Category Archives: Customs

Customs, conventions, and traditions of a group

The Nian, The Big Dog That Lives In the Sky

Nationality: Chinese American
Age: 20-22
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 29th, 2014
Primary Language: English
Language: Chinese

My informant told me this story while trying to harken back to other stories from her childhood, after remembering festivals that she used to attend.

Uuh. There were a lot more other stories but I can’t really remember any in detail… [Pause, tapping pen.]

Oh! I remember my grandma telling me that there’s this big dog called Nian in the sky that eats the moon every month and spits it back out again, and that’s why the moon changes shape.

The Nian also tries to eat the sun every year, so that’s why Chinese people make a lot of noise [Gestures and makes woo sound, then laughs] and set off firecrackers and stuff in the streets, so they scare away the Nian and the sun comes up again the next year.

She said that she liked this story a great deal when she was a child and was not afraid of Nian.

It is interesting to me that both these stories (this and the lotus flower) show how family oriented these festivals are, without offering much detail about the actual festival. What shows their familial nature is her memory of family, specifically.

Theatre Chant: Eat the Babies

Nationality: American
Age: 22
Occupation: Student, Journalist; Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA; Boston, MA
Performance Date: April 29th, 2014
Primary Language: English

Two Informants told me of this theatre tradition, meant to prepare the cast and amp them up before the show. The cast gathers around in a circle, wrapping their arms around their neighbor’s shoulders, and begin chanting very fast:

We’re gonna rape, kill, pillage, and burn, we’re gonna rapekillpillageandburn (eat the babies!)

They will alternate between whispering and then shouting or screaming the chant until they feel adequately prepared for the show.

Neither Informant, one male and the other female, liked this chant very much. They found that their friends had more fun participated in this chant more than they did, and they chose to not participate themselves, despite participating in other theatre chants and traditions.

A different chant “My Acka Backa” was much preferred by my female informant, as it was much less lyrically violent. Both rhymes are fairly similar in what they achieve, and in how they are physically practiced. The difference is simply in the aggressive the lyrics are, as opposed to these fairly sexual lyrics, though the actions performed and the volume of singing is both equally aggressive.

Theatre Chant: My Acka Backa

Nationality: American
Age: 22
Occupation: Student, Journalist
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 29th, 2014
Primary Language: English

Informant explained that to prepare and amp up for theatre performances, groups would gather in a circle, clap and dance in place to this particular rhyme, which they would chant over and over to a beat, increasing in energy, tempo, and volume, until it is shouted as loud as possible, and as fast as possible. Then the group would stop and cheer.

Informant:  And then this other rhyming one that goes like, “my acka backa, my soda cracker, my GTO, my booty ho, yo ma, yo ma, yo’ granny’s granny’s got a hole in her panties [Made a shape with her hands like a hole], got a big behind, like frankenstein [The hole shape made with the hand expands], goes beepbeepbeep [Often they would gesture honking a horn] down sesame street, that street is slick, as slick as glass, and if you don’t like it, you can kiss my [Rather than saying ass, she pointed to her back]—” and then loops over and over again, increasing energy/tempo/volume.

Informant explained that she had much more pleasant memories of this particular chant rather than the “Eat the Babies” chant. In particular, she remembers jumping up and down, holding hands, as the tempo and volume increased. Both rhymes are fairly similar in what they achieve, and in how they are physically practiced. The difference is simply in the aggressive the lyrics are, as opposed to these fairly sexual lyrics, though the actions performed and the volume of singing is both equally aggressive.

Football Games at UC Davis

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Performance Date: 3/28/14
Primary Language: English

The informant is a 19 year old computer engineering student at UC Davis. He is currently a freshman there after graduating high school the previous year. He grew up in Rancho Cucamonga, CA and has no strong religious ties. His family has been living in Southern California for many generations.

I asked him about the customs and activities associated with the football games at UC Davis. UC Davis is located in Davis, CA. This is northern California, which is slightly different culturally than the informant’s hometown. Though UC Davis has had an almost continuous football program since 1918, the team was only established as a NCAA Division I team less than a decade ago. This contrasts greatly with other universities who have structured themselves around their football team, like USC.

The football games are free for students to attend, but the informant says that the main draw for students to attend the game is the free giveaways of UC Davis apparel from various sponsors before and during the game. He said that he knew of giveaways of clothing such as scarves, beanies and t-shirts. There does not seem to be much hype for the games themselves. In other words, the students do not seem to be going because they are interested in football or supporting their university’s team, but just as something to do on the weekends. There does not seem to be as much pressure on students to actively support sports teams as there is at other universities that are more famous for their teams. When asked how he decided to go the game and who he went with, he replied that the decision was pretty spontaneous. A couple of his friends asked if he wanted to go and he said sure. He did not look forward to the game in advance.

Tailgating is found at UC Davis, but the informant said it was relatively minimal compared to other universities and takes place mainly in an empty field outside of Aggie Stadium. Aggie Stadium seats roughly 10,000 people and opened in 2007. The informant does not personally take part in the tailgating.

During the game, the student section is called the Aggie Pack. There is no assigned seating and people come and go as they please. There is a student leader in charge of leading cheers, but the mascot (a horse named Gunrock) plays a relatively small role in the games and is merely a person dressed up in a typical horse mascot costume. The informant said that the most exciting part of the games is the UC Davis tube sock giveaways, in which pairs of tube socks are thrown into the student section randomly.

When asked about half-time, the first thing he mentioned was that people like to leave then. This reinforces the idea that the students attend the games merely as something to do and not to actively watch the games.

All in all, there does not seem to be much hooplah surrounding the football games at UC Davis. Football is not the defining feature of UC Davis and this is evident in the blasé attitude towards the games. This is also evident in the attendance of other sports, including basketball. Even when ESPN was going to be filming one of the games, the students had to be lured in with free items to fill in the usually pretty empty stands.

A Pakistani Iftar Staple: Fruit Chaat

Nationality: Pakistani
Age: 40s
Occupation: Office manager, homemaker
Residence: Torrance, CA
Performance Date: 3/02/14
Primary Language: English
Language: Urdu, Punjabi

Context: Ramadan is the holiest month in the Islamic calendar. Healthy adult Muslims will fast from dawn to sunset for thirty days, and it is a time of greater spirituality, awareness, charity, and family. The informant is a Pakistani Muslim who grew up in Saudi Arabia, England, and Pakistan, and married and settled in Southern California. Here she relates a recipe for a staple of the Iftar (fast-breaking meal) table in her household, fruit chaat.

“It’s…well, ‘chaat‘, the word ‘chaat‘, it just means like a…like a little snack, and there are all sorts of chaat, so like you can have spicy chaat or dahi [yogurt] chaat…so anyway, in our house, that was the one thing we always had to have. Like it was dates, scunj’veen [homemade limeade], pakore [spicy batter-fried potatoes], and fruit chaat. Sometimes my dad would try to introduce new things into the mix, like samose…and they were always left at the end of it, like orphans. Somehow over those thirty days we never got tired off the same menu. And we still don’t.

The best fruit chaat has to have pomegranate seeds in it and amrood [guava]. ”

Though the end product may vary considerably depending on what fruits are available/in season, a person’s personal preferences, etc., the basic recipe is as follows:

1 large apple, 2 bananas, 1 large pear, 1 large peach/nectarine, 1/2 cup guava, all sliced; 1 cup red grapes, halved; 1/2 cup pomegranate; enough orange juice to “make the fruit float”; and sugar, salt, and pepper to taste. Combine in a bowl. Serve chilled.

Analysis: The informant says the main reason this dish was/is such a favorite is because it is “refreshing”; after a a long, sometimes hot day, the sugar in the fruit would  boost a fasting person’s blood sugar and put them in a sweeter mood. The informant says her family almost never ate dinner, just iftaar, so having a good variety of healthy food at the table was important since they would eat so little the whole day.

The informant further relates that because certain fruits, like pomegranates and guavas, are seasonal. expensive, or both, she has taken to incorporating other fruit occasionally: strawberries, oranges, pineapple, blueberries, etc., depending on availability. I think this shows the adaptability of this simple dish: it started out as a bare-bones dish with the most basic, most common and inexpensive  fruit included, and then as she found that her native fruits were harder to come by, she incorporated more “Western” fruit that certainly would not have been available in her native Pakistan at the time she was growing up. And yet it still serves the same purpose: to lighten one’s mood and restore “sugar” levels in the body after a long day without food or water. And the informant insists that she never makes or serves it outside the holy month of Ramadan, even though, since the Islamic calendar is lunar, the time of the month changes every year and what fruits are available each year also changes.