Category Archives: Customs

Customs, conventions, and traditions of a group

An Iranian Engagement

Nationality: Persian
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: USA
Primary Language: English

Informant:

Ariana Hazery, 18, is a senior in High School.  Her self-identified ethnicity is Persian.  She recently went back to Iran to visit family and made the following cultural faux pas.  I collected it from her over coffee while she was visiting USC.

Text:

I went to Iran last summer to visit my aunt and uncle.  They own a silk farm.  It’s kind of cool actually.  Anyways, uhm, the craziest thing happened!  My sister, Leila, and I were talking with our two cousins, and they’re both boys.  They’re a little older than us, but not much.  So, uhm, we’re talking with them in the living room, and its getting noisy, so we ask them if they want to come upstairs with us.  Leila and I were sharing a room on the second floor, so we figured we could go hang out in there until dinner was ready.  So we do that.  Well, when we come back, my aunt has this huge smile on her face, and she gives me this big hug, and then she goes, “We are so happy with your choice!” [imitates accent].  Uhh, what?  Excuse me?  Leila and I have no idea what’s going on.  Well, eventually we put the pieces together.  In Iranian culture, you only show your room to a boy if you are engaged to him!  So my aunt thought that we had gotten engaged to her sons!

Analysis:

While taken from the perspective of an outsider breaking in, this story is revealing about some of the practices regarding engagement in Iranian culture.  Also, it is not entirely uncommon for fist cousins to marry, still, so the aunt had more reason to take this act seriously.  However, it is interesting that showing the bedroom is associated with engagement, and not marriage, in this particular region.  The Iranian family lived in a tiny, farming town that specialized in producing silk, so distance from major political, religious, and cultural centers in Iran may have contributed to this more relaxed attitude towards male and female interaction.

Russian Folk Beliefs: Baptism Rituals

Nationality: Russian, American
Age: 35
Occupation: Adjunct Faculty at the University of Southern California
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 16th, 2012
Primary Language: Russian
Language: English

Interview Extraction:

Informant: “At least in the old times, you are having a baby- I mean you had a baby, right? And before the baby is baptized in that period like, nobody is supposed to see that baby because you know like, evil people or evil spirits can kind of be attached and stay with the kid forever. So, like usually if you have the baby on the stroller it would be covered with something. Or just only parents and relatives would be able to look at the baby or play with the baby. But after the baby is baptized it means that the baby is protected.”

Analysis:

I have heard of this superstition before in a pervious class where I researched Russian folklore, though I thought it was interesting that my informant explained that  the tradition of covering the baby before it’s baptism is no longer done.  The reason why this tradition is no longer done in Russia, except in highly religious families, probably has something to do with the fact that the Soviet Union discouraged the practice of all religions, not just Christianity.  The Soviet Union policy on religion comes from Marxism-Leninism ideology which pushes the idea that religion is idealist and bourgeois, which lead the Soviet Union to adopt atheism as the national doctrine of the USSR.

The ritual of not showing the newborn baby to anyone before the baptism to protect the child from evil spirits is also an interesting idea.  This is because this shows a blending of Christian and pagan beliefs, which is also known as ‘double belief’.  The Christianization of Russia occurred during the mid 10th century, and instead of replacing the Slavic pagan beliefs, the Russian peasants saw this new religion as something to add on to their old religion.  Russian superstitions today still feature customs and beliefs that are a mix of the Christian and Slavic pagan beliefs, which can be seen the the Russian baptism ritual.

My informant was born in 1977, Moscow, Soviet Union (now Russia).  On completing her undergraduate education in Moscow, she moved to California to earn her graduate degree in theatrical design from Cal State Long Beach.  She now works as a faculty member for the USC School for Dramatic Arts.  She became a US citizen in 2012.

German Tradition: Schultüte (School Cone)

Nationality: German
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Hamburg, Germany
Performance Date: April 19th, 2012
Primary Language: German
Language: English, French, Greek

Interview Extraction:

Informant: “I don’t know if you have this in the States, but we get school cones. Do you know what that is? Well, you know how a cone is where you put ice cream inside? And we get massive ones on our first day of school, but filled with gifts.”

Interviewer: “And what is in these cones?”

Informant: “Mostly presents of any type.  It can be sweets, it can be stuff for school, it can basically be pretty much everything.”

Interviewer: “And are these presents supposed to make students feel better about having to go back to school?”

Informant: “No, no. This is only on the very first day, when everyone is super excited anyways. And it’s just to make the start even more special.  And then it’s usually grandparents and everybody coming to the school and we have a big ceremony where the classes are announced and who is in which class, with which teacher and stuff. Yeah, it’s actually sweet.  And in my family we went out for lunch later, and we just ate. So that is what I did.”

Interviewer: “What are they called, the cone things in German?”

Informant: “School cone, schultüte.”

Analysis:

Schultüte translates into English as ‘school bag’, even though the object is in a cone shape.  A Schultüte is a cone shaped cardboard cup filled with things such as chocolates, small gifts, and practical gifts for school like pencils or crayons.  These are given to children in Germany and Austria by parents and grandparents on their first day of school, especially upon entering kindergarden.  This tradition appears to only be for younger children.  The tradition first appeared in the early 19th century in Germany.  It first began in the bigger cities, but the tradition soon spread to the rural areas of Germany and is now a common custom in Germany and Austria today. When the tradition first began, the school cones were not directly given to the children as they are today.  Children’s names were written on the cones, and then were hung from a metal Schultüten-Baum or ‘school cone tree’.  The children had to then pick the school cones off the trees without breaking them. There is a story connected to this that says adults would say to the children that if the school cone tree was ripe with school cones, than it was time to start school.

I am not sure what the connection to fruit growing on trees is for the school cones, but the cones represent an initiation for children to start the new year of school.  In my research I found that my first response to the reason why school cones are given, which is to make the children less nervous about going back to school, was just as reasonable as my informant’s reasoning that it was just part of making that day even more special.  The first day of school is full of all kinds of anxieties that come from starting a new school year with a new teacher and new courses.  School cones are given to the children to help create an atmosphere of celebration, which makes the anxieties of change more bearable to children because the gifts make the day more exciting.  I don’t know why this tradition has not spread to other countries, perhaps because it is a relatively new tradition compared to other traditions we see in folklore.  I like the idea of turning the first day of school into a celebration because it makes education special in the minds of the children due to this kind of positive association with the start of school and gifts.  This is not to say that in America we think of education differently than than they do in German culture, but the first day of school can bring about anxiety to children because things are unfamiliar to them.  Therefore creating a happy atmosphere would be a great way to dispel any feelings of nervousness that the children feel.

My informant was born in 1992 Hamburg, Germany.  She studied at USC from 2010-2011 before moving to Brussels, Belgium to study international policy planning for her undergraduate degree.  She lives part time in Brussels, Belgium and part time in her hometown Hamburg, Germany.

Theatre Occupational Superstition: “Break a Leg!”

Nationality: American
Age: 63
Occupation: Adjunct Faculty at the University of Southern California
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 20th, 2012
Primary Language: English
Language: German, French

Interview Extraction

Informant: “The ‘break a leg’ legend. Do you know that story?  It has nothing to do with fracturing any of the major leg bones.  That in a different usage of the language ‘to break a leg’ is ‘to bend a leg’.  So that gives us two possible origins of why when you want ‘to break a leg’ that the old way of bowing, is that you bend the back leg and then take the bow.  So that ‘to break a leg” means to get a big bow at the end of the show.  And other one is a similar thing on bending, that if coins were tossed on the stage at the end of the show, you would have to then bend down, thus breaking the straight line of the leg in order to pick up the coins that were being tossed on stage.”

Analysis:

The superstition of why you say “break a leg” to an actor is because saying “good luck” brings you bad luck.  There are many different origins of why you would say “break a leg” to an actor, and the phrase also changes based on what country you are in.  For example, in France you would say “Merde” which is French for ‘shit’.  The idea of this is that in wishing for something bad to happen such as the actor breaking their leg, the opposite will take place.

There are may theories behind where this idiom came from, such as the idea that my informant mentioned which suggests that to “break a leg” is a different usage of language that also means ‘to bend a leg’.  I like this theory more than the other origin theories that I have seen in my research, such as the idea that to “break a leg” comes from the production of Shakespheare’s Richard III where actor David Garrick became so consumed with his role as Richard III that he did not realize his leg was broken during the performance.  This legend is popular because it promotes the idea of being so into your performance as an actor that everything else is forgotten, and all that exists is the part you are playing in the world of the play.  This is the kind of mind set that all actors should aspire to accomplish, so it is no wonder that this story has achieved such a high level of fascination in the imagination of people who work in theater, especially actors.

The reason why I like this theory more than the other theories I have seen in my research is that it is very logical.  I have always thought that it is interesting that we say “break a leg” to an actor before they perform, but we do not say this to a designer or crew member before they do their job.  If this legend is the real reason behind why we say “break a leg”, than the reasoning behind not wishing a crew member to “break a leg” makes sense because only actors have historically been the ones that bend their legs to either bow or pick up the coins that had been thrown on stage for a job well done.

My informant was born in 1949, Connecticut.  He works as a costume designer in the entertainment industry occasionally, and serves as the head of the USC costume shop in addition to being a faculty member for the USC School of Dramatic Arts.  He has more than 40 years of experience in the theater.

Central Pennsylvania New Year’s Custom

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: student
Primary Language: English

My source is a current college student first experienced this custom from her father who was raised in Central Pennsylvania. At the beginning of every New Year, one must eat sauerkraut to bring in the New Year. She claims that her father was adamant about her eating the sauerkraut, suggesting strong symbolism behind the custom. She believes the folk custom to have come from the many Eastern Europeans living within Central Pennsylvania and their beliefs that sauerkraut was to be eaten on every New Year’s Day, though she does not for sure know why.

The eating of sauerkraut, in my opinion, is likely to bring in good luck and ward off the bad for the coming year, or it could be similar to the Korean tradition of eating a special type of soup that signifies the aging of one year when eaten on New Year’s Day. Eastern Europeans tend to be a superstitious people, however, and the warding off of bad luck seems to be the more realistic reason.