Category Archives: Customs

Customs, conventions, and traditions of a group

Soccer Game Rituals

Nationality: Mexico
Age: 15
Occupation: Student
Residence: Minnesota
Performance Date: April 14, 2017
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish, Chinese

So in my soccer team, uh, like, before games, we always put our left socks on before our right socks, right? And then, we always, like, put on our left cleats and then our right cleats, but then we tie our right cleats before our left cleats. Oh, and then I always tuck in my shirt.

 

Background:

I guess it’s lucky, kind of. We do it every game, so I can’t really tell if it’s lucky or not. It’s just, like, a ritual that we started and we can’t change it, because then, like, it might turn unlucky or something.

 

Thoughts:

This team-wide pre-game ritual probably helps to build a bond or sense of community within the team, and allows the players to identify with and trust in each other.

Shooing Away the Devil

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Denver, CO
Performance Date: 4/21/17
Primary Language: English
Language: Hebrew

“Then there’s like the spitting thing, like shooing away the devil. So if you wanna make sure that the Devil doesn’t get to you, your mother or grandmother doesn’t literally spit on you but they make the motion and that type of sound. It’s like a “tsoo tsoo” spitting sound. It’s to make sure the Devil stays away, and not just when you’re a kid. So like my grandmother will say to me now, “You’re so pretty” or “Your hair is so pretty” and then she’ll do the spitting type thing. You can’t be vain, you need to stay humble and not let those kind of comments inflate your ego.”

This is a cultural practice that is widespread throughout the Jewish religion and many others. She explained how commonly used it is throughout her whole family, and her grandmother is very adamant about upholding it.

Family members and friends will often partake in this. Whenever complimenting or praising someone, they do this to make sure that they do not become egotistical and prideful, which would make them susceptible to the Devil’s influence apparently.

I’ve heard of similar actions in other cultures or seen it in films even. When discovering the reasoning behind it, it does seem to make sense, especially if one truly believes they need to protect someone from the Devil’s clutches. It’s similar to the evil eye, as they both refer to remaining humble even when people admire you or praise you.

Carnival of Binche

Nationality: Belgium
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Brussels, Belgium
Performance Date: April 1 2017
Primary Language: French
Language: English, Spanish, Dutch

Background of informant:

My informant YF is an international student from Brussels, Belgium. He spent the first two years of high school in Los Angeles, and the last year back in Brussels. He lived in Wallonia in Belgium, which is the French-speaking region that accounts more than a half of the country.

 

Main piece:

YF: “We have the Carnival of the year around spring break. Every region in Belgium will have different character for the carnival. Each one has its story, its name. ”

YF: “The most memorable one that I went to is the Carnival of Binche. The most famous character in the carnival is called “Gilles de Binche”, directed translated as “Gilles from Binche”. This is the name of the character of the Carnival. So depend on the different city the Carnival is taking place, there will be different character, also different names. Gilles de Binche are only done by guys. They have white outfit, and orange jacket that has patterns of roasters on it, because roaster is the Coat of arms for Wallonia. And on the jacket there are also lines in black, yellow and red since those are the colors on Belgium flag. And also straw on the edge of their jacket. On their head, they have a huge hat with feathers, and traditionally, they also wear mask on their face made of wax. They walk on the street at the days of Carnival, and each of them carries a basket with blood oranges inside. They throw the oranges to the crowd and people will try to catch them. ”

SH: Why do they throw oranges?

YF: “Oh, so blood oranges are seen as gift given by the Gilles and they carry good luck.”

YF: “The Gilles also wear wooden shoes. The special thing about Gilles de Binche is that they are the only group of Gilles that stay in the city, so they can only stay in Binche, while others can go around and participate the parade in other cities.

“At night, we have ‘feu de bengale’, which means ‘fire from Bengol’ for people to dance around. It’s about the size of a human. Two meters high. Basically, when you’re a kid, base on which city in Belgium you’re from, you’re assigned to one character. It’s really old-fashioned, that based on the town you were born, you have the character that you can become when you’re older, and then you choose to take part into the culture and go into the circle of the character.

“So every early, like 6 am in the Carnival day, participants will go to people’s family to party with them. So you’ll have numerous cups of champion in each house you went to at the end of the day. And I did practice this!!”

 

Context of the performance:

This is a part of the interview I had with my informant YF.

 

My thoughts about the piece:

Though Belgium is a small country, the differentiation within the country is huge and obvious. Not only do people from different regions speak different languages (three main languages: French, Dutch and Germany), the Carnival are different and the characters for each Carnival are different.

Tourte Binchoise

Nationality: Belgium
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Brussels, Belgium
Performance Date: April 1 2017
Primary Language: French
Language: English, Spanish, Dutch

Background of informant:

My informant YF is an international student from Brussels, Belgium. He spent the first two years of high school in Los Angeles, and the last year back in Brussels. He lived in Wallonia in Belgium, which is the French-speaking region that accounts more than a half of the country.

 

Main piece:

YF: “‘tourte binchoise’ is the food that only being made during the Carnival week, of the entire year. ‘Tourte’ normally means a sweet pie, and ‘Binchoise’ means ‘from Binche’. It’s basically a pie, with … just piecrust, made with sponge cake, as the vessel containing the cream. The filling is orange custard, with a layer of marzipan. That’s something made of confectioner sugar, you know, the really fine sugar, and almond meal. You can only find it during the Carnival. Because it is so limited in time and location, the recipe is so secretive, and it’s so hard to find one.”

Two weeks later, I asked about this pie again, and YF was trying to find a recipe of it online.

YF: “You will notice that the name of this pie is ‘Plus Oultre’. Plus Oultre comes from Latin ‘Plus Ultra’, meaning literally ‘More Far’, or ‘further in good’ in English. It is the motto in Spain, or the city where this pie is from, Binche, that is the name that backery gave its pie. [showed me a picture] This is a similar thing to ‘tourte binchoise’. This is the scandalous orange Tarte. It lloks a nit different than the one that I had in the carnival, but it has the same elements! So I believe it would taste the same!”

 

Context of the performance:

The first part was within a general conversation about the Carnival of Binche, within a interview I had with my informant YF. The second part was done two weeks later when I tried to acquire a recipe of the pie.

 

My thoughts about the piece:

After YF first talked me about this pie in our first conversation, I didn’t really pay attention to this pie. However, when I was transcribing the interview, I started to be really curious about the recipe of the pie. I then reached out to YF but he told me this pie is so rare and secretive, and it turned out that he couldn’t even find a recipe of it on the Internet, in 2017…

 

The orange Tarte recipe that YF showed me is online, here is the URL:

http://www.lacuisinedebernard.com/2010/10/la-tarte-scandaleuse-lorange.html

The recipe is in French.

Styles of Sari

Nationality: Singapore
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Singapore
Performance Date: Apr 13 2017
Primary Language: English
Language: Hindi

My informant AM is an international student from Singapore, and her family is originally from Bengal, India. She goes back to Bengal every year, and spend most of the time in the capital city Kolkata.

 

Main piece:

AM: “For me, I only wear Sari in certain time, like in the festival ‘Durga Puja’. We have this Indian festival in Singapore and we celebrate it every year. I got my own Sari at the age of 17 or 18, and then, I learned how to wear it, since there’re certain ways and so many ways to wear it…

“There are women who wear it everyday, like my grandma and people at her age. They have home Sari, Sari for sleeping, and Sari for going out. And my mom’s generation is more modern. They have Sari, and also a more modern style of clothing.

Sari is consisted of one drape, you wrap it around the waist and shoulder. And normally, you wear a blouse and a petticoat underneath the Sari drape. While the more popular modern style is you wear a Kurta, the long top, and below is pants like Patiala, or just like straight – Kameez, or skinny pants like Churidar. Most of the time, when we’re at home, my mom would just wear normal clothes, top and panyts, but if we go out to visit someone, she will wear those. And if it’s a really special occasion, she’ll wear Sari.

As for me, I never wear Sari since I come to the State. [laugh]”

 

Context of the performance:

This is a section from a conversation with my informant AM about how Indian culture and traditions are practiced in Singapore.

 

My thoughts about the piece:

I find Indian as the culture that remains its traditional clothing the longest among many old civilizations. Two weeks ago when I went to Regal LA Live to watch movie, I saw many Indian-looking people wearing Sari (for women) or Achkan (for men) having some kind of open ceremony for a film. Wearing traditional clothing in this modern time is really new to me, especially because China has so many traditional clothing styles but people don’t wear them and don’t know how to wear them.

At the same time, modernization is again reflected in this piece, that according to AM, the younger the generation is, the less people wear Sari in less occasion. This also reflects on globalization, that people in different culture all over the world wear similar cloth, T-shirt and pants. It seems that all these traditions are dying out.