Category Archives: Game

Jewish Day Camp Traditions and Songs

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/19/17
Primary Language: English

The informant is from New York City and told me of his summer camp experience.

“Okay so I went to a Jewish Day Camp, so like you’d go, everyday you’d go to a bunch of different bus stops and then you go to the campground and do whatever camp shit you’d do and then come back like, so it was a Jewish camp and we celebrated Shabbat, and we even like one of the activities would be like, so every friday you’d celebrate Shabbat and then alongside the other activities like archery, ceramics, we would sing Jewish songs, so there’s like um, oh man, oh there’s “who knows one” and it’s like, i think it goes up to twelve and there’s like different hebrew or like old testament things like, or like, definitely like “nine” is the months of a -, I don’t remember but it’s like “Who knows one?” “I know one!” “one is the da-da-da-da-da-duh” “who knows two? I know two! Two is the da-da-da-da-da-duh.” And I know like one of them is like, twelve is the tribes of Israel, um, I think nine for whatever reason is the months a woman is pregnant? Um, uh, and just like seven is like the days of the week that god made, and all these other Jewish songs of like um, wait ok, so there’s who knows one, and there’s like, uh, I don’t remember anymore. But like the main part about the songs that’s pretty funny is that like seventy-five, no maybe like two-thirds of the camp were like black and hispanic, and were like not Jewish, because it was like, a somewhat cheap day camp in, like Manhattan, and they had a lot of bus stops in like Harlem, so like we made these black and hispanic kids eat Challah and drink grape juice and like sing these Jewish songs, and they were like kinda into it, none of them were like, “why are we doing this?” all of them were like “okay””

Analysis:

What is most interesting is that the songs were of religious connotation, but that many of those who attended the camp were not of that religion (Jewish). So they were learning all these songs and stories that did not directly affect them at all, opening up Jewish ceremonies to the wider world. It is also interesting to see how these “children’s songs” deal with adult themes such as pregnancy, which as a child did not really comprehend until much later.

Pair of Chinese Number Riddles

Nationality: Taiwanese-American
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA, USA
Performance Date: April 22, 2017
Primary Language: English
Language: Chinese

“A riddle… This one, this one’s uhh, a good riddle, because it also translates to English. So it’s umm, there’s a fisherman, oh, umm…

So you know how there’s Chinese New Year, right? And fifteen days after Chinese New Year, because Chinese New Year is a two-week celebration, fifteen day celebration, and the last day is the lantern festival. And at a traditional lantern festival, you uhh, you have a parade with a bunch of lanterns, you eat, like, a specific food, which is called like… Literal translation is, like, ‘soup balls,’ but it’s like, uhh, kinda like mochi kinda thing, it’s rice, rice balls, and like, sugar water… and then, umm, you also do riddles, that’s like also part of the festival.

So I learned this riddle when I was participating in that holiday, we had like… something… umm… and the riddle is:

‘A fisherman went out one day, and, umm… so first he caught… 6 fish without the head, then 9 fish without the tail, then 8 fish except these fish were only half a fish each. How many fish did he catch in total?’ ”

Like… whole fish?

“It’s a riddle! [laughs]

Okay, the answer is zero. And you’re like, ‘What the, what the heck?’ Because umm, if you take the number 6, and write it in Arabic numerals, and you take off the top half, it becomes 0. Same with the 9, if you take the bottom half it becomes 0. If you take 8 and you cut it in half, then it’s 0. So you have 0+0+0! [laughs]

It’s some trickery! Yeah!”

Why Arabic numerals?

“Umm, well, this isn’t, this isn’t like a really old one, but like, I just learned this one in the context of this Chinese event. And like, Chinese people like numbers, too, you know? [laughs]

It’s part of it, So like, I dunno if this part is a trick. There’s a version where… Is there a version? No, I don’t remember any other specific riddles, but I know there were a lot that had to deal with, like, what the actual Chinese numbers were written as in Chinese. I don’t remember any of those riddles. But I remember there was like a series of them…

Oh! There’s one… umm… it’s uhh… what is… you take half of six and round down, what is it. And you need to know how six is written in Chinese. It’s written like… dot on top, straight line, and then two dashes that are like kinda sloped into each other on the bottom. And you take half of six and round down, the actual meaning of the riddle is: You look at the bottom half of six, and that’s what eight is written as.

So then the question would be like half of six, round down. And all the little kids would be like ‘three!’ And you’d be like ‘no!!! It’s eight!’ And then they circle it on the board, and you go ‘wooooooow!’ [laughs]

Yeah, so that was like, basic level riddles.

Loteria

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/18/17
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

Informant Information:

Yerik Macias is a student at the University of Southern California studying Aerospace Engineering. He comes from a Mexican background, and is originally from Santa Ana, CA.

Game:

“I play a game called Loteria on Christmas. So it’s a I think four by four cards they give you. Each box is a picture. it’s a bunch of different things. There’s random pictures of stuff. It could be a melon, watermelon in English, or something else. I’m not sure why they chose the pictures. The way we do it, a lot of families do it the same way but it depends, you get pinto beans and you put one on every square. Then you choose someone to read out the deck of cards, they shuffle it put it face down and then start taking cards out from it. Then they read off what it is. And then if you get it, you just take a bean off. You can win, my family doesn’t do this, but you can win by getting horizontal or vertical lines, but the way we do it once you completely clear the card, cause otherwise the games are too short. We usually play it with money, so not much money but we get like quarters or dimes and put a different buy in each cents. Whoever wins takes it all. That’s pretty much it, I think.”

Q: Would you say that the way you play Loteria is standard?

“Yeah, there’s little nitpicky stuff, everyone has their house rules but you know, that’s the way you play it.”

Analysis:

The informant’s way of playing was somewhat different than the traditional way of playing. The informant mentions that his family reads off a card and whoever has that card takes a bean off. In the traditional game, there is no mention of pinto beans being used, and the person who reads off the card usually tells a riddle in order to make the card discrete to the other players. The fifty four Loteria cards the informant uses, along with the general way of playing remain true to the traditional game.

Schoolyard Game

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/14/17
Primary Language: English

Informant Information:

Alex, 19,  is a student at the University of Southern California studying Interactive Media and Game Design. He lived in Cincinnati, OH  for most of his life until moving to Los Angeles, CA for college. He comes from a Persian(Iranian) background.

Game:

“There’s this game  where everyone sits in a circle and their arms are stretched out so their hands are on top of each other. Then they sing a song and slap the other people’s hands to a beat/word. The song goes like ‘King.. Kong.. jungle.. man.. swinging.. from.. a.. rubber.. band.. slipped.. and.. fell.. and.. cut.. his.. hand.. the.. color.. of.. his.. blood.. was…’ whoever was the last person slapped says a color and they slap their hands for every letter of the color so it’s like B..L..U..E.. and whoever was hit on E leaves the circle, and the game continues until there’s only one person left.”

Q: What happens when there’s only one person left? Do they get anything?

“No they don’t get anything. They get the satisfaction of winning or a high-five. It’s a school yard game.”

Q: How old were you when you played this game?

“Middle school.”

Q: Did you know of any other similar games? Is this version common?

“No I don’t think I heard this exact song outside of my school, but I know that other people played the same game with a different song.”

Analysis:

This playground game seems to derive from another similar game called “Down by the Banks of the Hanky-Panky”. In the original game, the informant’s colors weren’t present. It was only the song, and whoever was slapped to the last beat of the song was considered “out” of the game and had to leave the circle. I couldn’t find the origin of the the original game, but I know that this game is very widespread, with many different versions appearing across the country.

 

For more information about the original game, see this reference: Emily, By: Sing Books with. “Down by the Banks of the Hanky Panky, a funny little circle game or counting song (a Girl Scout Songbook song, too).” Sing Books with Emily, the Blog. N.p., 16 June 2015. Web. 14 Apr. 2017.

Bloody Mary (All-Boys School in the Philippines)

Nationality: Filipino
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Manila, Philippines / California, USA
Performance Date: April 3, 2017
Primary Language: English
Language: Tagalog

Informant: Enrique is a 19-year-old boy, born and raised in Manila, Philippines who now attends college in California. South Ridge (the school in his story) is a Catholic all-boys school in Manila which he attended from kindergarten through until 7th grade.

 

Original script:

Informant: So when I went to South Ridge, [all boys school in Manila, Philippines] there was a super scary bathroom on the top floor of the school. No one ever used this bathroom because there was a rumor that someone had died inside the bathroom years ago. On special occasions, our classes would have sleep overs at school and during one of these sleep overs, one of the older batches went up to that bathroom in the middle of the night. The rumor goes that if you say Bloody Mary in front of the mirror in that bathroom four times, Bloody Mary actually shows up. So when one of the guys that decided to go into that bathroom did the ritual, she actually appeared and when he left the bathroom, he was covered in cuts and scratches.

 

Interviewer: Do you know what Bloody Mary has to do with the guy that had died in the bathroom?

 

Informant: She was apparently the one who killed him.

 

Thoughts about the piece: It is extremely interesting that the Bloody Mary ritual would occur at a local all-boys school in the Philippines. Especially considering the context that we discussed it in during class wherein we saw that the ritual is most popular among pre-pubescent girls usually in Western countries. We took this to be part of girls growing up as womanhood is bloody, thus, girls are basically looking into their future (by spinning and looking into the mirror) and trying to understand it by performing the ritual. I too attended school in the Philippines however it was an international school with many American and European students- here too I noticed that only girls would take part in the Bloody Mary ritual. Thus, it is intriguing that this would be such a big sensation (seeing as how no one wanted to use the bathroom because they all know what had happened there) at a local, Catholic all-boys school.

Something else that it interesting about this version of the story is that Bloody Mary actually physically harms the people that perform the ritual whereas usually, you are said to simply see an image of her in the mirror.