Author Archives: Tobi Ogundipe

Riddle – American

Nationality: Switzerland, Russia, Poland, Belgium
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Tucson, AZ
Performance Date: April 24, 2007
Primary Language: English

Notes:

The subject learned this riddle/joke in her AP English class in her senior year of high school. After the AP test the teacher and students sat around and exchanged riddles. The teacher offered up the following riddle: “A man walks into a restaurant and orders a bowl of albatross soup. So he puts down his spoon, pushes in his chair, goes home, and shoots himself. Why did the man kill himself? Well a bunch of people, including the man and his wife were stranded on an island after their cruise ship sank. The people soon ran out of food and the man’s wife dies of starvation. The people don’t know what to do so they say they caught an albatross and they turn it into soup, the man along with everyone else stranded on the island lives off of the ‘albatross soup.’ The people stranded on the island finally get rescued. Later on the man goes to a restaurant and orders albatross soup to remember his time on the island. Only the albatross soup doesn’t taste like it did back on the island…that’s because the man wasn’t eating albatross soup on that island, he and everyone else was eating his wife!”

The joke is not really funny to the subject but she likes the idea of the riddle because no one ever really gets it. She doesn’t find it funny because, she says that if she put herself in that position she would kill herself also.

I think the joke is a play on existential irony and that if I were that guy, before killing myself, would kill everyone else who lived off of my wife and lied to me about what it was.

Folk Belief – China

Nationality: Chinese-American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Irvine, CA
Performance Date: April 24, 2007
Primary Language: English
Language: French, Spanish

Notes:

The house the subject lived in as a child was a new house on old farmland. So there were many bugs in the ground, particularly crickets. The crickets kept the family, especially the father, up at night for years.  And for many years the subject did not understand why there were so many crickets. The subject soon realized that every time a cricket hopped into the house while the mother was present the mother would not do anything to apprehend the cricket. So in actuality there were so many crickets in the house because no one killed them, or more specifically, because the mother would not and would not allow anyone else to kill the crickets. In the Chinese culture crickets are a symbol of good luck. The subject’s mother grew up in Taiwan so crickets didn’t really bother her, her mother was more worried about insects like cockroaches and ants. Furthermore, the subject’s mother was rooted in Chinese tradition and superstition. The subject figured that after a while her dad could not stand the sound of the crickets and sprayed bug killer.

In the advent of colliding cultures the more modern of the two usually prevails. In the mother’s traditional Chinese culture crickets, as plentiful as they probably were, were considered good luck. In American culture, however, they are considered a complete nuisance.

Ritual – Hawaii

Nationality: Czech, English, Irish
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Avalaon, Catalina, CA
Performance Date: April 24, 2007
Primary Language: English

Notes:

The subject learned this ritual from her best friend Brenna, who’s mother learned of the tradition on a vacation in Hawaii. On New Year’s Eve @ midnight you must jump over 7 waves for good luck. The subject has successfully attempted this feat.

The subject described the experience: “It connects me with the ocean which is a big part of living in a sea-side town.” Both the subject and her family now participate in the ritual Furthermore, the subject comes from a very superstitious family.

The number seven itself, is very significant in her family because it is considered the number of completion and is considered good luck. The subject was not aware of any other cultural implications of the ritual because it was not originally her own but her friend’s.

Upon a conversation with someone else about this tradition, that subject said she had seen the ritual take place in Brazil and that it was possibly brought over to brazil by African slaves during the slave trade. It seems as though this ritual is a classic example of the Khron’s “historic geographic” theory.

Ritual – Brazil

Nationality: Brazilian
Occupation: Student
Residence: Sao Paulo, Brazil
Performance Date: April 24, 2007
Primary Language: Portuguese
Language: Spanish, English

Notes:

The subject explained many different types of New Year’s rituals, traditions, and celebrations. However, one aspect of the New Year’s festivities seems to pervade and intertwine with every other activity that takes place that day, and that is white: both in idea and color white is literally the official color of the day. Everyone wears white specifically, new white clothes for the whole day. The white, the subject added, symbolizes peace and hope for the New Year.

A caveat tot his “white-only” tradition is the idea that white is good but a little color is great. So women/girls will wear colored undergarments and attached colored pieces of linen or string to their garments, each color symbolizing a different desired effect for the New Year. This specific ritual, as apart from wearing white, is referred to as “Simpaticas.” The subject went on to say that New Year’s in Brazil is somewhat like a national holiday in America: everyone participates, young and old, native and foreign.

It is interesting to see how Brazilians, in particular, are so ingrained in their culture. Their sense of nationalistic pride is almost contagious in that so many people who have gone to Brazil that I have had contact with say that once you are there you feel as though you are Brazilian. It is in fact, a culture that takes pride in having others take part in their cultural experience.

Ritual – Brazil

Nationality: Brazilian
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Sao Paulo, Brazil
Performance Date: April 25, 2007
Primary Language: Portuguese
Language: Spanish, English

Notes:

Along with many other Brazilian New Years traditions, the subject explained the phenomena of jumping over seven waves on New Years Eve. Similar to the piece of folklore I collected from a Catalina Island native, one must jump over seven waves for good luck in the New Year.

The subject however had a variation on that variation in that after jumping over the seven waves you must make a wish. African slaves brought the origins of this tradition, according to the subject, to Brazil during the slave trade. Moreover, the New Year’s ritual was connected to certain gods like Iemanaja (sun god) and Exu (goddess of the salty sea). After jumping the seven waves one must never turn their back to the sea so one can assume that one would complete the task by facing the sea.

This seems like a more complete rendition of the seven waves tradition than I have heard from others Many people recreate this ritual for New Years but very few people have direct connection to the cultural context that the tradition actually comes from. That is not to say that this ritual is definitely from the Brazilian culture as it is to say that this particular variation has historical and cultural context.