Category Archives: Game

Echale Sal al Animal, Quien te Pico

Nationality: Mexican American
Age: 45
Occupation: unemployed
Residence: Franklin Park, IL
Performance Date: 3.16.20
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

Background: The account below is explaining a game that the informant used to play as a child with her family members. The informant is Mexican American and grew up on the South Side of Chicago. She remembers a few games and stories that she played as a kid that would entertain her and her cousins without toys, or often supervision. However, the specific game below is one she learned from her mom, who learned it from her mom, who heard it from her mom. This has been passed for generations. The informant doesn’t remember playing this in school, only with family members. 

Main piece: 

*** names of informant’s family members are represented by S, J, R

My sisters used to play that. They’d be like okay, “Lie down! Echale sal…” and my mom too. If we were bored in the car she’d say okay let’s play a game. And like you bend over on the legs and you pull the back of your shirt up and you take turns, and you have to guess who pinched you. Was it S, was it J, was it R, ya know, was it mom? Who pinched you? It’s a group game and if you guessed right then that person would go next. If you guessed wrong you’d lie back down and do the pinch over again until you guessed who pinched you. If they were being jerks they pinched hard. “Echale sal al animal, quien te pico” It means, “put salt on the animal who bit you” and pico is like a poke, like a fork. Like you would stick an animal with a  fork, ya know. That’s why they said put salt on the animal — like they’re salting you up when they rub their hands on your back. Echale sal al animal— and PLOOP. And poke. So rubbing the salt on the back is like they’re seasoning an animal and then boop you get pinched… I mean you have to think way back when as kids you had to entertain yourselves. We all played that. Well, the family did.

Context: This conversation took place over a video chat. During the conversation I  asked about her version of this saying, sharing that I had my own. The informant instantly filled with giddy nostalgia as she explained something so natural and personal to her childhood.

My thoughts: I grew with the same Spanish text: Echale sal al animal quien te pico. However, my experience never translated over to a game. My mother would rub my back in circles saying the line, and then she would lightly and playfully give my back a pinch. This happened a lot in an embrace, so it was always a term or gesture of endearment. My family members often did this to each other sometimes if they were being playful. More to the little kids who would go off giggling after being pinched. I was fascinated to learn the informant’s version. I realized that both of our experiences were terms of endearment that we shared with a select few. Moreover, it brings back happy childhood memories. I feel that this game is also related to other hand/ body games that children would play with their closest friends to jovially pass time without worry. 

Sharks and Minnows

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: student
Residence: Fullerton
Performance Date: 4/29/2020
Primary Language: English
Language: Mandarin, Vietnamese

Text:

Informant: Sharks and minnows. It’s kinda like tag. Some kids are sharks and some kids are minnows. The sharks tag the minnows. If you’re a minnow and you get tagged you have to squat down and raise a hand. You have to stay there until another minnow comes and high-fives you. Then you can get up and run again. The minnows lose once the sharks get all of them. Now that I think about it, I don’t think there was ever a way for the minnows to win.

Context:

I asked a group of friends what games they played on the playground as a child. This was one of their responses. The informant was raised in suburban southern California.

Thoughts:

Everyone I spoke to about childhood games could often remember the rules perfectly, but never how one party could win. I’m sure there had to be a way, but everyone, myself included, couldn’t remember. Maybe the bell rang before we could ever finish.

Christmas Baby Jesus Cake

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: student
Residence: Fullerton, CA
Performance Date: 4/29/2020
Primary Language: English

Text:

Informant: I know as a kid– I grew up in a fairly predominantly hispanic neighborhood– there was this cake. It’s like this big pastry, and each person gets a slice. One of them has the baby Jesus. It’s supposed to represent Jesus in everything. It’s also supposed to be good luck.  You’re like receiving him into your home, and the good luck that that brings.

Context:

I asked a group of friends if they had any holiday traditions. This was one of their replies. The informant is of hispanic descent.

Thoughts:

I grew up playing this game with my neighborhood at the holiday block party. I had no idea it had a specific connection to being a hispanic tradition.

Rubber Band Jumprope

Performance Date: 4/28/2020
Language: Primary language is Taiwanese. Also speaks Mandarain, Cantonese, and English

Piece
We didn’t have much in the village I grew up in, so kids just made toys out of whatever they had. We would always save things to make toys out of. Like if one kid got enough rubber bands, we would make a jump rope and we’d all go to the field and play until it broke. Sometimes we had multiple ropes and we do competitions.Example of the folklore piece

Context
The informant was a participant in this piece of folklore as a child who learned the activity from other children in their neighborhood. Telling this story seemed to make the informant think of how resourceful children were in her village and in her time.
This story was shared when the informant was asked what they used to do as children by the informant’s grandchildren looking for something to do or play.

My Thoughts
I connected this to the craze that happened several years ago over band looms that allowed children to make necklaces, bracelets, rings, etc. using these colorful little rubber bands. This says a lot about our current circumstances as now children gain these play toys through commercialism where in my informant’s youth, children didn’t buy things but played with what they had.

Peppering

Context: The informant is a current junior at Cal Poly SLO. She plays volleyball at the intramural level and has been playing volleyball since middle school.  The following is an interview between me (DM) and the informant (EM)

EM: Peppering is a warm up drill between two to three players as a warmup drill where the people pass the ball to each other in different variations of bump, set, and spike.

DM: What version are you most experienced with?

EM: The version I’m used to includes two players. It starts when one member passes the ball to the other. That second person sets it to the first and the first spikes it to the second. Once spiked, the roles are interchanged and the cycle starts again.

DM: What other versions are there?

EM: Although the way I explained is the most common version, as long as you maintain the order of bump, set, and spike, you could call it peppering. It could be with a net in between or just in a circle, you can pepper almost anywhere.

DM: Why is it called peppering and where did you first learn about it?

I’m not too sure why this drill is called peppering though, it was just something I was taught. I learned about it in my freshman year of high school on my varsity volleyball team from my coach.

Thoughts: I’m curious about why the drill is called peppering. It shows the resourcefulness of volleyball players since volleyball nets aren’t as common and since volleyball normally requires many people to play normally. Since they aren’t able to always have a court, the concept of peppering adapts to where and how many people are available.