — and there’d just be like, a massive — well, it seemed massive to like, a ten year old — a big bonfire. Guy Fawkes was, of course, on top. The fun thing for us kids is that they used to sell these light-saber, light-up glow-stick-y things like you’d see in your American Fourth of July, um, and it’d just be a fun way to like, hang out with the kids and stuff. Celebrate a bit of history.

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Notes

While I vaguely recalled the story of Guy Fawkes and the November Plot, I knew little of how it is commemorated in England. I was surprised and a little shocked to learn of the effigy burning — it seems a bit barbaric and nationalistic for a widely-celebrated holiday. The account of communal gathering, fun light-up novelties and bonfires demonstrates how little such historically-based holidays really have to do with the actual historic events which inspire them, and the often upsetting or controversial meanings behind those. To my informant, as a child, it was simply a fun holiday, much like our fireworks and barbecue on the Fourth of July. I was able to learn more about the origins and evolution of Guy Fawkes Day in James Sharpe’s book Remember Remember: A Cultural History of Guy Fawkes Day.

Annotation

Remember, Remember: A Cultural History of Guy Fawkes Day. Sharpe, Harvard University Press. 2005.

Snow Day Ritual

Nationality: American
Age: 26
Occupation: Student
Residence: St. Joseph, Michigan, United States
Performance Date: 2/13/19
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

Description

“You would hear there was a snow coming, a big storm, and in order to secure the snow day, you would do the pre-snow day ritual. What you would do is wear your pajamas backwards, then flush three ice cubes down the toilet. While the ice cubes were being flushed you would chant ‘I love snow days.’ The ice needed to be gone, your pants needed to be backwards, and then you had to do it until the ice cubes were gone. If it worked, you were a genius, and if it didn’t work, you were pretty stupid.”

Context

The informant reported that in Michigan, where they are from, snow days are incredibly important to school culture. This ritual would be used when the informant was in school, usually in the winter, to attempt to secure a snow day, which involved shutting down school for a day due to inclimate weather.

Analysis

A lot of students have been heard of doing this — I had similar snow day rituals that the students believed, often well into high school. I find this sort of thing very cool because where does it come from? At what point, after the invention of the modern school day began, did something like this start, and how did it become customary for students? My own personal idea is that it comes from other rituals to ward off evil, but is a children’s bastardization of that idea, creating their own.

 

Rugby Traditions and Songs

Nationality: Persian American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 3/25/19
Primary Language: English
Language: Farsi

Description

“One thing that we do in Rugby is called ‘shoot the boot.’ So if a rookie scores their first try, which is just like a goal or the equivalent of an American football touchdown, after the game, they have to fill their cleat or their ‘boot’ with beer and drink it all in one go. The other teammates sing a song that goes like, ‘Why are we waiting, we could be masturbating, drink mother fucker, drink!’ So, yeah, also, in rugby, the team sings a lot of provocative songs after every game. A lot of them are about having sex, drinking, respecting Jesus, that sort of thing. The one song that is like the worst goes like, ‘Shit damn fuck a damn, fuck a damn damn. Some mother fucker just fucked my man,’ something like that. I don’t know the exact lyrics to all of them.”

Context

Having played rugby, I know a lot of other rugby players that are more well versed in the folklore of rugby groups than I am. I sat down with one of them and asked specifically about things I’d been a part of, and the informant very eagerly shared this with me.

Analysis

This is one of the only pieces I collected that I myself have experienced. I have shot the boot, and it is about as terrible as it sounds, but also works as a rite of passage. You aren’t a “real” member of the team until you have participated in this custom, which is very interesting. It also becomes a sort of initiation, as well, and raises the question — can someone still be a rookie if they haven’t scored, but have played for many years? There are some positions in the game that hardly ever score. This piece of folklore had me wondering where it came from, also, and if the sport’s roots in New Zealand and Europe started this, or if it came about when the sport started being played in the United States.

 

Parting expression among friends

Nationality: African-American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Washington, D.C.
Performance Date: 04/10/19
Primary Language: English

The subject (SG) is my close friend from high school in Washington, D.C. who now attends college in Cambridge, MA. I asked her when we were on Facetime whether she had any dites, proverbs, or expressions she wanted to share, and she volunteered this joking expression our friends use when we’re together.

Note: The initials SG denote the informant, while A refers to me, the interviewer.

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TEXT: “Have fun, stay safe!”

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SG: Okay. So basically, whenever one of us leaves the room, we all say “have fun, stay safe!” Like, regardless of where they’re going. Even if they’re going to the bathroom or, like, getting something from the next room.

A: How did it start? Do you remember?

SG: Uh, well, at first it was something Y [another one of our friends] would say. Like, she’d always say that, completely in earnest, and we always used to make fun of her because, like,  what’s going to happen to us on the way to the bathroom? [laughs] Or like, does she think we’ll get jumped … in the hallway? going to class? [laughs] And so then we started doing it too, like, imitating her, to the extreme. Like, if one of us would get up to put something in the garbage … do you remember? We’d all yell “have fun, stay safe!”

A: [laughs]. Yeah. Um, so why do you, or I guess we, still say it now? Why do you think we still use it?

SG: Well, I guess over time, it kind of just became force of habit. Like, it stopped being a joke so much and it was just something we said. And now I feel like I kind of have to say it, you know? Otherwise … I don’t know. We’ll have bad luck or something. You know?

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I thought this particular inside joke was really interesting when viewed in context of female friendships and a larger women’s folklore. The expression doesn’t really have much deeper meaning on its own, but it is a version of a common parting expression used among most women, which is “call me when you get home/get there,” or, more commonly today, “text me.” These phrases specifically allude to the danger that women disproportionately face when traveling alone, especially at night, but looking after one another’s safety is a chief part of female friendships; women are encouraged to travel in groups, often protect their friends from predatory men, and in recent years, are more likely to have each other’s locations shared on their smartphones. Phrases like these reinforce gender solidarity and a general feeling of sisterhood and community, but also somewhat unfairly place the burden of being safe on women, when the danger they are supposed to protect themselves from is almost always due to external factors and, most often, men themselves. For me, hearing “have fun, stay safe” has always been both a joke and a gentle reminder of the community that cares about my safety.