Category Archives: general

Birthday Soups

Nationality: Korean
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Performance Date: 4/25/2022
Primary Language: English
Language: Korean

Background: The informant (J) is the son of two Korean immigrants. He moved to a city on the west coast when he was two years old and grew up there, but he was born in Korea and spent many summers there with his family.

J: On new years you eat this soup called tteokguk. Basically the reason why is that you don’t age by your birthday, you age by the year. Which is why when you’re born you’re like already one year old technically. It’s just different in Korea, like you just age every new year instead of on your birthday. I don’t know exactly why you eat it but it just symbolizes how you’ve aged a year. So according to tradition if you didn’t eat tteokguk on new years then you wouldn’t age, like, as in you have to eat it so you can age.

Me: Do you guys celebrate the new year with the western calendar or lunar or something

J: Uh… I don’t really know but I think it’s the same as Chinese New Year.

Me: Oh that’s the lunar calendar then.

J: Oh also tteokguk is rice cake soup, it’s a pretty light soup. And there’s also another birthday food, it’s called seaweed soup. Or i mean it’s not called seaweed soup it just is seaweed soup

Me: Do you know what it’s called in Korean?

J: Miyuk guk.

Me: Why do you eat that for birthdays?

J: It’s supposed to symbolize all the hard work your mom goes through like, birthing you.

Me: Why does it symbolize that?

J: Cause like, it’s supposed to be like your mom ate the soup when she had you and was recovering, so you eating is supposed to be like you honoring that and remembering…if that makes sense

Me: Wait so do women always eat it while they’re recovering from giving birth? Is it like a healing type soup or something?

J: Uhhh I don’t know…I think they just eat it because it…goes down easy? Like you don’t really have to like…chew a lot cause it’s really light and it’s just seaweed and soup. It’s probably kind of…nutritious too I guess.

Me: Do you eat seaweed soup on your day of birth or also on the new year when you’re like…considered to have aged?

J: No, I eat it on my day of birth. Because we don’t age on our birthday but the soup symbolizes your actual birth and like..the…struggles…of your mom

Me: I assume that everyone eats the rice cake on new year since everyone ages at the same time but does everyone eat the seaweed soup or just the person whose birthday it is

J: No only the..birthday person. Like my mom would eat it on her birthday and my dad would eat it on his birthday.

Context: This was told to me and recorded during an in person interview.

Korean Chopstick Etiquette

Nationality: Korean
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Performance Date: 4/23/2022
Primary Language: English
Language: Korean

The informant (J) is the son of two Korean immigrants. He moved to a city on the west coast when he was two years old and grew up there, but he was born in Korea and spent many summers there with his family.

J: When you eat rice or something you’re not supposed to stab your fork or chopsticks into the rice because it’s the symbol of like…you’re killing someone.

Me: Like it resembles the motion of stabbing someone?

J: Or no like, it’s…an incense funeral thing. Cause at a funeral you have an incense candle thing that you stick into this bowl and it sticks out and you light it

Me: Why do you do that at funerals?

J: I think it’s just to like…honor the dead I guess.

Me: Where’d you learn about the chopstick thing and the incense?

J: Um… I think my parents probably just told me not to like…stick my chopsticks into my food like when I was younger. I went to Korean school when I was a kid too and I’m pretty sure they told us about funerals

Context: This was told to me while we were in the living room of the informant’s apartment.

No Early Birthday Wishes in Germany

Nationality: German/American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Performance Date: 4/20/2022
Primary Language: English
Language: German

The informant is the daughter of two German immigrants. She was born in Germany, spent time in France, and grew up in the US. She is a college student.

Informant: In Germany it’s a big no-no to say happy birthday to people early or celebrate early or anything. If you do that it’s supposed to like… give them a year of bad luck so we just…don’t do that. And if you do that to someone else they definitely won’t be happy.

Me: Ohh my god I definitely wished you a happy early birthday this year several times 

Informant: Haha it’s okay it doesn’t really matter. Oh also, for my birthday this year I wanted to come home the day before my birthday to see my parents and ‘cause they wanted to give me a gift too but they were like, “No that’s bad”. So I ended up driving home a few days after my birthday because they’d rather celebrate it late than early.

Context: This was told to me during a recorded in person conversation.

Schültute

Nationality: American/German
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Performance Date: 4/20/2022
Primary Language: English
Language: German

The informant (A) is the daughter of two German immigrants. She was born in Germany, spent time in France, and grew up in the US.

A: So Schültute is this like, big plastic cone-shaped thing that parents give their children on their first day of school..or like first grade and they’d put random stuff like candy and school supplies….just like anything that kids like. I think it’s meant to just make the transition to going to school and the first day like, less scary and it gives you something to look forward to and it makes the first day of school fun and like exciting. On a personal note I went to German school for one year – which was first grade – and my parents gave me one and it was pretty fun. Oh, also they’ll give you this like, backpack… it’s called a “ranzen” and it’s like square shaped and kind of funny looking but mine was like pink and I think it had unicorns on it, it was pretty dope.

Context: This was told to me during a recorded in person conversation.

Mexican Lullaby- Goodnight song

Informant Information 
Nationality: Hispanic American 
Occupation: Teacher
Residence: Nevada
Date of Performance/Collection: Apr 4, 2022
Primary Language: English 

Background
My informant is a family member coworker of Mexican descent. Every night, she sings a good night song to her children, a song that was passed down to her. This is the song performed by her daughter.

Performance 
Spanish- Duérmase mi niño, duérmase me ya. Porque ahí viene el coyote y te comerá. 

English- Go to sleep little boy, go to sleep right now. Because the coyote is coming and he’ll eat you up.

Audio Recording

Thoughts
I don’t know Spanish so when I first heard the song, I thought it was just a sweet lullaby that tells your kids like “sweet dreams” or something like that. Finding out the song was about a coyote coming to eat you if you don’t is really funny. I found a different variation of the song. There is a version that instead of the coyote coming to eat you, an angel is going to rock you to sleep.