Category Archives: Musical

The Banana Song

Age: 15
Occupation: Student
Primary Language: English
  1. The Banana Song:

Bananas Unite!

Form banana, form form banana then you

Peel banana peel peel banana

Eat bananas, eat eat bananas

Then you chop bananas chop chop bananas

Mash bananas mash mash banana

GO bananas, GO GO bananas!!!

  1. A fellow classmate actually taught him this song with the accompanying hand gestures as well. The classmate had learned the song from his cousin that teaches songs like these to preschool children, and they thought that the song was both catchy and funny.
  2. This song is normally sung, with hand gestures, in elementary and preschool classrooms as a way to keep the children entertained and engaged in the learning. Usually the teachers or teacher assistants will begin the song/dance and the children are then encouraged to follow along. Sometimes the kids will recite the song again on their own during recess or play time. The kids especially seem to enjoy the end of the song, where it says “GO bananas…” so they can be silly and have fun.
  3. I thought that this was also a funny song and dance. I feel like it is catchy for children of all ages, and would definitely be something perfect for me to try when I am babysitting.

Bath Song and Family History

Nationality: American - (Greek Cypriot, German, Argentinian)
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: Friday April 22nd, 2016
Primary Language: English
Language: Greek, Mandarin

A is an 18-year-old woman. She is currently studying Biomedical Engineering at the University of Southern California. She considers her nationality to be American, but more specifically she is one quarter Greek Cypriote, one quarter German and half Argentinian. that being said, she strongly identifies with her Greek roots. She is fluent in both English and Greek, and is currently learning Mandarin.

A: Um, I don’t know if this is a me parable or family parable but I really hated taking baths when I was little, so they used to sing a song about a little kid who wouldn’t take baths and would turn into a pig. Cause she was so dirty. But I think its real because it actually has a tune, like I don’t think my Grandmother actually made up a song, but the song is like “I’m a little piggy, cause I stink a lot,” basically in Greek. And it goes like “well you’ll turn into a piggy too unless you take a bath.”

Me: Aww

A: So yeah, I was afraid I was gonna turn into a barnyard animal. It was fun.

Me: But you took the bath!

A: This is true.

Me: Did they sing this to your siblings? Do you have other siblings?

A: I don’t, I’m an only child. And this was with my grandparents too, and I’m the only grandchild as well.

Me: Aw. But you’ll probably do it with your kids too.

A: Oh yeah. It was so much fun. It’s got it’s own song! My grandfather told me a lot of stories about donkeys, I don’t remember exactly what they contain, but every story that had a moral always involved a donkey. Like a donkey on an adventure.

Me: Your grandparents liked farmyard animals is basically…

A: You know what, my grandparents grew up in the village with farmyard animals, so I’m sure this is how their parents told it to them.

Me: So the songs and the stories are like based on that?

A: Oh yeah. And it’s definitely based on the old village, which is like way the heck up in the mountains, like I’ve been there.

Me: Is there a name for it?

A: Yes, Ayiosgiannis. So my last name is the name of the village, just shortened. The name of the village is St. John’s in English. Um, Ayios is St. in English and that’s where Ayiotis, my last name is from.

Me: Ohhhh

A: So the last names were very frequently based on the area where you are from or like what you were called in the village. So I’m pretty sure my great-grandfather made up that name.

Me: So that’s generally where Greek last names come from?

A: I believe so. A lot of them, like a couple of them, are professions, but a lot of the ones are places.

Me: So places and professions but mostly places?

A: Actually let me rephrase. If you got out of the village then it’s a place cause you wanted to honor your village, but for people in the village, why would they all have the same last name as the village?

Me: True.

A: So it was in the village it was by profession or by nickname or sometimes you will genuinely find people name “Andreas Andreou” like “Phillip Phillipou,” like people with the same last name as their first name, and it’s very funny. Um they’ll do like men’s first names as well as last names cause that was your dad’s dad. So basically common ways to distingush between people with the same name in a village.

Me: So your last name, does it change?

A: It can. We didn’t have last names until the British came and were like “why the heck do you not have last names?” And that was in the 30s, um the 20s. Yeah, Cyprus was a British colony up until the 60’s.

Me: Wow.

A:  Um that’s when they gained their independence.

Me: You didn’t have last names until the 20’s?

A: Yeah, why would we need it? We’re farmers, we’re farming.

Me: That’s true.

A: I remember my grandfather was born in like 1934 and he told me he saw a car in his village once when he was like nine years old and that was probably the only car on the island of Cyprus, driving through all the villages like “oh my god I bought a car!” So it was very…

Me: Secluded?

A: Yeah. And it’s still very farm-heavy. Its still agricultural.

Me: Is Cyprus an island off of Greece?

A: It’s an island actually closer to Lebanon than it is to Greece. It’s north of Egypt and south of Turkey in the Mediterranean Ocean, but since that area used to all be ethnically Greek in the Greek, Egyptian, and Ottoman Empire and since Cyprus is an island it saw less change over time as more people moved in and out because it’s harder to conquer an island. So the people who are Greek there, like our dialect of Greek is more similar to ancient Greek.

A talks about a song that her grandparents used to sing to her when she was little to get her to take a bath. This is a fond memory that she has and she said that it works, the song was effective in making her believe that if she were not to take a bath, she would turn into a pig. A also explains that the song might have to do with her grandfather’s origins, which are especially important to her as the root of her last name is the name of the village. Her grandfather lived in a very agricultural, farm-heavy village, and this is likely where the song originated. The dirt being the result of farming all day, and turning into a pig being the result of not cleaning yourself, so turning into one of your farm animals. The name, the village, and the song are all connected in one way or another.

Mongolian Folk Dancing

Nationality: american
Age: 19
Occupation: student
Residence: los angeles
Performance Date: 4/25/15
Primary Language: English
Language: Mandarin

The informant, RD, describes a mongolian dance class she took when she was younger. The dance class took place in Palo Alto, California. RD is of Mongolian and Chinese decent: her father is from Mongolia and her mother is from China.

Where did you learn the dance?

RD: “I was in a mongolian dance class. We had these velvet, red towels with gold chain and coins on them  on them and you had to twirl them around your fingers. It was like a big choreographed dance, there was a group of us”

How did you find out about the class?

RD: “My mom found out through her church I think”

Did you ever perform the dance, like at a festival?

RD: “We would perform in an auditorium for our parents. It was pretty much only parents there, not like an outside group of people”

Was everyone who participated Mongolian?

RD: “Mainly Chinese. Everyone was either Mongolian or Chinese. There was definitely no white people, they would definitely get freaked out by the music (laughs)”

What was the music like?

RD: “We danced to traditional Chinese/Mongolian music. It had a mixture of both languages, so parts would be Mongolian and parts would be Chinese. I think the background was traditional Chinese instruments.”

Is Chinese and Mongolian a common mix in Palo Alto?

RD: “No no no, it was just headed by a committee that had some Chinese people and some Mongolian so they kind of fused the two cultures. I don’t think I’ve ever met another person who is mixed Chinese and Mongolian, it’s not common. Everyone was one or the other.”

I thought this was particularly interesting because of the mix of Chinese and Mongolian culture. The fact that the music being used was a mixture of Mongolian and Chinese was very interesting, especially given the fact that RD said she had never met another person who was both Mongolian and Chinese. It seemed very unlikely that everyone there was either separately Chinese or Mongolian when the performance itself was a very balanced mixture of the two. I also thought it was interesting that she thought it was funny that white people, or members of any other ethnicities, would be a part of the dance. When I first heard her describe it I thought it was for the purpose of sharing their cultural heritage but based on the performances it seems like its main purpose was to preserve and pass on their traditions.

Skiing down a mountain

Nationality: american
Age: 31
Occupation: film producer
Residence: los angeles
Performance Date: 2/18/15
Primary Language: English

JG describes a game she learned from her mother and would do to kids she babysat

What was skiing down a mountain?

JG: “So you know how little kids love to be bounced up and down on people’s knees? Skiing down a mountain was basically just bouncing a little kid on your knee but with a background story. Mom used to do it to me, but she was the one who made it up. She said she wanted to put a background story to it to make it more interesting because it made more sense if there was a story. And then I really liked it so I would do it to kids I baby sat and you when you were a baby”

What do you do?

JG: “So you put a little kid on your lap and bounce them around like normal, but then you say “skiing down a mountain” again and again. Eventually you yell “TREE!” and you swerve your knees to the side like you’re avoiding a tree. There was some other ones too, like rocks and moguls. For moguls you would do really big bounces. It was kind of open to interpretation. All the little kids loved it, it was a lot more exciting than regular bouncing a kid on your knee. Sometimes I’d do you and your cousin Louisa at the same time, you guys loved it. I just remember really liking it when I was little and I would watch Mom do it to Justin too when he was little. So then I did it when I started watching kids”

This piece of folklore displays the importance of regional differences. While bouncing a child on your knee could be adapted to have many different stories, it’s significant that this story involved skiing, mainly because the game originated with JG’s mother in Colorado where skiing is very prevalent. A child would immediately recognize the parts of the game because most children in Colorado learn to ski at a very young age.

Los Pollitos

Nationality: Bogota, Colombia
Age: 21
Occupation: student
Residence: USA
Performance Date: April 22, 2015
Primary Language: Spanish
Language: English

Song: It’s in Spanish

Los pollitos dicen
Pio, pio, pio
Cuando tienen hambre
Cuando tienen frio
La gallina busca
El maiz y el trigo
Les da la comida
Y les presta abrigo
Bajo sus dos alas
Acurrucaditos
Hasta el otro dia
Duerman los pollitos

Translation:

The little chicks say
Pio, pio, pio
When they’re hungry
And when they’re cold
The chicken looks for
Corn and wheat
She feeds them and
Covers them with warmth
Under her two wings
She cuddles them
The chicks sleep
Until the next day

My Informant was a 21 year old female who moved to the United States from Bogota, Colombia in 2004. She lives five houses down on my street.

Collector: Who used to sing this to you? And when?

Informant: My mom used to sing it to me when I was really young, but I still remember it. I’m not sure why, I think it’s just one of those things from your childhood that you never forget.

Collector: Was it to help you fall asleep?

Informant: No, not really. She’d sing it whenever my dad was almost home from work. I don’t really remember why, I think it was her way of comforting us because we missed him… which now that I think about it, is a little ridiculous, considering he was only gone for eight hours or so.

I distinctly remember this song from my childhood as well, but my mom did actually use it to get us to sleep. I believe that’s what most songs are for, to get children to do things without ordering them to do so. They hear the song about the chicks falling asleep and they want to follow suit and go to bed too, just like in the song. I found online, however, that there is more to the actual song than what either my informant’s mom or my mom ever sang to us.

For the full version, refer to :  https://youtu.be/fXTicXsPfuo