Author Archives: Jordan Gear

The Apple Doesn’t Fall Far from the Tree

Nationality: Swedish
Age: 23
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 4/29/13
Primary Language: Swedish
Language: English

The apple doesn’t fall far away from the tree. This one I remember my dad always saying this to me when I did stupid stuff. It means that if you do something…how should I explain this… it’s like you do something but…I would say, like, if your parents maybe do something and you did the same thing it’s like you’re very similar because, like, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree because the apple belongs to the tree.

 

This folk metaphor seems to be universal. Stina heard this from her parents growing up just as I heard it from my parents growing up [her in the United States]. The saying suggests that children tend to do the same things, or, in Stina’s case, make the same mistakes as their parents.

 

A common example of this that I have often heard (interestingly enough) has to do with women who cheat on their husbands or partners. I have frequently heard of a mother who was known for being unfaithful in a relationship, and then her daughter who follows in her footsteps and is unfaithful herself. The saying, “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree”, always followed this scenario.

 

The above example assumes that the saying carries negative connotations, which is not entirely true. When I was younger and would get good grades in school, my dad would often say that “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree” in trying to say that he used to get good grades too and that my intelligence comes from him since he is the tree from which I, the apple, fell.

Killing Spiders Brings the Rain

Nationality: Swedish
Age: 23
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 4/29/13
Primary Language: Swedish
Language: English

So, if you kill a spider, it will rain the next day. But I don’t think it really works because I’ve killed a lot of spiders, and it haven’t really been raining the next day. I learned it when I was little from my… I think it was my parents, but I’ve known it for…well it feels like forever.

 

Stina is from Sweden and she says that this is a common belief in Swedish culture. She does not, however, find it to be true. She said that she’s killed many spiders and it has never really rained the next day. She said that the one time that it did rain, rain was already in the forecast for the next day and that she just happened to kill a spider the day before.

 

This belief about killing spiders differs from my own. I have always been conscious about not killing spiders for a number of reasons: spiders trap flies I their web and so they are valuable to have around; I also have had a number of experiences where I killed a spider and, that night, I had horrible dreams that I was being attacked by giant spiders. Since those dreams [some years ago] I’ve only killed one spider. I am not particularly arachnophobia, so I have no real issues with spiders. I would never kill a spider unless it was physically harming me.

 

Based on my experience, my version of Stina’s story would read, “If you kill a spider you will have nightmares that night”. 

If at first you don’t succeed…

Nationality: Japanese-American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 4/18/13
Primary Language: English

If At first you don’t succeed…

 

The common proverb reads, “If at first you don’t succeed, try and try again”. This proverb suggests that failing should not mean defeat—if you do not succeed the first time, a second [and maybe even third and fourth] attempt should be made. It speaks to perseverance and determination. Failure is just a lesson. One can learn from the lesson and turn failure into success. Never accept defeat after only one attempt. If the Wright brothers had given up after their first attempt, we may have never learned to fly.

 

Haley, my informant, is an olympic diver whose success really embodies this proverb. Diving is a sport that is all about making mistake, learning from your mistakes, and, most importantly, never being afraid to do a dive again after it has gone awry. Haley dives from the 10 meter platform–an event that includes a great deal of risk. Is she does a dive incorrectly she could face hospitalization. However, even when she has landed flat on her stomach or on her back from 33 feet in the air, she never gave up. She never accepted defeat even when she felt that the water was beating her and she wasn’t quite grasping the correct technique.

 

Annotated:

Although the traditional proverb reads, “If at first you don’t succeed, try and try again”, I am citing the first episode—“Lessons”—of the television show, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, in which she twists the proverb to fit her current situation. While fighting phantom-like projections of dead people from her past, Buffy realizes that she must get to a door that the three phantoms are conveniently blocking. When she tries to fight her way through them the first time she fails and is beaten back. The second time, she leaps over them as they charge at her and she makes it to the door. As she does this she utters, “if at first you don’t succeed, cheat!”

 

Even though she failed the first time to make it past the phantoms she did not give up. She tried a second time and was successful. Her success embodies what the original proverb promotes: don’t give up. However, rather than taking the more difficult route—fighting her way through again—she decides to avert this struggle once more by “cheating” and jumping over them.

Female Circumcision in Cameroon

Nationality: Cameroonian
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 4/25/13
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

Male circumcision is obviously practiced all over the world and is legal. Female circumcision is a little more controversial, and in the village that I am from, females were previously circumcised—but this circumcision is not as bad as the ones that are usually heard about. This one is just cutting of a small tip of the clitoris, similar to the foreskin in a male, and this happens after the birth of your first child—no matter the sex—and why this was made was because proper women are not supposed to make sounds when they pee. It is seen as a very unfitting thing to do, and women feel empowerment because they are circumcised and they are part of a childbearing society, so women who go through the majority of their lives without ever having a child actually get circumcised so they are not looked down upon because it is like a rite of passage—once you have your first child you have really become a woman, meaning you have been circumcised so it is a really big deal. But this practice doesn’t happen anymore.

 

It is interesting to me that she cites this tradition as not very controversial. When I think of female circumcision I think of mutilation. There is no reason why a female needs to go through the process of circumcision. It does not improve hygiene in any way; it only robs them of a source of sexual pleasure. Humans are special creatures in that sex is not just a means of reproduction but also a source of great pleasure that is a large and important part of life. To strip someone of this ability is to reduce them to an animalistic state in which bearing children is their only sexual purpose.

 

This tradition also speaks to the idea of womanhood and the process by which one achieves it. In this village, it seems that having children gives one that stamp of approval. Coco did say that the practice of female circumcision in her village no longer exists, but the emphasis on motherhood still remains—an emphasis that seems very outdated (at least in American society). Gone are the days in in which women are confined to a domestic prison—their only duty to rear children, tend to the hearth and home, and pamper the husband. Women are no longer getting married and having children at 18. They have been emancipated in a sense. However, the women in this African village seem to be stuck in that domesticity.

Her aching knees will bring the rain

Nationality: Spanish
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 4/20/13
Primary Language: Spanish
Language: English

Whenever one of my grandmother’s or one of my grandmother’s sisters’ knees would hurt, we would always say that it was gonna rain the next day.

 

The interesting thing about this story is that every time her knees did hurt it actually did rain the next day. Sergio says that he can’t remember a time when her knees would hurt and the weather would be clear the next day.

 

Another friend of mine, Katya, who is a swimmer and had surgery on her left knee, once told me that when it is about to rain her knees also begin to hurt. She says that during her surgery they had to put a screw in and that the metal may have something do with her ability to also predict the rain. Perhaps the change in magnetism affects the metal in her knee somehow. I asked Sergio whether or not his grandmother’s sister ever had surgery on her knees, and he told me that she never has had surgery but that she does suffer from moderate arthritis.

 

Sergio also says that his father doesn’t trust his mother’s sisters’ knees because they haven’t always predicted the weather as accurately as Sergio remembers. Before Sergio was born, his father said that on various occasions her knees would hurt but nothing would happen after. Thus, he came to distrust her “powers” of foresight.