Category Archives: Kinesthetic

Body movements

How To “Cheers” Properly on New Year’s Eve

Nationality: Irish
Age: 22
Occupation: Student, studying Biomedical Engineering
Residence: Bradenton, FL and Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 4/25/15
Primary Language: English

In the informant’s family, it’s unacceptable to clink glasses at a New Year’s Eve celebration without making direct eye contact with the other person for the duration of the toast. She says the tradition – and the superstition behind it – come from her mother.

“My mom always used to remind me to look people in the eyes when we raised our glasses in a toast,” she says. “She believed that avoiding eye contact would not only prevent good luck, but would actively invite bad luck upon the topic of cheers.” So if, for instance, someone made a toast to good health, her mother feared that avoiding eye contact during the toast would most certainly result in the death or illness of someone at the gathering.

The informant says her mother got the belief from someone she met in college. That person’s belief stemmed from a personal belief that looking into one another’s eyes connects people, and that it is this connectedness and positivity during a toast or a wish that determines that toast’s or wish’s success.

Leaving Wine for Elijah at Passover

Nationality: American / Dutch
Age: 66
Occupation: Retired Lawyer
Residence: CA
Performance Date: 03/21/15
Primary Language: English
Language: Dutch, Spanish

The informant is a 66-year old mother, step-mother, former poverty-lawyer, property manager/owner, and is involved in many organizations and non profits. She was born in the Netherlands and immigrated to the United States with her family when she was four years old. She grew up in California, where she also attended college and law school. She lived in the suburbs of Chicago for a short while with her husband and family, and now they live in Pacific Palisades, California.

 

Informant: “Back when I was a kid, with your Opa [the word for “Grandpa” in Dutch] every Passover, we would leave a glass of wine—in our most ornate wine glass—for Elijah, like we do now, but we would also all go around the table after the meal and have to tell a little anecdote about Elijah.

 

Interviewer: “Can you explain who Elijah is?”

Informant: “Elijah is a Jewish prophet. It’s tradition to leave a spot for him at the table at Passover so that if he passes through he will stop at your house and give you good luck and health. So we would go around and all have to tell a short made-up story about him. And it was silly that we did this—I don’t know anyone else who did this, but I know that my dad always said that he had done it with his family at their seders growing up.”

 

Thoughts:

I’ve participated in the Elijah ritual myself, so I can speak from a first-person perspective as well as commenting on my informant’s information. In my opinion, leaving a glass for Elijah symbolizes hope, for the future and for the Jewish people—a people historically oppressed and systematically pushed down. Leaving a glass and/or opening a door for the prophet, Elijah, to come is a way of leaving the door open to positive things to come. As it is a prophet that the glass of wine is left for, this custom can also be seen as a seeking of knowledge or insight.

Russian Drinking Custom – Toasting

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: LA, CA
Performance Date: 04/28/15
Primary Language: Russian
Language: English, French, some Hebrew

The informant is a 21-year old student attending the University of California Berkeley. She is majoring in Media Studies and Journalism with a minor in Hebrew. She grew up in West Los Angeles with her two parents, immigrants from the Soviet Union. The following is what she said when I asked about her step-daughter’s wedding a few years ago, of which I was in attendance.

 

Informant: “Drinking is really big in Russian culture—you probably know that. We have a lot of family dinners and there is always drinking, of wine or vodka. Guest will bring wine or the host will bring out their favorite wines. My parents actually have a whole spreadsheet of the different wines in their wine closet. Since drinking is so much a part of Russian culture, there are traditions that go along with it. The biggest thing I can think of, I think, would be toasts. Like, there are certain traditions of what toasts you say in what order. Second toast is usually for the host. The first toast is always for the occasion you are gathered for, and second for the host. The third one is for those who are at sea.”

 

Interviewer: “Are there lots of people at sea…?”

 

Informant: “No. We say ‘at sea’, but it’s really more a reference to those who are not with us—either dead or not the at the dinner table.”

 

Interviewer: “Hmm, that’s really interesting that the toast for people not at the table is the ‘at sea’ toast. Do you have any idea why that is?

 

Informant: “No, I don’t know. I mean, drinking culture was a big think in Russia in general. And I guess originally there may have been a lot of traders? Or people at sea? What I think is so distinct about Russian drinking is this tradition of you can’t drink unless you toast. You have to validate your drinking with a toast.”

 

Thoughts:

What my informant said about toasts being a way of validating drinking stuck with me. I feel like a lot of folklore, or festivals and rituals, at least, is centered in validation—validating customs already set in place, validating a relationship or new union to be had, validating a new stage in a person’s life, validating one’s entering adulthood, etc. What is sometimes seen as merely paying homage to an earlier time, or to a certain religion one follows, usually has more influence than that.

 

When I asked my informant about why the third toast is said for those “at sea”, when no one I know of her family is actually off at sea, it seemed like the first time the informant had really been considering the question. This illustrates the tendency not to question the traditions and the folklore one grows up with, contrasted with the tendency many people have to critique or ridicule other traditions and folklore, ones the criticizing individual hasn’t grown up with. This speaks to the us them mentality that we see quite often with folklore—one example of the mentality’s presence is in practical jokes, a form of folklore that often serves as an initiation, or a demonstration of the tightness of one group and the outsider-ness of the one being pranked. However, it is worth noting that in the person being pranked, they are many times being initiated into the group of the pranksters…

 

For a slightly different interpretation of the third toast, see an article in the New York Times from 1995:

http://www.nytimes.com/1995/09/08/world/moscow-journal-glassy-eyed-etiquette-a-guide-to-russian-toasts.html.

Who has smelly feet?

Nationality: American
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 29, 2015
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

My informant KM explained that in some cultures it is very disrespectful to have the bottom of one’s foot face someone.

KM went on a trip to Egypt with seven other students in the summer of 2013 for an International Relations class at USC.  KM explained, “we were in a meeting with a very powerful woman in Egypt.  It was the nine of us asking her questions.  One of the guys on the trip was sitting next to her with his leg on his knee and his foot facing this woman.  Halfway through the interview the woman said, ‘Something smells! Who has smelly feet?!’  She didn’t say it because his feet smelled, but because she was uncomfortable with having the bottom of his feet face her.  He was really embarrassed so he readjusted his position.  The interview was kind of awkward after that.  But she was a harsh woman to begin with.  ‘Who has smelly feet?’ became a running joke on the trip.”

After the meeting, KM and her group explained what had happened to one of their tour guides.  He explained to them why she was so upset.

KM’s experience in Cairo demonstrates that facing the bottom of one’s foot to a person is so disrespectful and offensive that the woman would stop mid-meeting to correct the faux pas.  Perhaps the bottom of one’s foot is so offensive because it is the dirtiest part of the foot.

 

Annie Laurie

Nationality: Scottish
Age: 77
Residence: San Pedro, CA
Performance Date: April 28th, 2015
Primary Language: English

unnamed

My informant has a very interesting story. She is Scottish, but grew up primarily in England, near London. Informant’s parents were both very Scottish and so much of who she is surrounds this Scottish heritage. In this particular piece, she outlines much of her story as she is flipping through an old Scottish book of songs that she is showing me. When I asked her about folklore from her past, what comes to mind the most is folk music — as she is a singer. The book is old and falling apart. We are looking at it together. It was printed in 1884… She is gazing lovingly at the book, gingerly flipping the pages. My informant loves music. Everything in her life has to do with singing. She has been a singer her entire life and even now continues to sing in the church choir. Ever since I was little, we have always sung together; it has always been our special bond. She says that I got my singing skills from her. It makes sense then, that we now sit down and for the next 5 hours, go through this book.

 

Informant: “It smells old. It’s so Scottish [laughs] I inherited this book from my Aunt Mary, my sister Anne got it and then it was given to me. Aunt Mary was my mother’s oldest sister, she was the singer and she had all of these old music books. She would have gotten it from her parents. I am McCready but this came from the Riddell side of the family. The McCready’s were once O’Gradys, coming from Ireland and wanted to blend in when they went to Scotland.

I was born in London but what happened was, my parents were engaged for seven years. This was during the depression…they had no money. My father was a good electrician and he wanted to have his own shop. And people needed work done because… he couldn’t get paid but he was doing the work for free for the people because he was too kind. He decided he needed to get a job in London. He worked at the Dorchester Hotel in London and saved up and married my mother in Scotland, as soon as they married they went back to London. They had no money to stay in hotels, none of that. They were married in 1936 and had a nice little flat near Clapham Common, buildings that are still there. I was born at the end of 1938 and the war was rumbling around at that point and they decided to go back to Scotland, they put all of their furniture in storage and they got on the train and I was very precocious, verbally, and my mother says I jumped around all night long singing a soldiers war song, “Roll out the barrel” all night long. They were exhausted. My father had a job keeping the lights on while the fighter-bombers went. I lived in Largs, I have fond memories of that. So we lived there.

Then in 1944 we were back in Glasgow and had a little apartment and my father had his first heart attack and things changed. We came back to England after that. I remember him saying when he was young, they didn’t have trade unions and workers never had any rights….[looking through book]…but here! This is called Annie Laurie..This is one of those things that I’ve known forever. My father used to sing it. My father used to sing in choir, you know.” [She reads the lyrics out loud in her Scottish accent]

 

 Annie Laurie

Maxwellton braes are bonnie,

Where early fa’s the dew,

And it’s there that Annie Laurie,

Gi’ed me her promise true;

Gi’ed me her promise true,

Which ne’er forgot will be,

And for bonnie Annie Laurie,

I’d lay me down and dee.

 

Her brow is like the snaw-drift,

Her neck is like the swan,

Her face it is the fairest

That e’er the sun shone on;

That e’er the sun shone on,

And dark blue is her e’e;

And for bonnie Annie Laurie

I’d lay me down and dee.

 

Like dew on the gowan lying,

Is the fa’ o’ her fairy feet;

And like winds in summer sighing,

Her voice is low and sweet.

Her voice is low and sweet,

And she’s a’ the world to me;

And for bonnie Annie Laurie

I’d lay me down and dee.

 

[Photograph is the inside cover of the book]