Category Archives: general

Chinese Housewarming Tradition

Residence: Chicago, IL
Performance Date: 4/29/20
Primary Language: English

Main Piece:

According to RE, there is a Chinese tradition for when you buy a home. “When you first buy a house, before you enter for the first time you have to throw new, shiny coins into the house then the first three items you bring in is oil, sugar, and rice. The meaning behind it is that the coins bring money into the house. Oil sugar and rice bring prosperity.”

Context:

RE, is a sophomore at USC and is familiar with Chinese traditions. She is very invested in this culture and knows a lot about it. This was taken from a conversion over text regarding these traditions.

Thoughts:

I think this traditions is interesting. One thing I know about eastern cultures is that they have values and traditions that have to go with omens. One trend I notice is that omens play a big part in their lives whether good or bad. Symbolize matters a lot and this piece speaks to that part of Chinese culture. Throwing new coins into the house as the first item is obviously a symbol of money, which is a goal for people in life. Another symbol is the oil, sugar, and rice. These being signs of prosperity make sense as they are basic ingredients in food. Prosperity is the idea of living a good life and the start to that is always having food on the table. This helps add to the idea that symbols play a huge role in Eastern Asian culture.

Chopsticks manner 1

Nationality: Chinese
Age: 49
Occupation: Teacher
Residence: China
Performance Date: 2020.4.20
Primary Language: Chinese

Mainpiece:

Don’t stick your chopsticks into your rice.

Background Information:

I was having dinner with my family back in my father’s home town when I was younger. When we are watiting for other family members to be seated, my younger cousin casually sticked his chopsticks into his bowl of rice. My father stopped him. My father told me that it is not right to stick your chopsticks into rice because people only do that when they are worshipping ancestors or in front of a grave. Doing so on a dinner table is extremely rude to others and also brings bad luck to people. Basically, you would only stick a pair of chopsticks into rice in front of dead people.

Context:

The story was told on a dinner table to stop my counsin’s impolite behavior. It happened during a family dinner with other members in my family.

Thought:

There are a lot of different manners you are supposed to follow on a Chinese dinner table. I shared the same experience as sticking my chopsticks into rice and got shouted at by my parents when I was younger. A kid may just do it because of fun or childish curiousness, grown-up adults should tell them not to do so by explaining the culture to them gentally.

Chopsticks manner: Three pieces long and two pieces short

Nationality: Chinese
Age: 48
Occupation: senior manager
Residence: China
Performance Date: 2020.4.20
Primary Language: Chinese

Mainpiece:

I was helping prepare the dining table someday. The informant told me don’t put the chopsticks uneven in length

When Chinese people are having dinner, puting the chopsticks uneven in length means bad luck. We called it “三长两短/ three pieces long and two pieces short.” It represented “death”. Chinese people believe when some one died, he/her will be put into a coffin. When the body is in the coffin and the cover is not closed yet, it is called “三长两短”. Therefore, it is ominous to put chopsticks in this way.

Background information:

The infotmant is my mother and she was helping me setting up the dining table. She learned the dining table manner from her parents when she was young and she just felt like I shoud inhet it too.

Context:

This piece was collected during a casual conversation between the informant and me before dinner.

Thought:

I think it is kind of weird that people can connect anything from the table to death. But it is also interesting. This may mean that Chinese people really value meals with family.

Army Movie Star Game

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Army Ranger
Residence: classified
Performance Date: April 14, 2020
Primary Language: English

Main Piece:

Here is a transcription of my (CB) interview with my informant (GK).

CB: “Okay so, do you play any games”

GK: “There are a lot of different games that people in the armed services play to keep themselves entertained during long extended hours of boredom. So one is like you name a movie star, and then you would go back and forth naming someone they were in a movie with. So like if I said Angelina Joli, you could say Brad Pitt, and I would have to say Angelina Joli and someone else. And you just go back and forth until someone loses the game, for hours.”

CB: “Where did you hear about this game?”

GK: “We played it at basic.”

CB: “What do you think is the point of this game?”

GK: “To stay awake”

CB: “What does the game mean to you?”

GK: “That life can be very dull and that you should never take for granted the entertainments provided to you by modern technology.” 

Background:

My informant just graduated from basic training, and is now at a military base waiting to start further training and specialization. He grew up with an older brother in the army and has learned a lot about army culture from him, and then from his superiors at basic training. A lot of basic training is about preparing the soldiers for any possible situation. This calls for staying awake for hours on end while engaging in mind-numbing tasks. It was in these situations that games such as the one described would be played.

Context:

I called my informant to interview him over the phone, and recorded the interview on my laptop. I had often asked him about his experiences since enlisting, and so my questions were fairly normal for him. It was a casual comfortable conversation with the occasional input from his roommate.

Thoughts:

My first thought when I heard this game was that it sounded incredibly boring. But I guess that is also a part of the appeal. The game is meant to be just enough to keep the players awake and engaged, without being mentally or physically tiring. In the military, your fellow soldiers can come from all over the country with different life experiences and cultures. The game provides a way for the players to engage with one another without calling for too specific of cultural knowledge. Celebrities and pop culture is accepted to be known by nearly everyone, and so it acts as a way to bridge the cultural gaps between two people.

Children’s Game: The Fart Touch

Nationality: African American
Age: 58
Performance Date: April 22, 2020
Primary Language: English

Main Piece:

The following has been transcribed from an interview between the informant and the interviewer.

“And, there was this really strange one that we used to do. I was just talking to [my brother] about this. We can’t figure out why this was like a ritual. We had to do this. But it was something that we all did and it was something that we had to do. Now, it’s a little gross, but it has to do with flatulence. So, whenever anybody farted, we had to run and touch glass. And if you were the last one to touch a piece of glass then you had ‘the fart touch’ until somebody else farted and you weren’t the last person to touch glass. Then, they would have ‘the fart touch.’

Context:

I collected this piece of folklore in an over-the-phone interview. The informant, my uncle, played this game with his friends and brother while growing up from elementary school to middle school. He is an African American who grew up in Cleveland, Ohio.

Thoughts/Analysis:

This piece of folklore is something that in my informant’s social group would consist of boys. This piece of folklore takes a natural bodily function and turns it into a game. It makes fun of the idea of farting in public and also brings an aspect of shame to farting because of “the fart touch.” This game acts as an outlet for young boys to discuss the human body in a way that is frowned upon by society. It, in a way, encourages farting in public so that the game can be played, but also discourages it with “the fart touch.” A possible reason that the boys had to touch glass is because glass is usually considered a clean object. People tend to clean glass more because it is obvious when glass is dirty. So, touching glass in this case is kind of like cleansing yourself from this “gross” act of farting. It’s interesting that my informant, as he is older, now finds this game that he would weird, and he can’t remember why he would do it. I think a part of the rush why kids would do it is because it would have frowned upon by grown-ups. So, as my informant got older and more inclined to agree with grown-ups about its gross nature, the game would lose its appeal in the same way that fart jokes are seen as immature as you get older.