Category Archives: Customs

Customs, conventions, and traditions of a group

University of Georgia Arch

Nationality: Nigerian
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/29/14
Primary Language: English

Text:

“At the University of Georgia, there is an arch that people can only walk under it once while they’re a freshman, and they’re not supposed to walk under it again until they graduation. The first time means your entrance into UGA, saying I’m now a student. To walk out of it before you graduate is bad luck. I guess it sort of safeguards you time as a student, it defines your time… It looks like a gazebo.”

Background:

There is apparently a step that leads up to it, and a lot of students were advocating for the university to build a ramp for students for physical disabilities, but university wouldn’t do it. They said that they could just put in a temporary ramp. My informant thought that the custom was kind of cool. She likes the fact that it’ s a tradition and a shared experience.

Context:

She heard it from her best friend that goes there.

Personal Thoughts:

This is an interesting custom that marks the liminal periods of a student’s entrance and graduation from college. It’s probably a way that students at the University of Georgia create a shared experience that doubles as a celebration upon graduating from the university.

Jinx, You Owe Me a Soda

Nationality: Indian
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/29/14
Primary Language: English

Text:

“Jinx you owe me a soda.”

Background:

If you say the same word or phrase as another person, you would say the phrase shown above to them. Jinx means you aren’t allowed to talk, and you have to give them a soda or they have to say your name three times. My informant said that it means nothing to him, just a game. Fun to play with little kids.

Context:

My respondent recalls learning it as a kid in elementary school, but now he says it when he’s with his little cousins.

Personal Thoughts:

I’m curious to learn more about the origin of this game/saying. I wonder what exactly jinx is referring to, and whether or not it has anything to do with jins.  Otherwise, it seems like a fun little game that kids “play” without getting too serious about it. I’ve personally never see anyone actually follow through with the rules.

Hovan

Nationality: Indian
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/29/14
Primary Language: English

Text:

“There’s a festival we do for new houses. Oh, that’s just… We go in, we set up a fire. The fire just signifies that the prayers we say get lifted up in the air…. yes we do a fire inside. It’s a box made of wood with a fire lit inside. There’s prayers that are said, I only remember one of them. [Click the link below to hear the prayer that he recited to us] There’s a priest that stands next to the fire, and the immediate family make a circle around him. Then everyone else is outside of the circle. The priest says the prayer then everyone else joins them. Each time you say a certain word, you would put a certain type of offering in the fire, like an almond. It’s like food for the gods. These offerings are provided either by the priests of by the immediate family. If provided by the immediate family, the priest has to make it holy.”

Prayer for Hovan

Background:

My informant had no idea what it means. He said it’s different from everyday Hindi, and he only knows conversational Hindi.

Context:

The ritual happens when someone buys a new house. This ritual happens in order to bless the house.

Personal Thoughts:

There is once again a strong theme of family in this ritual, and is very heavily religious. The fact that my informant knew the prayer, but not what it meant, signals that this was more of a tradition for him, than an active practice of faith. It is an interesting liminal period between homes.

UC Berkeley Superstitions

Nationality: Taiwanese
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/29/14
Primary Language: English

Text:

“At UC Berkeley, there’s a 4.0 hill that if you roll down it, you’ll get a 4.0. It’s near the middle of campus that’s called The Glade. There’s also a university seal on the ground that you can’t step on or else you’ll get bad grades. It’s also next to the glade, and it’s hard to miss because it’s really big. But people are actually scared of stepping on it, and go out of their way to go around it.

Background:

My informant heard this from a Berkely student when she was visiting in high school. She doesn’t know when the superstitions started, but she thinks it probably started as a joke.

Context: 

This superstition is passed around the Berkeley campus from students.

Personal Thoughts:

I think this superstition really shows Berkeley’s culture that’s centered around grades, and the effort that students will go through in order to earn good grades. There’s a lot of academic competition there, and students are almost obsessed with earning high grades. Because of this, I think it’s natural that superstitions were started surrounding this obsession.

Whistles in the Night

Nationality: Taiwan
Age: 50
Occupation: Homemaker
Residence: Bay Area, California
Performance Date: March 15, 2014
Primary Language: Chinese
Language: English, Hokkien

You cannot whistle or play any wind instrument after sundown, or you would end up summoning a ghost, because ghosts sound like whistles when they move swiftly through the air.

—

This is an interesting superstition because it plays upon the fear of  ghosts, yet it also plays on contagious magic—how making a sound summons something that sounds just like it. This could be a more magical/convincing way for parents to tell children to not disturb neighbors at night.