Author Archives: jennifsk

Treat Your Mother with Respect

Nationality: American (born Egyptian)
Age: 23
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 7, 2016
Primary Language: English
Language: Arabic, French

The informant is a graduating senior at the University of Southern California, studying Creative Writing and Social Sciences with an emphasis in Psychology. She was born in Egypt and originally held Egyptian citizenship, but moved to the United States when she was quite young and is now an American citizen.

This piece is an Egyptian proverb about the importance of respecting your mother. The informant recounts her and a friend’s experience with Yo Mama jokes (jokes that insult another person’s mother: ex. Yo Mama’s so fat she rolled over twice and ended up in Africa) and how that reminded her of an Egyptian proverb.

“In Egypt you also cannot make Yo Mama jokes. You will get beaten up. A friend who went there, who grew up here but he was Egyptian, and he went there one summer and he made Yo Mama jokes cause we were in middle school and that’s what we did; everyone’s an asshole in middle school. And um, I think he got punched in the face by his cousin for making that kind of joke.

No it’s just like, the biggest insult you can say to somebody is to insult their mother. It’s like, especially to guys cause it’s like their pride and joy, like “You always treat your mother with the deepest and fondest respect.” So, that was a big proverb. And culture shock when I came here in middle school and everyone was in the Yo Mama phase and I was like, “That is appalling.” But like, I don’t know. Like Yo Mama So Fat jokes, it was just very strange to me.”

Analysis:

While the proverb itself is fairly standard, demonstrated the cultural value of the mother figure in Egyptian culture, it was fascinating to see the conflict that arose when members from both cultures, such as the informant and her friend, participating in or witnessed jokes that directly opposed what they had learned from that proverb.

The Wolves Will Eat Your Butt

Nationality: American (born Egyptian)
Age: 23
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 7, 2016
Primary Language: English
Language: Arabic, French

The informant is a graduating senior at the University of Southern California, studying Creative Writing and Social Sciences with an emphasis in Psychology. She was born in Egypt and originally held Egyptian citizenship, but moved to the United States when she was quite young and is now an American citizen.

This piece is something that the informant’s grandmother would tell her when she refused to put her clothes back on after a bath.

“So, when I was younger my family used to always tell me stories in order to get me to do what I was supposed to do. They knew that was kind of the only way to manage myself. So my grandmother, who was especially fond of the horror stories of what happened to naughty children, so um, my personal favorite was when I got out of the bath, I liked to run around naked. And she would tell me that if I didn’t put my underwear on, the wolves would eat my butt.

[laughs] And, when I didn’t believe her, she gave me examples of people with tiny butts and she would tell me why they had tiny butts and it would because the wolves had eaten them. So my cousin had a tiny butt because one day she had forgotten to put her underwear on after the bath, and um, they had come in and eaten her.”

Analysis:

While this is an entertaining anecdote, it is also indicative of what is and isn’t considered “proper” for girls to show. This interested me because of the specificity of the consequences of not putting on underwear—though the informant was naked she was not warned about what would happen if she failed to put on her shirt; the focus was on her underwear. Additionally, this warning only applies to women. The informant’s grandfather describes the buttocks of her female relatives, and not the males. The implication is also that small buttocks are not desirable.

I’m Still on Dial Up

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 4, 2016
Primary Language: English

The informant is a Film Production and Biochemistry major at the University of Southern California, where he is in his third year. He is originally from Washington state, and his family moved there from North Dakota. Before North Dakota, his family lived in various parts of Eastern Europe. The informant says that is very much influenced by his grandfather, who is a professional storyteller.

This piece compares the inability to think quickly to dial up Internet.

“I’m just not fully functional. I’m still booting up—I’m like on dial up speed, honestly. I guess there’s, like an example, you know. That reference to dial up. You know what I’m staying, though? You need to know what dial up is in order to, you know.”

Analysis:

This is an example of terminus post quem, as both dial up Internet and wifi needed to exist for this reference to make sense. In order for this metaphor to be successful, both the speaker and the listened would need to be aware of the different in speed from dial up to wifi. This ties the reference to the 21st century, and as time passes, it would seem likely that dial up would be referenced less and less.

 

Barking Spiders

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 4, 2016
Primary Language: English

The informant is a Film Production and Biochemistry major at the University of Southern California, where he is in his third year. He is originally from Washington state, and his family moved there from North Dakota. Before North Dakota, his family lived in various parts of Eastern Europe. The informant says that is very much influenced by his grandfather, who is a professional storyteller.

This piece refers to the informant’s grandfather’s habit of blaming barking spiders for his flatulence.

“My grandfather has a way or just, making his own like versions of the same dad jokes. I’ve never heard him do “pull my finger” but the few things that he always complains about is barking spiders. Or, that he stepped on a frog when he’s passing gas. I don’t know, I just always loved the idea of barking spiders, and just how farcical it was. Like he would fart and say, “Oh, fucking barking spiders.” Or, no, not fucking, he’d just complain about the barking spiders.”

Analysis:

This plays on the taboo nature of human bodily functions, where farting is thought of as gross and something that should only be done in private, so there needs to be something else to blame for the function. In this case, the fictional barking spiders. Someone present for performance of this saying would understand that barking is associated with dogs, and that spiders are silent, so the noise cannot have literally come from the barking spiders.

The informant also refers to “dad jokes,” which refer to crass jokes or really cringeworthy puns that are stereotypically associated with fathers. The “pull my finger” refers to another folk practice associated with farts, where someone asks another person to pull their finger, and when they do, the other person releases the fart. The informant’s description of barking spiders assumes that knowledge; it’s common folk knowledge for people of his demographic.

Tomato Soup

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 4, 2016
Primary Language: English

The informant is a Film Production and Biochemistry major at the University of Southern California, where he is in his third year. He is originally from Washington state, and his family moved there from North Dakota. Before North Dakota, his family lived in various parts of Eastern Europe. The informant says that is very much influenced by his grandfather, who is a professional storyteller.

In this piece, the informant describes how his family sees tomato soup—they have very particular thoughts on how it should be made and why.

“Both of my grandparents come from European places, and they’re very particular about their recipes and stuff. Like if you look at the way they care about their recipes, it’s just like equally the way that they would care about their folk tales. Like, we have the same borscht recipe that has been used since like my great grandparents. It’s passed down, you know, and it’s an old piece of paper and you can tell it’s been recopied over the years, but the most recent copy is in an old 1940s, it’s like an Eastern European cooking book that a bunch of the grandparent women, my family’s from North Dakota, so it was a bunch of North Dakotan Czech and German and Austrian, you know women and Russian and they all came together and they sat down at a typewriter and made, typed up all their family recipes from whatever cards or whatever.

So it’s kind of like, a little encyclopedia of like, a lot of family recipes, and my family’s borscht recipe, which is like a Russian soup, is in there. And it’s like, that’s like a very important thing to pass on, that recipe. And, you know, in like, I wish I had like a story I could say that they took from Europe, but that same preservation, like in a sense the recipe is its own like thing, and there’s a dill, like a dill tomato soup.

There’s like a little story about, like it’s like you know those grandparent sort of rant things about like “you don’t realize how important this is” but it like really changed, like, it’s like, they have this rant about tomato soup, and how like, how like Russia kind of invented tomato soup, and like how important, it’s like… Cause their version of tomato soup is um, there’s tomatoes, there’s dill, there’s sour cream, and like rice, and more like, substantial than just a regular soup.

And they kinda just like, this is like the original soup because you have grains for the soup that wouldn’t last because of mold and other stuff, you have tomatoes, which is like, were kinda hard to come by, so when you got those you just, cause it’s acidic and it’ll go bad, and like, they just talked, I don’t know, like, it’s just kinda a thing that they’re like, and you wouldn’t have tomato soup like this today, cause it’s just tomato soup in a modern sense. And this is another one of those recipes that they put into this book. I wish I had more of that rant off the top of my head.”

Analysis:

This piece brings up the question of ownership—when the grandparents talk about tomato soup, it’s to imply that Russian tomato soup is the “original” and most important tomato soup. The recipe itself is also interesting; though the informant did not remember the exact recipe, he remembered the specific reasons why ingredients were chosen, which gives the recipe much more context. To an outside listener, tomato, dill, and rice may seem like an arbitrary combination, but with the context that the tomatoes and grains would go bad unless made into soup, the reasons become clear. The way that the older women recorded these recipes for their descendants was also interesting, and it helped reinforce the importance that these recipes hold for them.