Category Archives: Material

There are gods in Rice

Nationality: Chinese
Age: 18
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 20 April 2019
Primary Language: Chinese
Language: English

Background Info/Context:

Yigi and I were chatting about things that parents have said to their kids to make sure they were being studious, obedient, or respectful. She told me about a story that she heard that parents told children to make sure they finished their food.

 

Piece:

Yigi – “Parents would tell me that in each rice, there lives a little god. And if you waste any, they will be upset and bring you bad luck, so you have to finish your food.”

 

Sophia – “Did you believe that as a kid?”

 

Y – “Uh, my parents didn’t tell me that story, and a friend of mine told me about it.”   

 

Thoughts:

Children, including myself, don’t usually think about waste and often have tendencies to leave one bite of food, or be greedy and spoon a lot onto their plates and not end up finishing at the end of the meal. This story was probably told to children to scare them into finishing all of their food, but more importantly, to not be wasteful. Luck is heavily tied in Chinese culture, and people try to bring as much of it towards them as they can, by wearing red, having statues of dragons, etc. So bringing about bad luck by wasting food would be squandering the other efforts they’ve put to bring luck to them.

 

Lemon Juice as Hair Dye

Nationality: Canadian-American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Toronto, Canada
Performance Date: 4/11/2019
Primary Language: English

Text

Informant (C): I don’t know if this is like, “folk” or whatever ’cause I think it really works, but like, before I started dyeing my hair with, like, real dye, I would put lemon juice in my hair in, like, streaks and then I’d go outside and sit in the sun and wait for my hair to get lighter. Like, I’d do the streaks to get highlights because I didn’t want to be totally blonde, but I wanted something other than just… brown. But like yeah, I’d always see a difference, I mean, it would take a few hours and like multiple lemons, but, like, I’d definitely be blonder afterwards, which was nice because I never actually had to buy hair dye or, like, get yelled at by my parents because it was “natural” or whatever. But after, like, sophomore year, I just stopped giving a shit and went to Hot Topic to actually dye my hair.

Context: The informant is a natural brunette, but frequently dyes her hair, typically red, but originally experimented with blonde highlights. This was a common practice around the school the informant and collector attended. The collecter herself also participated in this practice but didn’t see the same results as the informant.

Analysis: This “beauty hack” is a common belief among young, brunette women who are attempting to lighten their hair. Many online blogs and websites endorse the belief and recommend that those interested put lemon in their hair and sit out in the sun. The belief is that the acidity of the lemon reacts with the sun, creating a bleach-like effect. At the same time, lemon juice is viewed as less harmful than actual bleach and is “healthier” for the hair. This view makes sense, as lemon juice isn’t created in a lab like most artificial hair lightening products. This belief places an emphasis on the “natural” alternative to larger, corporate solutions to lightening hair. It’s a way of outsmarting the beauty companies and embracing a natural way of dyeing one’s hair, which gives the person who used lemon juice a unique story of how they achieved their beauty look. In a way, this practice creates an identity for those who do the practice as natural beauty experts who are savvy enough to avoid the corporate norm of beauty products.

Salt Over the Shoulder: Faeries or Demon?

Nationality: American
Age: 59
Occupation: Writer
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 10, 2019
Primary Language: English

Piece:

KE: “If salt spills, you pick up a little pinch of it and throw it over your left shoulder. It’s for the faeries because you don’t want to make them mad you spilled the salt so you are giving them some. But there’s another meaning I know where there’s a Demon behind you and you are throwing salt in his face.”

Context:

The informant grew up knowing the faerie version from her mother, since she was little. Someone else told her the demon version when they saw the informant throw salt over her shoulder in college.

Analysis:

This is a simple practice that takes on two wildly different meanings. The faerie version gives the person the chance to “share” the spilled salt, whereas the demon version requires the person protect themselves after making a mistake. It makes sense that a parent might tell their child the faerie version, if they were even aware of the two different versions. As the informant’s mother comes from a Wales and Irish lineage, I wonder if the faerie version stems from there, or pure chance as to which version the informant’s mother learned first. This practice goes back to the idea of the world needing to be in balance– so if salt spills, you need to correct it by using the salt for a purpose, either sharing with faeries or protecting against demons. In the faerie version, a child might be encouraged to spill salt in order to feed the faeries, whereas the demon version makes spilling salt a punishable offense.

The Leprechaun Place

Nationality: American
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: March 31, 2019
Primary Language: English

Piece:

JK: There was this game we would play in elementary school. It’s really weird I think we made it up. We had a leprechaun place.

I: No way! So did we!

JK: Oh! Ours was… It was a tree that had a sort of a knotted indent in the base of it, in the playground for 1st-4th graders. And kids would make dresses out of flowers or furniture out of plants or the little pizza tables to put in it. Some girls would bring in barbie furniture but that was known as cheating. When the stuff moved around the next day, it would be like “Oh the leprechaun came!” When stuff went missing we would be like “Oh he liked that.” It evolved that the leprechaun had a wife, because kids wanted to make cute mini dresses and stuff. And then the teachers got mad at us for playing the game and shut it down.

Context:

The informant went to a private elementary school in Corona Del Mar, and this would have happened between 2003-2008. Many kids played the game, and it involved creativity, which the informant made a point of sharing with me. The game was played during recess and lunch and involved children from multiple grades.

Analysis:

This game speaks to the imaginations of children. I also had a similar experience of a ‘leprechaun place’ in elementary school, as mentioned above, although I do not remember it in as much detail. However, the magic of the leprechaun place seems to be the idea of another world with other beings that are smaller than you—similar to how children must feel around adults. This game gives children the opportunity to play caretaker in a sense, such as making clothes or tables for the leprechauns. The idea that Barbie furniture was cheating the game is poignant—the children realized things they made meant more than things manufactured for them. Such a distinction implies that children are proud of their work and eager to earn recognition for it, as shown through the fact that the children would see if the leprechaun took or simply moved their left item.

Sword and Sheep- A Trinity Reward

Nationality: American
Age: 68
Occupation: Professor
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: March 30, 2019
Primary Language: English

Piece:

CM: “I attended Trinity College, Dublin. There was this ritual, for undergraduates only. If you took the first (which means highest score) on your exams, you had the right to wear your sword to the commencement ceremony and you could graze your sheep on the college commons. I don’t know if anyone ever did it, it was kind of antique, but it was on the books if you wanted to.”

Context:

The informant is American, and attended graduate school at Trinity in the 1980s. While he was not an undergraduate, he knew of the tradition from other students. He took the first in his exams, but specified that the tradition was specifically for undergraduates only, so he did not do it.

Analysis:

This tradition speaks both to when Trinity was founded (in 1591 by Queen Elizabeth the First) and the importance ‘land’ held at this time. The grazing of sheep shows a dominance over the land of the College, as though the student who took the first now had some ownership over College grounds. The inclusion of the sword marks the importance of appearing powerful and able to defend yourself.