Category Archives: Game

Choo Choo Cholly

Nationality: Mexican American
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Arkansas
Performance Date: 4/18/19
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

“I went to a Chinese restaurant

to buy a loaf of bread bread bread,

they asked me what my name was

and this what I said said said,

My name is choo choo cholly

I love karate

punch you in the stomach

oops I’m sorry,

I’m callin mama ha ha ha

on the double,

my name is boys are messy

girls are sassy

in the bathtub

drinking the pepsi

myyy name is cheap roast beef eeeh”

Context & background: LJ and I were recalling rhymes and games we used to do during school. This poem is played while playing a hand game with clapping and reciting from both participants. LJ learned this from her cousin when she was in middle school while they were on a road trip. She had recently asked her cousin if she remembered the poem and her cousin did. She likes this poem because it reminds her of the road trip and of her cousin teaching it to her.

Analysis: This a song game that children use to play and pass time. The poem is upbeat however if one takes a look at just the words, they do not fully make sense. It shows that the poem was mostly created to rhyme and follow a specific beat. It also contains many stereotypes such as “boys are messy” and “girls are sassy.” Children are taught at a young age how girls and boys are supposed to act. I was amazed that my friend and her cousin remembered this poem song since it is quite long.

 

Bubblegum Bubblegum

Nationality: Salvadorean
Age: 24
Occupation: Law Student Advisor
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 3/9/19
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

MR: “Oh…Did you ever play Bubblegum bubblegum in a dish, how many pieces do you wish?”

MG: Wait can you explain how it went?

MR: “When you are going to play a game and you need to choose a person, everyone has to put their shoe in the middle (puts foot in middle) then you say …”Bubblegum bubblegum in a dish, how many pieces do you wish?” oh and then whoever it lands on has to pick a number and then it continues until that number is reached. Whoever it lands on gets out until the last person is left.”

Context: We were talking about childhood games and this rhyme came up.

Background: Informant is twenty four years old and from the Los Angeles area. RR remembers playing this in school for tag or hide and seek and also with her cousins. She believes she learned this from the other students in her class. Then, she taught this to her little brothers.

Analysis: Children often teach other children folklore. I thought it was quite interesting that regardless of the fact that RR is two/three years older than me, I also learned this rhyme from other children in my school. It shows that folklore can live on for many years and now lives in our memories. This song/rhyme is a common example of children bringing order and structure to their play. This rhyme allows children to choose a leader in a fair way. Because the person it lands on the first time gets to chose a number it leads it up to fate, in a sense, to choose the person who will be “it.” It prevents kids from fighting over being chosen or not being chosen.

Other versions of this include using one’s fist to count rather than one’s shoes. For this version please see: https://www.mamalisa.com/?t=es&p=2776

Don’t Get the Cheese Touch

Nationality: American
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Saratoga, CA
Performance Date: 3/14/19
Primary Language: English

Piece:

Interviewer: “What about games? Any you remember from childhood?

L.F.: “Lemme think…. Oh yeah haha the cheese touch.”

Interviewer: “What is the cheese touch?”

L.F.: “It was kinda like the elementary school bully version of tag. Basically when someone had the “cheese touch” no one would speak to them out of the fear of getting it.”

Interviewer: “What was it though?”

L.F.: “hahahaha… I don’t know… It was just like cooties. No one knew what they were but you definitely didn’t want it.”

Informant:

Informant L.F. is a teenage boy who recently became an adult. He is half Japanese and half Jewish and has spent his entire life in Northern California. During the summers, L.F. likes to attend away summer camp, and had attended the same camp for the past five summers. The camp is ranges from three weeks to 2 months and L.F. will be returning this summer as a counselor.

Context:

I asked informant L.F. to sit down for a formal interview on young adult folklore and if he remembered any weird games from his childhood or now. This is what he thought of.

Interpretation:

To L.F. the cheese touch was a childhood game used to ridicule and scare kids into bullying one another. And, while her has fun memories of playing the game, he admits it was a representation of childhood bullying. L.F. does not remember who he learned the game from, but it was the sort of game that never really ended and all his school friends were apart of it. It reminds him of simpler times and of his youth.

 

Beer Pong and House Rules

Nationality: American
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: Spring 2019
Primary Language: English

Piece:
K is the interviewed party.
J is the interviewer.

K: “Beer pong house rules kind of differ depending on which house, what house you’re in, like people always come up with different things, but the main rules kind of center around getting… I find the most interesting rules are what happens if you get b*tch cup. So, b*tch cup in beer pong is the center cup in a 4-3-2-1 pyramid, and some of the ways that I’ve seen it played is if you make b*tch cup you have to take off your shirt, and sometimes it’s different. sometimes for guys its shirts and for girls, it’s pants, sometimes for guys its shirts and for guys pants. I’ve also seen it where both genders just take off their pants. I’ve also seen it where if you b*tch cup you have to … there’s one where you have to drink a beer, drink a full beer, that was dumb, ‘cause if you got b*tch cup you have to drink a full beer. There’s also one where if you get b*tch cup as your first cup it doesn’t count as a cup, yeah… There’s also variations for if you get to pull your pants up after you make another cup or put your shirt on after you make a cup, or if it stays off the entire rest of the game. Or sometimes if [it continues on if] you play more games at the same table. There’s also a lot of things around trolling. One particular tradition, which is when you don’t make any of the cups in a game, you have to spend the next game sitting under the table, like as if you’re a troll under a bridge.”

J: “Are these [rules] largely regional or do they vary in local areas?”

K: “I’ve seen the ‘cup doesn’t count’ a lot more on the east coast, but I think the whole pants shirt, which one you remove thing is more up to the house. I find people do shirts more often in communities where there’s more girls around, whereas with guys it’s normally… I think guys normally just play pants.”
J: “Where did you hear about the style that you play?”
K: “I heard about it at my fraternity house, where we don’t really do anything.”

Analysis:

I have played or heard some variation of most of the rules discussed earlier. While the reasoning behind changes is hard to nail down, in this case, I would say that many of them come down to the comfort level and competitiveness of the main group of players for each area that has its own ruleset. For people who all know each other, taking off clothes is much less intimidating than if the room is full of strangers. It also helps that the drinking nature of the game means that most players are a little loosened up and more open to doing things of that nature. That being said, some people may have no interest in any of these rules and choose not to follow them. The interesting note that I have personally found about these house rulesets is how strictly people adhere to rules once they are made up and chosen. Groups are very unlikely to alter house rules and will defend their own tooth and nail when presented with an outside alternative. The only way to settle this argument can be found in the name. The reason they are often called house rules is that when you’re in that house, those are the rules you play. Playing house rules is usually done out of respect, but sometimes it is a way to lord power over those who aren’t a member of the in-group of the house; this is especially evident with many fraternity house rulesets. A fraternity house is the domain of no one but the members, where they are used to ruling with absolute authority. House rules are usually much more of a suggestion when the people playing are on a more equal level.

Context:

The interviewed party is a 21-year-old, male southern-California native. He lived his whole life in Irvine, California until he moved to Los Angeles to study at the University of Southern California. In the fall of his freshman year, he pledged one of USC’s fraternities and has been an active member since. This interview was conducted in person at the interviewer’s house. The audio of the conversation was recorded in order to ensure accuracy when writing the spoken words.

Modifying Fortune Cookie Fortunes

Nationality: American
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: Spring 2019
Primary Language: English

Piece:
J is the interviewer.
K is the interviewed party.

K: “I would like to preface this with the fact that none of these are legitimate rules, I don’t think, as far as they go, and they’re just what I’ve always done. So whenever you go to a restaurant and they give you fortune cookies, right at the beginning, I’ve always heard that it’s bad luck or something to grab one — anyone but the one that’s closest to you. You have to grab the closest one otherwise its either bad luck or your fortune won’t come true or something like that. But then something that my mom would always do, believe it or not, is that whatever you read, whenever you say — it has to — you just add the words, when you read it out loud to other people, you read it and you say your fortune and then you add the words, as uncouth as they are, ‘in bed with a midget.’ So people will read their fortune, and it’ll say, ‘good luck will come to you’ or, ‘good favor’ or ‘you’ll discover something about yourself’ and then you say in bed with a midget at the end.”

Analysis:

Even though they come at the end of Chinese food meals, fortune cookies are actually a known American invention, so they exist as an example of one culture adding to another and being adopted by the new culture. If I ever go to a Chinese restaurant, I feel somewhat cheated if I don’t get a fortune cookie at the end of the meal, knowing full well that fortune cookies have no legitimate claim to Chinese heritage.

Fortune cookies exist for many people as a lighthearted form of the spirituality of another culture. The jovial nature of their existence is a perfect way to incorporate personal traditions of making the experience even funnier. At many of the dinners where fortune cookies are served, I have experienced a similar tradition of reading the fortunes and deciding who had the best one or putting personal spins on the fortunes to make them even better.

Context:

The interviewed party is a 21-year-old, male southern-California native. He lived his whole life in Irvine, California until he moved to Los Angeles to study at the University of Southern California. This interview was conducted in person at the interviewer’s house. The audio of the conversation was recorded in order to ensure accuracy when writing the spoken words.