Category Archives: Kinesthetic

Body movements

The Great Depression and Brushing Teeth

Nationality: American
Age: 86
Residence: Rancho Palos Verdes, California
Primary Language: English

Brushing Your Teeth During the Great Depression in Rural Tennessee:

ME: What did you do to brush your teeth during the Great Depression in Tennessee?

M.H.: Yeah, well I was a little bit older, and I was twelve years old. When I got my first store-bought toothbrush. Before that, we would always make them ourselves, by getting a branch from a black gum maple tree, and we would just peel the skin from the bark, it was young bark, and we would take an end of it and start brushing our teeth. Basically we would use salt and soda together, and would rinse our mouths out with water, because we didn’t have toothpaste either.

ME: And, how long did you brush your teeth like this?

M.H.: Up until I was twelve years old, when I got my first store-bought toothbrush. Then I started using toothbrushes from the store, then.

ME: What year could you remember it being?

M.H.: Uh, let’s see. It was 1939, or ’40, because I was born in ’27. Twelve years beyond that.

 

M.H. describes how she, and her family brushed their teeth during the years of the Great Depression, up until she had first bought, and subsequently stuck with commercially available toothbrushes and toothpaste. She and her family needed to utilize natural resources, in order to accomplish what many people take for granted as a routine practice today.

Standard Birthday Customs

Nationality: American
Residence: Rancho Palos Verdes, California
Primary Language: English
Language: Some French proficiency

Standard Birthday Customs:

D.S.: In birthday cards, we would put a bunch of confetti in it, and so that when they opened up, it would go all over the place. Whenever I would go to a birthday party live, I would go there and bring poppers, to pop.

ME: Oh, I remember those.

D.S.: Yeah, just to make it more fun I guess.

ME: OK, so how that’s your way of demonstrating a right of passage in somebody’s life, as in another year, and another number.

D.S.: Yeah, celebrations. That’s right.

ME: And those are practical jokes. In it’s way, that’s a celebration.

D.S.: Yeah. One of my girlfriends, when we would get together for lunch on birthdays, I would buy them these ugly, hideous looking glasses that say “Happy Birthday,” and I make ‘em wear ‘em, all during the lunch. So, that’s kinda fun. Trying to embarrass them, you know.

ME: Do you remember being the subject of an embarrassing practical joke, recently? Anything that comes to mind?

D.S.: Um, no. I can’t think of anything.

ME: Thank you.

 

D.S. discusses her customs of practical jokes done towards others, especially with regards to representing a right of passage; a transition from one life stage to another. It is widely spread to celebrate birthdays, although certain customs come with different families, or even cultural groups.

Folk Dance (Bhangra)

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Diamond Bar, CA
Performance Date: 4/28/15
Primary Language: English
Language: Gujarati
  1. Main Piece: Bhangra Video
  2. Informant Background:
    • What is it: Bhangra is a form of folkdance originating in Punjab (northern India). This form of dance originated as a form of entertainment and fun for Punjabis, who were traditionally farmers. Bhangra often has use of live music, and is danced to with sticks and flags that resemble farm tools used by Punjabis out on their farms.
    • Where did you learn it: I picked it up myself largely, but soon after I joined a Bhangra team here in the Los Angeles area, and began to learn from my pears and my coaches.
    • What does it mean to you: Bhangra has, for quite some time now, stepped into the competitive scene in North America. There are tens of thousands of teams between America and Canada – high school affiliated, temple affiliated, university affiliated, city affiliated, etc. Competitions have been around for decades, and Bhangra has transformed into a competitive sport. I have been the captain of UCLA’s Bhangra team for 2 years, and we have been very successful in the past. I aim to keep up the reputation and continue to bring to the world high quality performances. We aim to hype a crowd with our high energy and creative in choreography, musicality and formations.
  3. Context of Performance
    • There are many different contexts for performance of Bhangra, but the one Vaibhav has focused on is dance competitions.
  4. My Thoughts:
    • I believe that the spread of Bhangra for a competitive purpose helped keep the Punjabi culture alive for people abroad, away from Punjab. However after spreading into the competitive scene, I believe that it began to take on it’s own purpose and it’s own identity, and now there are people like Vaibhav, who is from Gujarat, but identifies much more strongly with Bhangra, the folkdance of Punjab, than he does with Garba, the folkdance of his own region.

SWEET CAROLINE

Nationality: Chinese-American
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Residence: USC, from Oregon
Performance Date: 4/18/15
Primary Language: English
Language: Chinese

ABOUT THE INFORMANT:

My informant is a senior graduating this semester from USC. He is a biomedical engineer, and is the oldest son of two immigrants from China.

EXAMPLE:

Interviewee: Whenever we have parties or go to parties it is basically a requirement that we sing the Neil, what’s his name?, song – “Sweet Caroline.”

Interviewer: Neil Diamond?

Interviewee: Yeah, I think. So we have to sing that song. But it’s not just a song, it’s like everyone sings it in a circle. And then like after the “Sweet Caroline” part in the chorus, we all have to say “Ba, ba, ba” and throw are fists in the air. It matches like the horns.

And then for the “good times never felt so good,” we all yell “So good, so good, so good,” with the same fist bumping.

Interviewer: Is that it?

Interviewee: Well that’s like the basics. But then for those in the know when he says “reaching out,” you gotta reach out to the rest of the group. “Touching me,” you put your hand on you. “Touching you,” touch someone else next to you.

And then if you really know it, the “warm touching warm” part you rub your hands together like they are cold.

BACKGROUND

“This started because, at least I think it started because of him, but one of our friends is from Boston. And he is like really into Boston. And he’s a Red Sox fan. And I guess the Red Sox fans do this during baseball games at Fenway Park. It’s like their anthem. So he gets really into it during the singing. But really it’s become just like a big group thing. Singing it with everyone. It pretty much will just stop the party.”

ANALYSIS:

This song/dance has is an example of folklore traveling from location to location, event to event. What started as Neil Diamond writing a song for Caroline Kennedy has somehow gotten turned into a theme song for the Red Sox, which has then been used as a party song at USC. Probably for the person that came from Boston, who is “really into Boston,” used it as a way to show the people at USC his culture, but now the song has a whole USC culture to it. Especially at the point where it is practically guaranteed for any parties that this group of people throw or go to. It has now turned into a form of identity for this friend group at USC. Which is funny because it is derived from a form of identity for Red Sox fans and Bostonians.

“Sweet Caroline” can be heard in the film Fever Pitch about an obsessed Red Sox fan, and this is an article in The Boston Globe all about how this writer hates the tradition to sing it at the games.

 

DANCE PARTIES

Nationality: Mexican-American
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Residence: USC, from Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 4/28/15
Primary Language: English

EXAMPLE:

Informant: What about dance parties?

Interviewer: What about dance parties?

Informant: We used to have them, as a kid. When I was younger. Would they count as folklore?

Interviewer: What do you mean?

Informant: Well it was like this thing. Like whenever it was late and it was bedtime, but we couldn’t go to sleep, we would have dance parties.

Interviewer: Who?

Informant: Well it would be like when we had been staying up talking to my mom, and then she would tell us to go to bed. But we weren’t tired. So she would throw a mini-dance party for my brothers and me.

Interviewer: Was there a specific song you would listen to?

Informant: Yeah! What was it? I know it. If you heard it, you would know it. (After Googling something) “Moondance” by Van Morrison. My aunt gave her like a mix CD from her high school reunion and that was on it. We would always listen to that song.

Interviewer: And dance?

Informant: Yeah. Until we got tired, then we would crash out and go to sleep.

ANALYSIS:

I feel like every parent must have a trick to get their kids to go to sleep, and this one sounds like a fun one that will easily tire the kids out. Kids, generally speaking, do not like to miss out on time with the adults and do not feel like they are missing out, so it makes sense that this informant’s mother would initiate the dance parties often when the informant and her siblings were up talking to the mother. When she said it was time to go to sleep, they probably groaned. So she made a game out of it.

I like the addition that it was one particular song, “Moondance”. That to me made it a ritual. That when they heard the words dance party, they knew exactly what music would played. It is also interesting that the music was passed along by another family member. That does not necessarily mean anything, but it is very folkloric to have all the elements passed down or along by other people. Her mother did not pick “Moondance” arbitrarily, it was on a CD her sister gave her. That just feels more special for the entire process and dance party.