Category Archives: Customs

Customs, conventions, and traditions of a group

Initiation into A Cappella

Nationality: Asian-American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: USC
Performance Date: April 26, 2014
Primary Language: English

The informant is a member of an on-campus a cappella group called Reverse Osmosis. In the fall semester, new members are initiated in the Christmas season before the Christmas concert. Without the new member knowing, a “mother” and “father” are selected to parent the chosen member. At a rehearsal preceding the concert, the parents reveal whom they’ve selected as their child through a fabricated story; the new member, however, is unaware that the ritual is taking place or that there is even a tradition of “parenthood” in the group. In the informant’s experience, one girl, who was then dating another member of the group began by saying, “[So-and-so] and I are breaking up because I got drunk and had sex with [a different member of the group.] I got pregnant. But the good news is I finally gave birth to the baby and his name is [the informant].” She and the other selected parent then proceeded by revealing a gift basket that they put together, filled with bibs, bottles, diapers, and alcohol, which they then proceeded to consume.

Analysis:

Many groups in college seem to include a conceit of family, most likely because a nuclear family is the most intimate unit of community in our culture. Therefore in order to follow the tradition of creating a home away from home, this group, along with the many others, has woven the custom into their identity. What’s interesting about this particular ritual is that it takes place as a kind of initiation but only after the new member has spent nearly an entire semester in the group. The informant explained that the timing of the event isn’t related to the potential to kick out new members so much as it is to solidify and strengthen the friendships forged naturally between the old members with the new over the course of the semester. What’s also interesting about the informant’s particular experience was that the fabricated story was marked by one member’s infidelity to another and resulted in a separate union brought together by the informant. Though the infidelity (which, to clarify, was falsified) may be unique to that particular story, in another example, the informant explained, “I might say, ‘Me and Jen were hanging out. And we got really drunk and had sex…'” In both examples, the stories illustrate accidental impregnations resulting from drunken escapades. Of course, these are only two examples of a plethora of initiations (the group was founded in 2001).

In short, the main purpose of this tradition is to help transition new members out of the liminal space of their membership. In order to do so, the group has appealed to a kind of parody of the societally based convention of marriage. More digging is recommended to understand if the main intent of the story is to completely deceive the new member until the reveal or to simply entertain.

“Coming from the Kid.”

Nationality: American
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: USC
Performance Date: April 27, 2014
Primary Language: English

The informant attended a public high school in New York and first heard the phrase when he was a freshman (age 14).

Informant: I think some guy in the grade above us came up with it. And if he didn’t come up with it he definitely popularized it.

Collector: When would you use the phrase?

Informant: People could use it pretty meanly: If there was a nerdy kid or something. Or it could be used as a response to a “your mom” joke.

Collector: Could you give me another example?

Informant: Yeah. Let’s just say you and I are eating some sandwiches. You finish your sandwich and you go for a second and I say, “You’re having another one? You fatass.” But let’s say I had not only finished my first sandwich, I had already grabbed a second. You could say, “Coming from the kid.” […] Eventually people started shortening the phrase to just CFTK.

Collector: Did people text it to each other, too?

Informant: Oh, yeah. And people at the school still use it. My sister was a freshman when I was a senior in high school, and she still does it.

 

This example of folk speech illustrates that the need of a group to moderate the individual’s ability to retort to any potential verbal attacks, specifically pertaining to those that demonstrate a hypocrisy from an offender. Something of note is that the offender is diminished to a “kid.” This indicates that at least among the informant’s group of peers, a value is placed on maturity, that in high school, one is expected to grow up and leave behind childish behavior such as hypocrisy.

In this case, I found the speculated origin interesting. It appears that the student, who was a year above the informant at the time, has achieved a very minor legend status for his hand in the pervasion of the phrase. When asked to elaborate on the student, the informant suggested that everyone knew who he was because of his supply of marijuana, which made him the “cool guy.” So anything he said, people immediately adopted into their own vernacular. Whether this student’s status came from the invention/popularization of the folk speech or from his involvement illicit materials, it’s interesting to note that a speech phenomenon should be linked to a person and his social standing among peers.

Three Pats: “I’m not gay.”

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: USC
Performance Date: April 27, 2014
Primary Language: English

The custom:

…is performed when two males give each other a hug. If they wish to convey/confirm that they’re not homosexual, they pat the other three times to indicate, “I’m not gay.”

The informant, from Houston, Texas, learned the custom in the 8th grade in a public middle school. He also included that he thought he learned it from one of his peers who played sports (the informant did not play sports.) When asked about why the custom may have started, he replied, “I’m sure that it started because of a transition into physical male interaction becoming less taboo. Meanwhile, homosexuality is still taboo.”

The informant: “My sister’s husband and I do it for fun now every time we hug.”

I think he hit the nail on the head with his speculation. And by acknowledging that there should be a taboo nature of homosexuality seems to suggest that Houston continues a trend of homophobia.

As for the gesture itself, by virtue of its existence, it would seem that there is an underlying continuing homophobia. Along the same lines, there also exists the need to affirm that one isn’t gay each time he hugs another male. On this point, it’s interesting that the informant has suggested an awareness of a shift in the norms of physical contact between males, hugs in themselves having once been a taboo gesture. But while all this may have once been the case and still may be the case around Houston, the informant’s final comment regarding his brother-in-law, who by the norms of marital union is clearly heterosexual, seems to suggest that the use of these gestures have gone out of fashion. For the informant to enact pats with a brother-in-law would be at the very least redundant, and yet there’s something “fun” about it.

“Little Piggy” – Russian Folk Song

Nationality: Russian-American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: USC
Performance Date: April 30, 2014
Primary Language: English
Language: Russian

Little Piggy

Transcript to Audio file (condensed and edited):

Informant: Okay, this one…in my broken Russian, she [my mom] wakes me up, takes my hand in her hand and with her finger circles my palm and sings [song], and then she’s taking my fingers…one by one [chant], and then when she gets to my thumb [chant] and then tickles me. It’s basically a “this little piggy” equivalent so she’s taking each of my fingers and when she gets to the last one, she’s not giving it to me.

Collector: Can you do the entire thing through? Here…[offering my hand] do it to me.

(Informant does so.)

 

When I asked him when he first learned the chant, the informant said that his mother had probably been doing that since he was baby. When asked whether he knew where she had learned it, he replied that he did not. “I would guess probably from her mother…It never really mattered to me,” he said. “I mean of course now I’m curious and I’ll probably ask her later today, but it had never crossed my mind to ask her. For me it was just a way she showed that she loved me.”

In this instance, the folklore functions as a link for the informant to his childhood, his mother, and his heritage. In the beginning of the recording, the informant prefaces by saying, “In my broken Russian…” Nevertheless, despite any uncertainty he may have regarding his language skills, he doesn’t stumble with any of the examples of folk speech he shares, having grown up with all of it. As soon as he was able, he began performing the chant for his little sister who is now in the ninth grade since she was a baby. “When I do it nowadays though,” he chuckled, “she gets annoyed.”

The value of this example of folk speech is in how easily it’s become transmitted from mother to child and then from child to sibling. Though it’s no surprise, it’s funny that a fourteen year old girl would be annoyed with her twenty year old brother for continuing to perform it with her, since the chant is so intertwined with childhood – pre-adolescence. But also, perhaps being that the chant is interlaced with a Russian heritage given that it’s in Russian, it’d be interesting to inquire into whether the annoyance of the transmission is also tied to a reluctance to associate with the heritage through its traditions.

What’s also worth noting in this example is that the informant himself made the connection between the two cultures he’s affiliated with; in fact, he gave me the title “Little Piggy” for the song, when in fact there is no literal mention of a pig in the Russian version. Of course, as one who knows very little about the Russian language and culture, I appreciated the connection from one piece of folklore into another, as well as witnessing how someone of two heritages can reconcile what necessarily seem like they must be separate through common lore. Why not? Considering that both the Russian song and the Western “little piggy” chant both involve the child’s hands and specifically the fingers.

Rituals and Etiquette in Russian Drinking Culture

Nationality: Russian-American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: USC
Performance Date: April 30, 2014
Primary Language: English

The informant, a first generation Russian-American, listed the following as customs and beliefs regarding drinking that he picked up on as he attended family dinners growing up:

  • “The pattern goes: toast, take the shot, toast, take the shot, and so on and so forth. To take a shot without toasting with the people at the table is a huge…like…it’s no good.”
  • Toasts can be made regarding celebrations, but also more generally to things like good health.
  • “One would not drink vodka without toasting, but one would not toast without vodka to drink.”

Drinking vodka mends a broken soul. Drinking is not for enjoying the taste, but for feeling the effects of the alcohol, which is believed to amplify the love among the people one is drinking with. It’s not solely about the drunkenness, but rather about the affection that the drunkenness gives rise to that is believed to be the cure/relief from the pains of life.

In this case, the informant has drawn conclusions regarding a cultural view not only on alcohol but also on community based on the gestures of a ritual.