Category Archives: Game

Miss Mary Mack

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Nationality: American
Age: 52
Occupation: Appointment Coordinator
Residence: Cloverdale, California
Performance Date: May 1, 2021
Primary Language: English

Background:

My mother, the informant for this piece, tells me that it’s a handclapping game she learned on the playground while growing up in Cloverdale, California during the 1970s. Additionally, she notes that it was one of her favorite games which is why she remembers it so well.

Context:

This handclapping game is played by singing the song below, accompanied by a rhythmic pattern of three claps–one during each of the three words in each line. My informant also stated that it can be played at twice the speed, or started slow and gradually increased; this version of the game is usually played as a competition, and the first person to make a mistake loses.

Main Piece:

“Miss Mary Mack, Mack, Mack

All dressed in black, black, black

With silver buttons, buttons, buttons

All down her back, back, back

She asked her mother, mother, mother

For fif-ty cents, cents, cents

To see the elephant, elephant, elephant

Jump the fence, fence, fence

He jumped so high, high, high

He touched the sky, sky, sky

And didn’t come back, back, back

‘Til the Fourth of July, -ly, -ly

Analysis:

This playground game could be as innocent as it sounds, or, like a great deal of other children’s folklore, could have some kind of metaphorical meaning. If this is the case, it sounds like miss Mary Mack is a young girl who recently lost her father, indicated by her mother’s dressing in all black. Following the same train of thought, the fifty cents she asks for could be the symbolic payment for the ferryman her father needs to pass through the underworld, as was popularized by the Greek myth of Charon. Additionally, the elephant touching the sky and not coming back ’til the Fourth of July could be symbolic of the girl’s father reaching heaven, subsequently being celebrated on the Fourth of July. For this last part to be the case, however, the song would have to have its roots in the Revolutionary War era, which could be possible.

Secret Agents

Nationality: Singaporean
Age: 7
Occupation: Student
Residence: Singapore
Performance Date: 04/02/2021
Primary Language: English

Context

The following is collected during a routine call with my younger brother.

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Performance

The following is a story told to me by the interviewee.

“Yes, I have a secret organization in class where I’m the boss. And I have all my secret agents and they do things for me. I send them out on missions to collect pencils and collect all the secrets from other people in the class. And then we guard those secrets, or we can also use those secrets if we need to, but we don’t, because we are the good guys. And there is another secret organization that Christian is in charge of. And we are going to have a war soon but I will win when we do so it’s okay. He doesn’t have as many secret agents as I do, I think he only has five or six, but about half the class is my secret agent.”

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Analysis

Secret Organizations are always common amongst children in schools. They are starting to meet peers for the first time and naturally are starting to create in groups and out-groups. They are searching for a sense of belonging, and for the first time are experiencing what it means to feel community. Thus it makes sense that they would actively work to creating their own communities. And add on the imagination of a child, secret organizations with spies and agents is a common answer. What is interesting is the competitive level that the interviewee felt to express. That he had a better agent organization than his friend because he had more people with him. Thus we see numbers is what gives this organization power. This makes sense for a child at the age of seven, the more friends you have, the more popular you are in class, and thus the more power you possess.

The I-Love-You Game

Nationality: American
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Residence: California
Performance Date: 04/22/2021
Primary Language: English

Context

The interview is with one of my friends as she recounts a game that she used to play with her family

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Performance

The following is a story told to me by the interviewee.

“Growing up, at the end of our day when we were checking in we would play the game called the I love you game. It always had to be right as the person came in, so my sister and I would wait by the door, and as our parents came in, I would jump out, and then we would have to say the phrase “reflection, block, power base, force field, I love you more than you can say do think to imagine count listen hear write whatever you can think of goo-gol plex, I win the I love you game” and whoever said the phrase the fastest they would win the I Love you game. My mom came up with the game and we played it until I was sixteen years old.”

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Analysis

This very cute and sweet family ritual is perhaps one of my favorite pieces that I have collected. It is a simple game played amongst a family of four, in which the family shows each other how much they love one another. This game likely started as a silly thing that the mother did when the children were younger which then became a ritual that the family consistently practices. Knowing the interviewee, I have an understanding of her family background in which her father was not home for a lot of her childhood and thus this game could have been a way to show the children how much bother parents loved and cared for them, even if one of them could not have always been around.

High School Senior Pranks

Nationality: Armenian American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Glendale, California
Performance Date: April 18, 2021
Primary Language: English
Language: Armenian, Farsi

Main Piece

My informant explains that her old high school has an age-old rival high school in the same city. She remembers that the graduating seniors of every year would perform a prank on the rival school, and the rival school would do the same. These pranks were usually harmless, but sometimes costly to recover from. She remembers that in her senior year of high school, a few seniors from her school dyed the rival school’s pool purple, which was her school’s colors. The rival school, looking for revenge, threw two queen-sized mattresses in her school’s pool, which absorbed a large amount of water, making it impossible to lift them out of the pool without a crane. She laughed as she recounted these memories to me.

Background

My informant is a college student studying Business. She was school spirited in high school and claims to have always participated in senior activities with her classmates. She explains that nobody she asked could remember how the rivalry between the two high schools started. However, according to my informant, it is not hard to draw conclusions. Both schools were located in the same small suburb of Los Angeles, ranked academically high, and held strong sports teams. She concludes that these factors may have caused, in her own words, this “friendly, but not-so-friendly” rivalry between the two high schools. She explains that in addition to the senior pranks, there would be one school day out of the entire academic year dedicated to pep rallies and parties to encourage the football team to beat the rival school later that day. She explains that these schools were rivals in every way, but her favorite part of the rivalry was the senior pranks.

Context

These senior pranks are performed by high school seniors. Faculty members knew about the pranks and were aware of the plans for the pranks, but never interfered with them unless they saw a safety issue or a health hazard that could possibly result from the pranks. Usually, these pranks were performed later in the year, when most seniors suffered from “senioritis” and would rather organize pranks than do any more schoolwork. 

My Thoughts

I attended the same high school as my informant, and can attest to the large-scale rivalry between these two high schools. The pranks that the seniors performed were generally creative and inventive, but the pranks were not as important as the act of organizing these pranks. Students came together after school to meticulously plan their pranks to perfection. This goes to show that the prank itself was not important. The value of this tradition came from the act of coming together. 

High school seniors are in a liminal period. They are transitioning from their identity as a student to their identity as an adult, whether they enter the workforce or go off to college. Senior pranks are a form of rite of passage. According to French ethnographer Arnold van Gennep, practical jokes and pranks such as senior pranks are performed during these liminal times to ease the tensions and anxieties that come with the transition. Thus, we can conclude that senior pranks were a way to smoothen the transition from student to adult for high school seniors. 

Armenian Foodway – Kyomba

Nationality: Armenian
Age: 24
Occupation: Medical Biller
Residence: Burbank, California
Performance Date: February 11, 2021
Primary Language: Armenian
Language: English, Russian

(Some parts of this conversation took place in Armenian and have been translated to English)

Main Piece

Informant: Have you ever heard of Kyomba?

Me: I have yeah my family does it. But I noticed that not many Armenians make it here [in America].

Informant: Yes, I have noticed that too. That’s not good.  

Me: How did you do it in Armenia? Maybe it’s different than how my family does it here.

Lili: Well, every year on January fourth… or was it the fifth… no, sorry, it was the fourth. January fourth. My mom and I bake the Kyomba. It is a pastry filled with ground walnuts and sugar. And in the dough, we hide a 1-dram coin [dram is Armenian currency]. We bake the Kyomba, then we slice it into equal pieces. One for each family member. Whoever gets the coin had good luck for the rest of the year.

Me: Yeah, we do it that way too. But we would also cut a slice for the house. So the house we lived in would also get a piece. Also my grandma and I hid a quarter in the dough because we didn’t have any dram.

Lili: I guess it does the same thing. I’m glad at least somebody makes Kyomba here [in America] too! I didn’t think you would. The best part about this, I think, is just making it. To be honest, it tastes good, but making it is so fun that I don’t really care about the taste.

Context

Kyomba is made every year on January fourth. It is a casual event to bring the family together. The rules governing the Kyomba-making process are not strictly enforced. My informant learned of this tradition from her mother. Kyomba is usually not performed when there was a recent loss of a relative or family member.

Background

During the conversation, my informant revealed that she learned this tradition from her mother. She is fond of this tradition as it results in her spending time with her mother.

My Thoughts

Hearing my informant talk about this tradition and witnessing her excitement when she was explaining it made me realize that many people perform this tradition because it brings the family together. This recipe is many, many centuries old and uses ingredients that would have been relatively cheap and easy to come by. Therefore, my informant and I can conclude that this was a tradition practiced by the lower class. The purpose of the Kyomba tradition is not to bestow a year of luck upon the one who finds the coin, but to bring the family together for the entire year to observe the good (or bad) luck of the winner.