Category Archives: Customs

Customs, conventions, and traditions of a group

Kicking the Flagpoles

Nationality: American
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 4.19.2014
Primary Language: English

Item:

“Oh my family would kill me if I didn’t kick it. I know when I was younger and obviously just distracted, I’d forget, and they’d make me go back and kick it.”

At USC, it’s a tradition to kick the base of a specific set of flagpoles as you move from the tailgating portion of a football game day to the Coliseum. As told by the informant, a member of the Trojan Knights, there’s a history to the tradition. When the flagpoles were installed and large crowds moved past them, the sound of feet accidentally hitting them was very distinct. Because they are placed right in front of the most logical exit toward the Coliseum, this repetitive sound became so commonplace that the crowd began intentionally doing it. Now, it serves as a necessity for true Trojan fans to kick the flagpoles. Not doing so brings bad luck for the team that day.

 

Context:

The informant began following this tradition when he was 6 years old. He learned it from his grandfather, who attended USC about 60 years ago. He says that it’s very important to it’s family — if he neglected to kick it, they would give him flak for it. If the team lost after that, he would be considered partially at fault by his family. As a Trojan Knight, this is especially important to him.

 

Analysis:

It’s interesting to see where people think traditions start, especially in cases where the reason it started is relatively arbitrary but the tradition itself has gathered so much meaning over several decades. The idea of flagpole placement leading to people bumping into it and making a distinct sound against the metal turning into a long-standing tradition that determines the success of a team is, arguably a bit ridiculous. But perhaps it develops from confirmation bias — if the team wins and you kicked the flagpole, then people like to make the association. But if the team loses, there are a lot of other factors than the hypothetical flagpole correlation to blame. So, people lean toward associating success with the action they took to wish for it. Whether or not the origin story is true or not, it’s fascinating to think about what will happen as the geography changes. What if the school moves the flagpoles in a construction project? Or if the road is closed and an alternate route has to be taken? The degree of the tradition’s importance is hard to gauge when it is so physically convenient to participate — you almost HAVE to walk past it. That’s why it developed. So what happens when the convenience isn’t present?

Fruitcake on Christmas

Nationality: USA/Australian
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/24/14
Primary Language: English

This informant is a student at USC.  His dad’s side of the family is Australian, originally colonists from England.  I asked him if his family did anything uniquely Australian.  At first he said his dad didn’t bring many Aussie traditions or practices over to the US other than his accent, but then he was able to tell me about a Christmas-time tradition that his grandparents had held for generations.

Every single Christmas my Aussie grandma makes fruitcake.  The shit is really gross and I don’t know why anyone eats it so after I tried it I had to ask why she makes it every year.  First she laughed and said she really does like it, but then she told me what she knew about its historical significance.  Apparently when England was colonizing Australia they used to send these fruit cakes over with people on the ships because they lasted longer than regular cakes. But those were plum cakes, which were boiled and the fruitcakes that my grandma makes are baked so it’s not really the same.  I’m not really sure how they got associated with Christmas but that’s how they got to Australia.  My grandma literally makes her fruitcake like a month before Christmas because the fruit has to marinate or something.  I have only been Christmas there twice, but I still can’t believe my dad and all the other Aussies there actually eat it.

So it looks like these cakes originated as travel treats for the colonists and maybe stuck around after that to remind the colonists of home and the long hardship they endured to make it to Australia.  In modern day fruitcake is probably just taken for granted and generally enjoyed by the masses during the holidays.

The Little Piccolo Player

Nationality: Slovenian
Age: 52
Occupation: grant writer
Residence: San Jose, CA
Performance Date: 2014-04-24
Language: Slovenian, English, German, Serbian

“Prišel je tsiganček

sajast kako vranček;

Igral je na piščalko

Milo in pelo

Kakor malo kdo.”

—

Translation:

“There came a little gypsy boy

Black with soot/dirtlike a crow; [Dark as a crow]

He played on the piccolo

gently and beautifully

like very few could.”

—

This  is a traditional Slovenian nursery rhyme, one that I was raised listening to as my mother sang it to me as a child. She said that it was a song generally sung with many children who held hands and danced in circles. The rhyme itself imbibes a deeply racist sentiment towards the Romani people, who are widely refered to across Europe as “tsiganci” or “gypsies. ” The second line, “sajast kako vranček,” works two fold: 1) “sajast” means sooty or dirty, implying that the boy is unclean or uninterested in being washed. 2) the line likens the boy’s skin color to that of a dark crow, calling special attention to his non-aryan complexion.

However, the informant and I both have affectionate relationships with this rhyme, as it is sung with a gleeful, youthful tone, thereby removing much of the willful malice of its inherent bigotry. In fact, it was only when the informant and I revisited the rhyme did she and I truly grasp how deeply the racial sentiment was pronounced. The informant is unclear as to where in particular it originated, though when she was growing up in the late 60s, it was a very popular children’s rhyme in the Slovenske Konjice, a region of northeastern Slovenia.

Pre-Show Chant

Nationality: American, Polish, French
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Residence: Downtown LA
Performance Date: 4.21.14
Primary Language: English

The Informant is a 22 year old male, a senior at USC, and was born and raised in Manhattan Beach, CA.

Me: So, you’re on a comedy troupe, are there any rituals you guys like to do before shows?

Him: We like to make sure that we’re all connected, on the same page, and in a good, fun, mind-set so that we can do well in the show together and support each other. So we do a pre-show chant. We pick one person a school-year who is in charge of it and it’s their job to come up with a chant, on the spot, before every show, to match the specific rhythm that we always use for it. And it has to relate to the theme of our show that week.

Me: For example, if you’re doing a show about Shakespeare that week, the chant has to be Shakespeare themed and fit into the rhythm?

Him: Yes. Exactly.

Me: And they have to make it up on the spot?

Him: Yeah, they can’t plan it during the day.

Me: But what if they do?

Him: Well, we just kinda go by the honor code. And you can tell if they’ve pre-planned it. It’s not as good if they’ve thought about it in advance. You can just tell. So, yeah, they make up a 3-line chant on the spot that can fit in the rhythm we always use and our show theme.

Me: How do you perform it?

Him: We all crouch down in a circle with one hand in the middle, and first, only whisper the chant. Then we keep repeating it, and repeating it, slowly getting louder and louder, until we’re jumping up like crazy people and screaming the chant at the top of our lungs, and we kind of all decide together when it’s going to end. It’s spontaneous. We just feel it out and it’s great. Super fun. Gets us super amped before the show.

Me: How long have you been doing this as a troupe?

Him: It’s been passed down for like 6 years now, since spring of 2008 when the troupe got started. And depending on the person whose job it is to create the chant, it’s been different every year.

Me: How so?

Him: So, last year my friend A***** was the pre-show chant guy, and his chants were always witty and had a twist at the end. This year I have another friend doing it and hers are really good at tying themes in, and they tend to be cute little diddies. My friend E*** did it my first year on the troupe and he always managed to use the word “queef” in all of his chants.

Analysis:

I think this practice is similar to many other rituals in theatre and performance arts in general. There seems to be a definite concentration on achieving a specific mindset in order to be successful onstage, where unity of the performers is the ultimate goal. I think the significance of improvising the chant on the spot emphasizes the importance of the present moment, which is a large part of many acting/performance curriculums. Being in the present in the current moment. Improvising and “jumping up like crazy people” also seem to become liberating tasks that allows the actors to let go of embarrassment and self-consciousness, and therefore could possibly quell any levels of stage fright.

Diwali and the Ramayan

Nationality: Indian
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: New Delhi, India
Performance Date: April 29, 2013
Primary Language: Hindi (urdu)
Language: English

Pallavi, my friend and suitemate, is a freshman international student at USC studying Business and Accounting. She is from an Indian middle class family in New Delhi, with working parents who have separated. Although she is technically Punjabi, she does not speak that language and instead speaks Hindi. Her family is also Hindu but they are not strict practitioners of the religion, although they still follow and perform and take part in major festivals

Here, she discusses the traditions she observes around the festival of Diwali (a festival of lights), which she identifies as somewhat of a Christmas equivalent in her culture that takes place around early November (this year it will be November 3, 2013). However, she particularly emphasizes and relates the mythological background of the festival, a story that is firmly rooted in the Hindu epic of the Ramayana, or the “Ramayan” as she says (the added “-a” anglicizing the title).

 

The Ramayan:

“Diwali, the story behind it…it comes from a mythological story which is that Lord Ram came back from 13 years of vanwas [in Sanskrit, van means “forest,” and was means “to live,” so “living in the forest”], from exile, and he was exiled to the forest, basically. When he comes back from exile, that’s the day that Diwali happens. Because he was actually the heir to the throne. There were four brothers, but they were all brothers from different mothers, and the king was the same. And Ram was the eldest son, so he automatically got the throne, or he was supposed to get the throne, but one of the wives of the king – her name was Kaikeyi – so what Kaikeyi did… The king had three wives and four sons, Ram was the son of the eldest wife, or the first wife, and he was the eldest son also automatically. And then he had two more wives, and I think the middle wife was Kaikeyi. And she was not a bad person, but there was this whole drama going on with her handmaid or lady in waiting. So that woman was very shrewd and she wanted Kaikeyi to be the top wife. So she kind of poisoned Kaikeyi’s mind, and Kaikeyi was relatively gullible so she was swayed, and she convinced the king to send Ram to the forest for vanwas. And it was 13 years of vanwas. And he said okay. So Ram was “summoned” to the forest, but because Ram was the most loved by all his brothers, the second brother, the second eldest, who was Lakshman, was like “because my bhaiya – bhaiya is brother, and bhaiya is usually elder brother – so, because my bhaiya is going to the forest, I cannot let him go alone, so I’m going to go with him.” So even though he was married, he left his wife back, and he went with Ram and his wife (Ram’s wife Sita). So all three of them went to the forest, even though Lakshman was not exactly told to go to the forest, he still went. And so Kaikeyi’s son got the throne; but because he also loved Ram and he was very upset with his mother for staging all this, he never actually sat on the throne, in fact, before Ram left, he asked for Ram’s sandals and he always kept his sandals on the throne instead. And even though he was, in effect, he used to help his father – because his father sort of retired after that – so he would still run the kingdom but he never sat on the throne because he’s like “I’m just guarding it for my brother, when he comes back.” ”

 

Celebration of Diwali:

“And when Ram actually came back, that is when Diwali is celebrated, because it’s like light coming back, that’s why it’s the festival of lights. There are a lot of crackers [firecrackers] and it’s difficult to breathe nowadays. Lot of smoke. The beautiful part is there’s all these really beautiful diyas – lamps, like terra cotta pots, in which you put some oil and a wick that gets lit [they look almost like clay petals that hold oil and are adorned with designs] – there are like really pretty ones. In elementary school, we’d have diya decoration competitions and stuff. Different designs. I like this part more. Even though when you’re kids, you like the crackers and stuff more, as you grow older… this [the diyas] part is very– Because people’s houses look beautiful…. They make rangolis in front of their house because it’s a positive…

[Showing me images of rangoli via Google Images] They’re made up of…this one seems petals…but rangoli usually is made up of colors, ground up colors, you take color and you sprinkle it [into designs]. It goes right in front of your main door. And everyone has that. These are getting more modern so people have, like, the “tattoo” kind of things, so they’ll get a whole rangoli thing but they’ll “tattoo” it so if people walk over it, it doesn’t spoil, but that’s [pointing to a an image of one made with the colored powder] the traditional thing. Lakshmi is worshipped also. Lakshmi is the goddess of money…fortune, money…and that [pointing out another image of rangoli featuring a goddess figure] is a rangoli of her. She’s related to amavasya – the new moon. The new moon day in October – Diwali is based off the new moon, that’s why it’s not a fixed date. During the new moon, Lakshmi’s destroyer form is active. And you worship her.

It’s basically like purification of sorts, because Lakshmi is the goddess of money and fortune, but on this particular day you worship to her destroyer form. So all the gods…they all can take ‘forms,’ so like, for example, Lord Shiva, he’s “the Destroyer,” but he has many roles. He’s the Destroyer, but when Maa Kali, who’s considered to be the most ruthless, or the most angry goddess of all, when she gets mad or when she’s angered, Lord Shiva, he goes under her – this is also, like, a myth, or an understanding – whenever she gets mad, she, like, goes crazy and then Lord Shiva goes under her and lays down underneath her while she’s standing or whatever, getting angry or whatever. And he takes all of her negative energy; otherwise, if she goes very crazy, she’ll destroy the world. Because Kali is, again, a form of Shiva – there’s like a lot of forms going on, and derivatives going on.

But then Lakshmi…it’s just another reason for worshipping… It’s sort of like, because when Ram comes back, Diwali is celebrated.”

 

Gift exchange:

“Diwali is sort of like Christmas, people will exchange a lot of gifts, we’ll make sure to go to… so like my father’s not close to his brother at all, but Diwali was like the only time when his brother would come greet us, and get some sweets, and things like that. Fruits are a very big thing…you give fruit, and traditional sweets and stuff. Gifts not so much, but sweets and fruits. Dried fruit…. But Dusshera, all this doesn’t happen, it’s this smaller festival in a way.”

 

This Hindu festival, celebrated on the cusp of winter, certainly exhibits features similar to those in other cultures celebrated around the same time, as Pallavi, my informant, cites with her observation that this festival resembles Christmas. It, in a way, acts to herald the coming of winter, and the emphasis on light – Diwali being the Festival of Lights – is sort of a means of fortifying themselves against and lighting up the darkness.