Category Archives: general

Post Funeral Practices

Nationality: American
Age: 50
Occupation: Home renovator
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Language: English

Text:

“After funerals, we always wash our hands with pomegranate leaves in a bowl before we can enter the house. Also, you cannot go straight home directly after a funeral, as it will bring bad luck. You always need to go somewhere else.”

Context:

My informant learned this from the older Chinese generation in his family. His mother would always remind him to do these rituals after attending a funeral.

Analysis:

Chinese culture has many superstitions regarding funerals, as demonstrated through these rituals. This practice of washing your hands before entering the house is related to apotropaic magic in that the symbolic action is intended to wash off any bad luck or ward off evil spirits. This falls under the category of contagious magic, the idea that things that were once in contact will influence each other even after the contact is broken. In the context of a funeral, individuals who have come into contact with impurities must wash it away to break the connection.

Qingming Festival

Nationality: American
Age: 21
Occupation: College Student
Residence: Brooklyn, New York
Language: English

Text:

Collector: “Can you describe any rituals or festivals you have participated in before?”

Informant: “My family and I have a yearly ritual where we go to the cemetery to visit my great grandparents. We visit their grave and burn fake money and clothes to send them these things in the afterlife. We also burn stuff like cars, houses, accessories, jewelry, bags. They are all made of paper but it’s supposed to give them the real thing in the afterlife. We then burn incense and bow and pray to them.”

Collector: “What time of the year do you guys do this tradition? Is it based on your family’s religious beliefs?”

Informant: “We typically try to go a little bit after Chinese New Year. My immediate family isn’t religious, but I believe it’s based on Buddhist beliefs in the afterlife.”

Context:

My informant is Chinese-American and has been participating in this yearly ritual since she was young. While her immediate family is not religious, they practice some Chinese Buddhist traditions such as bringing items to their deceased loved ones and praying to them.

Analysis:

This ritual is a part of a traditional Chinese Holiday, typically practiced in the beginning of April during the Qingming festival, which translates to “Tomb Sweeping Day”. This festival reflects a common Chinese belief in the afterlife, but is not . It is a way for people to honor their deceased ancestors and loved ones, ensuring that they are well taken care of in the afterlife. Some people believe that “sweeping the tomb” is only to be done during the festival, otherwise it would be disturbing the deceased. It is a way for the living and the dead to feel connected. People pray to feel spiritually connected to their ancestors.

Festival: Salu Salo

Date of Performance: 05/01/2025

Nationality: Filipino

Primary Language: English

Residence: Manila, Philippines

My informant recalls a fond memory from his school days. He grew up in the Philippines, and when my informant was a child, he attended an annual festival called “Salu Salo”, which means welcome, or something similar, in Tagalog. It was a school event, wherein he and his classmates would experience Filipino culture, and play at various stalls and events related to the festival. His whole middle school would have haunted houses, small rides, and bounce houses set up, and it was the preeminent celebration of their school year. Normally, his school, which was Catholic, had a uniform, but on this day, children were allowed to wear whatever they want. It’s a spin on the classic Filipino “Fiesta”, or celebration, and to start it, the class would all be together, and have a party, involving dance, food, and other games. Parents were invited to attend, and teachers would man the stalls and join in celebrations with their students. Overall, it was a fun event that encouraged the students of my informant’s school to be proud of their Filipino heritage and be rewarded for their work across the school year. 

This festival sounds to me like a combination of a more typical end of the year party and a more traditional celebration of Filipino culture. I’d imagine that events like these help to connect feelings of relief and happiness with national pride, bolstering morale while also reminding children of their background.

Festival: Japanese New Year

Date of Performance: 04/30/2025

Nationality: American

Primary Language: English

Residence: Los Angeles, California

My informant, who is half-Japanese, tells me of the traditional New Year’s celebration her and her family would follow every year. She didn’t grow up in Japan, but her grandparents still lived in Tokyo, so around the new year, they would visit and stay with them for about a week. The week would be spent watching reruns of 80s television, and then on the 31st, her grandmother would prepare a traditional wintertime stew called Oden, which consists of fish cakes, radish, and other vegetables. They would stay up until midnight, and then celebrate with the annual airing of a New Year’s concert attended by various important figures in the Japanese political and entertainment world. The following day, they would eat something called Osechi Ryori, an assortment of traditional dishes that is eaten every new year’s day, each of which have symbolic meaning for good luck and fortune. Then, they would all go to the shrine near her grandmother’s house, where they would make their first prayer of the year, draw cards that symbolized their incoming fortunes, and eat from traditional food stalls. Sometimes she would go in traditional kimono attire, but for the most part she describes this experience as pretty casual. 

Kind of like the Christmas celebrations described by my other informant, while this practice has its roots in religion, my informant has treated it as more of an informal, familial celebration than one related to its Shinto foundation. They related this experience more to their memories of their grandparents than to its cultural and religious significance, but stated that its yearly practice helped to link my informant with her Japanese side.

Ritual: Pre-performance Routine

Date of Performance: 04/30/2025

Nationality: British

Primary Language: English

Residence: Edinburgh, Scotland

My informant is a performing musician, and describes to me his pre-show ritual. He’s a singer, and so his routine is precise – while some of it is mental, any anomalies could compromise the condition of his vocal cords. It consists of several conditions: first, without fail, on the day of a show, he drinks “two full britas” worth of water. This, he explains, is to keep his vocal cords as hydrated as possible. This step is probably the most critical – as an example, he recounts a time when he had several alcoholic drinks instead of water, and embarrassed himself deeply onstage after the fact. Next is his diet: on the day of the performance, he eats only a sandwich with tomatoes and cucumber. Anything oily, like meat or fried foods, throws him off, he says. Before he arrives at the venue, he drinks a thermos of tea, specifically throat coat, at a medium temperature. Finally, while driving to the show, my informant listens to “Boogie Wonderland” by Earth, Wind, and Fire to get him in the right state of mind for his performance. 

He says that he doesn’t necessarily ascribe meaning to each of the steps in his ritual, but that adhering to them keeps his mind and body in the right space so as to perform to his best ability. When asked as to how he formulated each step, he responded that they were things that just sort of stuck with him as he performed more and more. I did witness a concert of his after this interview, and I can attest that his ritual seems to have worked. 

Being a performing musician myself, too, I can understand the importance of a standardized pre-show routine to my informant. While personally, I don’t adhere to as strict of a regimen, the music I perform doesn’t rely heavily on vocal technique, which might be the difference. A lot of singers I know have similarly precise routines, likely due to the biological component of singing properly. Often, they are encouraged to follow more rigid warm-up rituals so as to keep the vocal cords, a muscle, in its best condition, much like athletes would do before a game or competition.