Category Archives: Game

Greek Life Shotgun Pinning

Nationality: American
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Residence: Chicago, IL
Performance Date: 4-10-19
Primary Language: English

Text

The following piece was collected from a twenty-two year-old girl who is also a student at USC in the Greek community. We were discussing a “shotgun pinning” that was to occur later that day. She will hereafter be referred to as the “Informant”, and I the “Collector”.

Collector: “So, what is it exactly?”

Informant: “Basically, it’s the people who are more wacky or untraditional in the way that they don’t want a normal pinning. So their friends set it up for them. It’s so much more fun than the normal pinnings. It’s funny.”

Collector: “What do they do?”

Informant: “First, the guy’s friends get him really drunk and the girls do the same thing. Then all the friends tie the couple to a mattress. They have to sit on the mattress in front of the house while all their friends give embarrassing speeches and everybody cheers.”

Context

The Informant learned of this custom within the Greek community at USC by first hearing it from other members, both in her sorority and friends in fraternities. The Informant then witnessed it herself. She believes it to be a non-serious, fun way to show off your partner but stress-free because that how the couple acts anyway. She remembers them because they occur at least once every year before the seniors graduate.

Interpretation

            Upon first hearing about the untraditional tradition, I laughed at the strangeness of it. But after witnessing one myself, I believe it to have a slightly different meaning. I think the couples that participate in the shotgun pinnings are, like my informant said, a non-typical sorority or fraternity member. By allowing their friends to handle it and force them to go through with it, the stress is removed from the situation. I also believe that everyone finds them to be more fun because no one is taking themselves seriously. If a couple were to participate in a shotgun pinning ceremony, I would immediately think, ‘Oh yeah, so they’re not that into the normal pinning.’ Then I begin to think about all the possibilities of that couple to dislike the Greek community and so they act in unconventional ways in order to make that point clear.

Symbolizing that Christ Has Risen Through Greek Easter Eggs

Nationality: Greek
Age: 78
Occupation: Retired
Residence: Carmel
Performance Date: 4/21/19
Primary Language: English

The informant shared a Greek Easter tradition of cracking red eggs with me, while her younger sister provided supporting information. The game starts with every member of a family receiving an egg, and then cracking it against someone else’s egg. Whoever’s egg remains un-cracked at the end of the game receives good luck for the year.

Informant: The Greek eggs are dyed red because it signifies the blood of christ… the red… and um they can only be dyed red on Thursday… Maundy-Thursday. And also when you crack the eggs … when you crack the eggs it’s like Christ being released from the tomb

Support: the shell symbolizes the tomb 

Me: Do you practice this every year for easter?

Informant: Yes, yes. The interesting thing is that depending on the calendar. Sometimes Greek Easter and regular Easter are the same day. And other times it can be as many as  4 weeks apart?

Support: Yes, Greek easter has to be after the Passover and it has to be the first full moon of the month

Informant: After the first full moon

Support: Yes after, there has to be Passover and then after the first full moon. It has to be after that. Because the last supper was a Passover dinner, so we’re on a different calendar. We’re not on the Gregorian calendar, we’re on the Julian Calendar.

Informant: But in the American tradition, Easter is the same time as Passover because that’s when Jesus went into Jerusalem was before the Passover. But the Greeks have a different date for the Passover I guess.

Support: It’s because we’re on a different calendar. But it can’t be celebrated before, so those two things.. Passover and the full moon dictate when we celebrate.  

 

Context: 

The Informant is a Greek woman who was born in the United States. She currently lives in Carmel-By-The-Sea, CA. Though she was not born in Greece, her parents immigrated to the US and she was born into a very Greek community in Phoenix, AZ. The performance was held during an Easter party, in front of her younger sister, who provided supporting information, as well as me.

Analysis:
Being part Greek, I have always been aware of the ‘Red Egg’ tradition my family practices during Easter. However, I never knew how in depth it went as a cultural practice. For me, it was just a game where the winner would receive good luck for the year, but as I talked with the informant I discovered that it was so much more. The tradition represents the many different components of Easter in one unified ritual.

 

For more information on Greek Easter eggs and why they are dyed red, you can reference page 25 of Greece by Gina DeAngelis.

Goodluck Dumplings

Nationality: Chinese
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 3/31/19
Primary Language: Chinese
Language: English

My informant shared a piece of Chinese culture she practices with her family during the Chinese New Year:

Informant: Ok so for Chinese New Year, we make…the tradition is to eat Dumplings…and then we will hide one coin in one of the dumplings and whoever eats that dumpling will have good luck.

Context:

I was talking with a group of friends while we were working on a class project and some of the group members wanted to share pieces of their traditions with me. It was a very casual setting and the performance took place in front of three other individuals.

Background:

The informant is from Hong Kong, China, but attends school at USC. This practice is something she normally does with her family during the Chinese New Year.

Analysis:

I found this really interesting because it reminds me of how in New Orleans, the baby is hidden in the Mardis Gras cake. Whoever finds the baby will receive good luck for the year. While these two traditions use very different foods and tokens to spread luck, they are surprisingly similar.

Greek Orthodox Easter Egg Game

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Chicago
Performance Date: April 24th, 2019
Primary Language: English
Language: Greek

The following Greek Orthodox easter tradition was performed in New/North  on April 24th, 2019

According to the informant, the Greek orthodox church also has traditions involving eggs.

“There’s a game I love to play where we dye eggs red, which is meant to be the blood that Jesus sacrificed. Then you hit two eggs top top, bottom bottom and crack them against each other.” The game ends when an egg cracks, and the uncracked egg wins.

“ Whenever you do it you say “christós anésti“ which translates to “christ is risen”, and then other person says back “pragmatiká échei anévei” meaning “truly he has risen.” This game is fun for kids but also has serious meaning with the red dye symbolism. Children grow up learning about their faith because of the games attached, just as the informant did.

 

Elf on the Shelf

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: College Student
Residence: Los Angeles and North Carolina
Performance Date: 04/15/19
Primary Language: English

“Around Christmas time we would decorate the house, and one of the decorations was this little elf, and it was supposedly watching for Santa, and it would move every morning, or every week or so, to a different spot in the house. I believed in it at first but then I started becoming the one who moved it, because my parents stopped. I don’t know how to word that right, but I became God. I’ll probably do it again for my kids because it’s fun. And not at all religious. My best friend also did it and we bonded over how we used to think it was real. And I know it’s a pretty common thing where I was and probably in lots of the rest of America.”

Background: My informant, AB, likes Elf on the Shelf mostly because it is innocent fun. She picked it up from her parents and family, who in turn found it either from friends or from the physical elf product.

Her comment that she would carry on the tradition not only because it’s fun, but because it’s not religious in her view, is interesting.  She made this comment in part because, although AB was raised Christian, she has become agnostic and disillusioned with organized religion. She takes more interest in astrology and various magical traditions than in any institutional faith. However, though the Elf on the Shelf tradition may not be explicitly religious, and certainly is not biblical in the manner of many other Christmas traditions, it is nevertheless connected with a primarily Christian holiday.

However, even Christmas has roots in other, “pagan,” winter traditions, including the celebration of the solstice. Traditions which disregard the official, Biblical elements of Christmas and incorporate informal games are common around this time, including the Christmas Pickle and various forms of gift swap events.