Monthly Archives: May 2025

Colored Ribbons on Every Tree

Text: “Whenever someone dies, the whole town goes out and wraps specific colored ribbons around the trees. We have like 4 blue and pink ribbons on the trees in front of our house for [local mom and dad that died recently]. We do it to show support for surviving family members.” 

Context: My informant is a highschool student from the small town of Hinsdale, Illinois. There was a recent passing of a fellow classmate’s parents, so there are specific references to this one performance of the ritual.  

Analysis: This tradition comes from my informant’s home town, a smaller town where the community is very tight-knit. Everybody knows everybody and the happenings of their lives. So, when tragedy strikes and someone passes, it is a big event that the town collectively mourns. The specific rite mentioned here is a simple one: tie ribbons of remembrance around the trees lining the streets. As my informant alluded to, the ribbons are meant to let the deceased’s family know that the whole town stands beside them in mourning. The colors are often symbolic, representing something about those who have passed. In the case of a recent tragedy, there are paired blue and pink ribbons for the mother and father that both passed. Also, I think that the ritual helps the town process the death too. Since the community is so tightly knit, tragic deaths ripple throughout the entire community. In this case, the two that passed had multiple kids in the local school system and sports teams. Since they were so integrated into the community, the tragedy of their passing affected almost everybody. So, the townspeople banded together to put up ribbons not only as a sign of solidarity for their surviving family members but also as a way to process their own collective grief. 

Annual Eastern Orthodox Church Festival

Text: “[At the festival], they have a “Middle Eastern” dance in a circle and everyone throws money into the middle to raise money for the church. Women cook ahead of time and men work the pots and pans during the ceremony. They sell baklava and hummus to raise money for the church. My dad and I [used to] work the games of chance.” 


Context: my informant is a Syrian-American and was a practicing Eastern Orthodox Christian as a child. He grew up in New Jersey, but went to a majority Middle Eastern Eastern Orthodox church where they would hold this festival. 

Analysis: As was described above, this was an annual festival held by my informant’s church when he was a kid. While he described it as simply an “Eastern Orthodox” church, it is important to note that he and the other people at his church were all of Middle Eastern descent. This is why he specifically mentioned hummus and “Middle Eastern” dancing: he was trying to communicate the idea that this festival relied on common Arabian heritage in a way that would make sense to my Western perspective. Heritage aside, this seems like a festival centered on fundraising. Every aspect mentioned above relates in some way to raising money for the church. The dance was meant to attract donations, the cooked goods were made to be sold, and the games of chance were meant to win money from gamblers. However, to my informant, he was simply recalling good memories of his childhood. He also never mentioned it being tied to any specific holiday, perhaps identifying the festival as something specific to that church. The festival, from an outsider’s perspective, seems to be a way for the church to raise money to stay afloat while also fostering the sense of community that truly keeps a church alive. 

Celebrate 9’s but don’t celebrate 10’s

Text: “Many Chinese people, especially the older generations, won’t celebrate 10, 20, 30, etc because of the way the numbers are pronounced. [Ten] also sounds like the word ‘dead” and, in Chinese, twenty is ‘two-ten,’’ thirty is “three-ten,” and so on”

Context: My informant is Chinese and has grown up close to her relatives, especially as they aged. These are traditions that she remembered seeing in her childhood.

Analysis: This practice seems to be an age-related birthday ritual. As my informant described, “ten” in Chinese sounds like their word for “death.” Thus, it seems that to celebrate a “ten” birthday would be like inviting death. Chinese culture as a whole has many superstitions related to longevity. There seems to be a cultural fixation on living a long life, much more so than in American culture. I believe this is because, in Chinese culture, elders matter much more. For instance, in China, it is legally and culturally required for children to care for their aging parents to show respect and make up for the time their parents spent raising them. In America, it is much more common to see seniors taken care of by paid professionals in care facilities or living on their own. America, conversely, seems to place much more emphasis on youth. Proverbs like “Live fast, die young” and the idea of “peaking” early in life make old age not something to be revered, but tolerated in hopes of living vicariously through your kin. So, while the Chinese have many superstitions about avoiding death in old age, as is evidenced by my informant’s declaration that mostly old people subscribe to this superstition, Americans do not. 

Folk Belief: Sharing Food with a Pregnant Woman

Age: 24
Occupation: Paraprofessional

[Do you have anything you would like to share?]

‘I do remember this superstition my family had when I was younger. It was like we couldn’t share food with a pregnant woman. Like if they ate from a bowl and offered it to us, we could accept the bowl but we weren’t supposed it eat it.”

[Was it for the health of the mother? Or seen as bad luck?]

“It was like, you know how pregnant people get morning sickness? It was like you would get the morning sickness. I remember when I was younger, being with family, and my mother telling me not to eat from the same bowl as one of my aunts. I did anyway, and I actually ended up throwing up later that night.”

Analysis: I think that this superstition is unique in the sense that I think most folklore surrounding pregnancy has to do with the health of the mother or protecting/ promoting fertility, so having a folk belief surrounding how the health of a pregnant person could impact others is really interesting. Additionally, morning sickness here is treated less as a symptom and more as a contagious sickness, which I never really considered.

Steam Bath

Age: 24
Occupation: Paraprofessional

[Do you have any home remedies? Things you would do when you were sick as a kid?]

“I do! Either my grandmother or mother would boil a big pot of water. After it was steaming you would add pomelo leaves, lemon grass, and other herbs, ginger. Next, you would set it on the floor and kind of hover over it and bath in it, and it would open up your airways. It would also combat the cold air, if that makes sense.”

[It does! I know some cultures have hot and cold foods, but not like their actual temperature, but their impact on the body. Is it similar to that?]

“Exactly! It’s like when you were sick, your body was cold, and you need to heat it back up.Pho is also considered hot, because of all the spices.”

[Was this only for sickness? And when do you first remember seeing or doing it?]

“It was something my family did, but also my friends and some neighbors. And not necessarily, I know pregnant women or people who were about to be sick would also do it. Like after strenuous activity, it would tighten up muscles”.

Analysis: As I mentioned during my interview, many cultures share the idea of “hot” and “cold” foods, and this is the first time I’ve seen it out of a purely food context. After the interview with my informant, they mentioned how they felt that traditional medicine can be seen as more “gimmicky” because it tends to lean towards “cure-alls”, versus scientific medicine that pinpoints 1 issue. I think that in our example, you can see both of these ideas appear, the usage of the steam bath serves 2 purposes: to rid the body of cold air (something considered more “folky”) and to clear sinuses/the airway (which could be considered more “real” to Western medicine). I’m curious as to how, depending on the audience, steam baths could be portrayed: as a way for anyone to clear cold air, or only for people who are sick with clogged sinuses.