Category Archives: Customs

Customs, conventions, and traditions of a group

Luaus

Nationality: Filipino-American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Aiea, Hawaii
Performance Date: March 2007
Primary Language: English
Language: Tagalog

“Luaus are gatherings that you can find and go to, especially in the touristy areas of Hawaii.  Basically, people eat Hawaiian food like lomi salmon (tomatoes and smoke salmon), lau lau (meat-like chicken of fish or pork-wrapped and cooked in taro leaves), long rice (clear-looking spaghetti noodles in a soup), poi (ground up taro made into a mush), and kalua pig (traditionally cooked in a hole in the ground).  Luaus are a time to celebrate the Hawaiian culture.  Not only is there Hawaiian food, but there’s also Hawaiian music, which is usually performed by a local band or singer from the islands.  These bands and singers perform Hawaiian songs with ukuleles and other instruments.  Also, hula dancing to slow Hawaiian songs is a popular form of entertainment.  Another type of dance, the Tahitian dance, involves women who dress up in a really big skirt and wear coconut bras and move their hips around really fast.  There are also fire dancers, usually men who spin around sticks that are lit at the ends and toss around a baton thrower.”

By living in Hawaii her entire life, my informant has been exposed to luaus all the time.  Luaus are always going on and there aren’t any specific dates as to when a luau is held.  Luaus occur in hot tourist spots like the Waikiki strip or in the countryside on the North Shore, where people hang out at the beaches.  There’s also a Polynesian cultural center at the North Shore that holds luaus for tourists.  Luaus have become so popular that they’re popular among both Hawaiian natives and tourists.  She doesn’t attend luaus whenever she wants.  People hold luaus as parties, so she goes whenever she’s invited.
    Antonette thinks that luaus are great.  She considers them as parties that she attends to see her friends and family, only everything in a luau is about the Hawaiian culture.  If anything, it’s also a cultural experience, so the main idea is to celebrate the Hawaiian culture and spread it around to others.  She likes going to luaus when she has the chance because of the food, music, performances, and dancing.  Luaus allow my informant to eat Hawaiian food because she doesn’t normally eat Hawaiian food on a daily basis.  Also, she likes some of the bands that play Hawaiian or reggae music because she doesn’t listen to that type of music often, so it’s cool and exciting to see live bands and to dance on stage with friends.
When I traveled to Hawaii on vacation five years ago, I was able to experience an authentic Hawaiian luau.  Of course, the luau was staged for tourists, but I witnessed actual Hawaiian activities, food, and music.  I can definitely see why both natives and tourists enjoy going to luaus.  I was never bored during the luau because there were so many activities going on.  The Hawaiians even allowed tourists to participate by learning the different types of dances.  In addition to observing, tourists are able to learn part of Hawaiian culture.
Everything that my informant described to me was there at the luau that I attended.  I was able to observe a very entertaining Hawaiian tradition that I think is important to maintain.  Hawaii has such an incredible and unique past, and it is extremely different from the rest of the United States.  It’s important to continue the tradition so that future generations can take pleasure in attending such a distinctive custom.

How to find lost items

Nationality: Polish Jew
Age: 23
Occupation: scuba diver and student
Residence: Los Angeles (from FL)
Performance Date: April 24, 2012
Primary Language: English

“It goes back a few generations, I know my grandmother does it still, because I walk into her apartment and I see the shot glasses still on the counter. The tradition is that if you’ve lost something and you can’t find it, and you’ve looked in all the unusual places, all the places you like don’t think of, and everything, that you finally get out a shot-glass, and you pour a shot of vodka, and you just leave it on the counter, just out. Let it evaporate and everything as it goes, and then what you’re looking for will turn up after you’ve done this at some point. I’ve definitely done it many, many times, I know that my mother does it, cuz I’ve walked into the house and seen shot glasses of vodka on the counter, and I know my grandmother does it too, so it’s kind of a funny thing, obviously, because we’re leaving out vodka in a way to find something. But I learned it from my mother, and I’m pretty sure she learned it from her mother, and I would assume the same happened with my grandmother. And the second half of the tradition is that once you find the thing, you have to, basically, as close to immediately, drink whatever’s left of the shot in the shot glass. If it’s been a long time and it’s evaporated and everything it’s fine, you don’t need to drink anything, you just wash out the shot glass and put it away, like normal. But if you find it like 10 minutes after you take it out, you have to drink the shot. But it works, I believe it, I’ve found stuff before, like I couldn’t find it, and then like it’ll turn up, and I’ll be like, ‘ya, I don’t know how I could have ever found this before.’”

 

My informant has practiced this folk-belief for as long as he can remember, and has consistently used it every time he loses and object and can’t find it after looking around for it, because he believes that the shot works to help him find whatever he lost. He also continues to practice this practice because it’s a sort of family tradition that’s been passed through the generations, thus tying him to his family and his heritage. Also, the informant’s background is Polish Jewish, both his grandmother and mother are from New York City, and his great grandmother came over from Poland, so it makes sense that the practice involves vodka, which is one of the most common forms of liquor consumed in Poland.

 

The shot of vodka serves two purposes: when the shot is first poured, the performer’s belief in the guarantee that the item will show up allows them to relax and stop fixating over the possible locations of the lost item, so they stop panicking and are more susceptible to subconsciously remembering where the put the item; the second purpose of the shot is a means of celebration or self-congratulations after having found the missing object, though it could also be consumed as a way to keep the object from disappearing again. In either way, this fun folk-belief is an example of both a magic and a conversion superstition. It is a magic superstition in that the performer undertakes the action of pouring the shot of vodka to cause the lost item to reappear, and a conversion superstition in that pouring the shot also undoes the bad thing of the item getting lost in the first place, and hypothetically keeps it from happening again.

St. Patrick’s Day Cheesecake

Nationality: Irish-American
Age: 24
Occupation: Works for a Production Company
Residence: Los Angeles (from CO)
Performance Date: April 24, 2012
Primary Language: English

Suittcheesecake

This folk recipe has become a holiday tradition for my informant in his household on St. Patrick’s Day. His mother makes the green cheesecake for St. Patrick’s Day, and only for St. Patrick’s Day, making it a particularly special food. And, though only his mother performs the act of making the cheesecake herself, his father also plays an active role in the tradition, as do he and his brothers. Before the boys can eat the special green St. Patrick’s Day cheesecake, the father, who plays the role of the ‘connoisseur’/food critic, ‘tests’ the cake and judges how good it is in comparison with the previous years’ cheesecakes. The father’s role is an inaugural one, much like that of the groundhog Punxsutawney Phil who either kicks off Spring or portends a longer winter—the main difference being, however, that the father’s ‘disapproval’ of the cheesecake doesn’t foretell anything bad in particular, it’s more of just a show. The role of the informant and his brothers, besides eating the cheesecake, is also to take part in the show of the food critique by defending their mother’s cooking if their father deems the cake inferior to previous years. I think that this show of testing and judging the cake is an integral part to keeping the family tradition alive, because it has elevated the cheesecake from the status of a folk recipe, in which the mother is the sole performer, to a whole family affair in which each member of the family has a part that is central to the successful performance of the tradition. In defending their mother and considering the cheesecake delicious regardless of what their father says, the boys ensure that the family tradition will be continued the following year.

The cheesecake being dyed green is very important because the unusual coloring for the cheesecake is not only a clear demarcation that it is a special occasion, but green is the traditional color worn on St. Patrick’s Day, stemming from the color of St. Patrick’s shamrock that he used to explain the Holy Trinity. So, this folk recipe is not only a way for the family to come together as a whole, but also is a way to celebrate an international holiday in a unique and special way.

Haft Sin in Persian New Year

Nationality: Mixed
Age: 22
Occupation: Screenwriter
Residence: Los Angeles (from AZ)
Performance Date: April 24, 2012
Primary Language: English
Language: Persian

‘My family’s religion is called the Bahai faith, and most persians celebrate what is called Nowruz, which is the Persian New Year, and that’s in the beginning of March. And what you do, it’s a big tradition where you set up these seven plates on a table to celebrate the new year, and it’s called Haft Sin. And the seven items you put on the dishes are sabzeh, which is wheat or barley or lentil, samanu, which is sweet pudding, senjed, dried fruit, sir, garlic, sib, apple slices, somaq, berries, and serkeh, which is vinegar and you put that in a cup. But with the sabzeh, what you do is, they’re usually lentils, and you put them on a dish, and then you put a damp towel over the dish, and then over a series of ten days the sprouts will grow, and it’s this fun thing that you can see every morning as they grow. And Haft is seven, and sin is the letter ‘s’, so it’s called the seven S’s.

Haft Sin is an integral part of Nowruz, the Persian New Year holiday that is celebrated on the vernal equinox. The celebration represents the new life that awaits them in the year to come, as well as the rejuvenation of nature around them. Each of the seven items laid out for Haft Sin has it’s own particular symbolic meaning. Sabzeh, the plate of grains that sprout represents purity, opulence, and good fortune, as well as rejuvenation and growth; samanu, which is sweet and a favorite of kids, represents fertility and bearing many children; senjed represents love; sir, the garlic, is the medicine for recovering from evil; the apple slices, or sib represent health and natural beauty; the color of the berries  of the somaq symbolizes the sun at sunrise, awaiting a new day; and serkeh symbolizes age and patience, and wards off the bitterness that comes with old age. These seven items are very important because not only is seven a very mystical number in Iran, there is one item for every day of the week, and one item that represents every stage in the human life cycle.

 

Citation:

http://www.iranchamber.com/culture/articles/norooz_haftseen_never_told.php

Occupy Movement: Human Microphone

Nationality: German
Age: 30
Occupation: Antique Dealer
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Performance Date: 04/25/12
Primary Language: English

My informant was an active participant in the Los Angeles branch of the Occupy Wall Street movement that came to life in Los Angeles in October of 2011. His participation spanned from its first day in Los Angeles, to the beginning of December.

“Durring the GAs [General Assemblies] or at protests, we wouldn’t always have access to a microphone, so the human mic was our way of making it so that a large group could hear what one person had to say.”

To initiate the human mic, the speaker (or anyone who notices someone is trying to be heard) yells out, “mic check”. To let the speaker know that they have been heard, individuals around them yell back in unison, “mic check”. This is repeated two to three times until the speaker has everyone’s attention.

Once the speaker has everyone’s attention, the speaker says a short phrase and then pauses. Everyone within ear shot then repeats that phrase in unison. From there, the speaker continues this process until their speech is finished. This amplifies their voice so that their speech is not limited to those within direct ear shot.