Category Archives: Customs

Customs, conventions, and traditions of a group

Senior Stairs

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Tacoma, Washington
Performance Date: April 2012
Primary Language: English

Senior Stairs

Tradition/Custom

 

My informant described to me a senior tradition from her school:

” The Senior stairs are the stairs for the front, grand staircase, and are casually called the Senior stairs. It used to be one of the Senior privileges was that the Seniors has full control of those stairs and who could use them, so anybody who was a student that was not a Senior was prohibited from using them. Faculty and guests were exempt.

If Seniors caught students using the Senior stairs, the assailant would be punished by the Seniors as was deemed fit by the Seniors. The Co-head of the high school, when in 5th grade, stepped on the Senior Stairs and when caught, he was forced to sing Celine Dion, embarrassing himself. When a student, my Japanese teacher was caught and was forced to skip Class and spend the time scrubbing the floor of the Senior smoke-lounge with a toothbrush.

Because the punishments got too intense, Seniors no longer have full reign of the stairs. Nevertheless, at the end of every year, there is an event called Step Songs, which is centered around the rising Seniors claiming the stairs from the graduating Class to claim their rights as Seniors.

All of the doors in the building are locked besides the front door and another door, and the rising Seniors have to find the mystery door. They then run to the top of the stairs at the front of the school and they fun down onto the stairs and proceed sing songs promoting their own virtues, talking down the under classman, criticizing the faculty, and expressing their excitement for the graduating Class to be gone. There are retorts by the underclassmen, which get single song retorts. Then, the graduating Class closes the ritual by initiating the Alma Mater.”

 

My informant thinks it is a very important ceremony because at the end of the year, the graduating Class gets the mentality that they are done with high school and check out, and the Juniors get restless and anxious to be Seniors. Besides graduation, there is not a clear, deciding moment for when Juniors become Seniors. This is the moment when they become Seniors, and this creates a way for Juniors to publicly acknowledge and claim that they are now the oldest Class, and it gives the graduating Class the opportunity to hand over these privileges. There is no “oh no, you’re not a Senior yet!”

 

The Senior Class, a highly regarded position in high school, is an empowered group allotted special privileges to celebrate their dominance, their “Seniority”. The stairs are a symbol the Seniors high standing in the school, and so the process to hand them over is important: it demonstrates that the identity of a Senior must be earned. Because the stairs are only usable to the Senior Class students, it reinforces and celebrates their identity as a member of that Class.

Mérde: Wishing Good Luck to Ballet Dancers

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Tacoma, Washington
Performance Date: April 2012
Primary Language: English

Mérde

Folk saying/Superstition

When wishing my informant good luck for her ballet performance, she corrected me and told me to tell ballet dancers “Mérde“ instead. The following is a transcript of our interview:

 

“Informant: In show business, if you want to tell someone good luck before a show, the common phrase is to say “break a leg”. If you’re a musician, or an actor, you’re main instrument for performance isn’t necessarily your legs. You could still play piano with a broken leg, but for dancers legs are vital. As much as this is something that inspires luck, this made dancers feel uneasy because it is exactly what they want never to happen. Instead, dancers say “mérde” before a show. This is the French word for “shit.”

 

While I don’t know the formal reason for why this particular word is picked, I though one of the Senior members of my company explained it well when he said that “when you’re performing live on a stage in front of an audience, shit happens. So, we say ‘Mérde.’

 

My informant said, “ I am very paranoid about injuries personally, and before a show people push themselves really hard so to have an injury right before a performance is the worst imaginable situation, so I get very uncomfortable when people say break a leg. It makes me much more nervous. But I’ve always like ‘Mérde’ because it has a bit of humor to it and more of a sense of ‘this is how things are going to be, and it will be okay because it is just going to happen.’ “

 

Saying “Mérde“ serves several purposes. It plays a role as a superstition, a way of avoiding the homeopathic magic of “break a leg.” On the other hand, since this folk saying is reserved for ballet dancers, it reinforces one’s identity in the group. Furthermore, the word, French based, connects to ballet in general – according to my informant ballet vocabulary is all in French. Thus, this produces an air of authenticity to performances, linking ballet dances everywhere to ballets home, France. Also, reflects a lesson necessary for dancers: stage performances rarely run perfectly, so it is vital that, if problems occur, the show continues. On another note, running around and swearing, breaking societal rules, excites those saying it, assuaging pre-performance nervousness.

The Chinese Moon Festival

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Student Housing
Performance Date: April 24th
Primary Language: English

Contextual Information

Time of Interview: April 24th, 2012, 11:52 a.m.

Location of Interview: Interior of EVK Dining Hall

Informant’s First Encounter w/ Folklore: Since birth. It is a family tradition.

When Folklore is Performed: On the 15th day of the 8th month of the lunar calendar.

 

Transcript:

“Chinese Moon Festival is one of the biggest holidays of the lunar calendar and basically the premise is, um, it’s a time of harvest, but also doubles as, like, a time when the family get’s together. It’s also called the Mid-Autumn festival and that’s where the harvest comes in, but the moon festival always falls upon the full moon. The idea is that wherever you are, you always see the same moon as your family and that’s when you look up and, um, reminisce over your family. One of the foods that we eat is the moon cake, and inside is a salted egg yoke which symbolizes the moon.”

 

My informant was very excited to relay this information to me. While the excitement may have also stemmed from the food we were about to eat, it was clear that this tradition was very special to him. It was not difficult for me to see why. While we do have Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, rare is the holiday that celebrates the entire family. However, the Chinese Moon seems to commemorate not just the immediate family, but a world family united under one moon. Most who celebrate the lunar calendar return home to their family. For individuals whose families are simply too far away, such as my informant, it serves as a sacred and endearing ritual for him.

“What’cha Doing?” “Eating Chocolate…”

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Student Housing
Performance Date: April 24th
Primary Language: English

Contextual Information

Time of Interview: April 24th, 11:56 a.m.

Location of Interview: Interior of EVK Dining Hall

Informant’s First Encounter w/ Folklore: Childhood (8 or 9 years old)

When Folklore is Performed: During recess, amongst fellow students.

 

Transcript:

Child A: A

Child B: B

 

A: “What’cha doing?”

B: “Eating chocolate.”

A: “Where’d you get it?”

B: “Doggie dropped it.”

A: “Where’d he drop it?”

B: “In the sewer.”

A: “What’s it taste like?”

B: “Cow Manure.”

 

This is a variant of a back-and-forth story that my informant remembers from his gradeschool (roughly around the 1st or 2nd grade). He told me this story with an emberassed yet gleeful expression, often chuckling in between verses. He apologized, explaining that the story brought back a lot of memories from “the playground.” He recalls reciting this with several of his friends, always reacting with the same “grossed out” expression after the final line was spoken. This sort of back and forth was part of the children’s dialect, almost like a code or a password into their society. If you could master it, you could match their wits. The piece also helped the children come to terms with the natural functions and materials of the body.

“There’s a Place in France…”

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Student Housing
Performance Date: April 24th
Primary Language: English

Contextual Information

Time of Interview: April 24th, 11:58 a.m.

Location of Interview: Interior of EVK Dining Hall

Informant’s First Encounter w/ Folklore: Childhood (10 or 11 years old)

When Folklore is Performed: During recess, amongst fellow students.

 

Transcript:

“There’s a place in France where the naked ladies dance,

There’s a hole in the wall where the boys see it all.

There’s a place downtown where the freaks come around,

There’s a hole in the wall, it’s a dirty free for all.”

 

This (remarkably mature) children’s song was sung during my informant’s gradeschool years. My informant remembers singing it with a group of his friends while the girls in the surrounding area would react in disgust. Like cooties, this seems to be the sort of activity that young boys would create once they begin to “notice girls” in order to grow accustomed to them.