Category Archives: Festival

Oriel Bop: I Want You Back

Nationality: Kazakh
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: New York, NY
Performance Date: 04/27/2015
Primary Language: English
Language: Russian

A and I are old grade school friends from our days in Washington D.C. We fell out of touch at the beginning of our sophomore year of high school and actually ran into each other on the street while both of us were studying abroad at Oxford University. She spent her whole term time as a part of Oriel College and became involved in the student life by attending formal balls, bops, and integrating herself in the Oriel squash and rowing teams. I was a part of New College, so naturally I was curious as to the particular traditions of Oriel College and how they differed with New.

A: Since you’ve been to both Oxford and Cambridge, you know all about bops.

L: Do they differ much between the two universities?

A: Not really, in fact, they operate pretty similarly. Our bops happen post formal ball and are put on for the college by college students. Each time there is a different theme. I think the one at the beginning of the year was some silly pun based one, but the one I took you to was just our end of year party. Essentially, you saw the fancy end of the year one.

L: Oh, okay. So normally instead of formal dress, you all go pretty radical with the costumes.

A: Yes. The special feature about Oriel’s bop is actually we play a the song I Want You Back by the Jackson 5. I don’t know if you know this, but for the longest time Oriel was particularly gender segregated. This song was a way of fighting against that and in fact its gotten to be this weird tradition where the guys take their shirts off when it plays.

L: So was this a marked shift towards to include the girls?

A: I’m not exactly why they take their shirts off or its relevance, but it happens. It could just be a strange Oriel thing.

Armenian Christmas Eve

Nationality: Armenian
Age: 21
Occupation: Student; Musician
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 04/27/2015
Primary Language: English

D grew up in a household heavily influenced by Armenian culture; both her parents being Armenian encouraged D and her sister to participate in cultural fairs as well as dance festivals. While D enjoyed her time at these festivals performing and singing, she remembers most vividly the food and the process that her grandparents went through in preparing certain dishes. As we spoke about specific dishes, she had far too many to name. We settled on the simple process of stringing cheese that was an important part of her Christmas Eve celebration.

D: So as much as I love performing, you know I’m a musician, it’s really the food that makes me think of my Armenian heritage. If I tried to pick my favorite dish, I don’t think I could, but we do this crazy cheese thing around Christmas time. Each Christmas Eve, my family goes to my grandmother’s house to string cheese.

L: What do you mean by string cheese?

D: Oh, if you go to a specialty store (which we always have to per grandmother’s request) you can buy large blocks of string cheese. They’re giant ropes of cheese that you unravel and straighten out like yarn. The goal is to untangle as much of it as possible without breaking it. We sometimes turn it into a little game and have cheese stringing competitions.

L: I think my friend A, who is also Armenian mentioned something like that when we spoke last.

D: Every Armenian knows exactly what I’m talking about. We tend to do this stringing because it’s a long process and it’s nice to have more than two pairs of hands working on it. The cheese itself is also incredibly rich, so you really don’t want to eat it that often. I know my mom has tried to make more of the traditional dishes healthy by eliminating two of the three sticks of butter usually involved. I know it sounds crazy, but that’s how she makes her pilaf and a few other dishes. We also make delicious soup, but the main food related activity involved on our Christmas Eve’s is this strange cheese stringing. It brings up together in the cliché, cheesy way. Haha

Easter Egg Hunt

Nationality: American
Age: 53
Occupation: Systems Analysts
Residence: Alhambra, California
Performance Date: 4/03/15
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

My informant for this piece is my aunt, who performed the easter egg hunt when she came over for Easter. During my childhood, my family used to hold easter egg hunts, although we have since stopped the practice. This easter however, she made an attempt to resume this tradition. 

Informant/Description of event:

During my childood, my family would hide plastic easter eggs in the backyard and I would attempt to find them. However, as my sister and I grew up, we no longer practiced this tradition. I remember that usually my parents would place coins or candy in the eggs. Sometimes there were special eggs that would have larger amounts of money or maybe a few more candy.

This year, my Aunt decided to attempt to revive this tradition by staging an Easter Egg hunt for us. She hid some plastic eggs in our living room, and told us to attempt to look for them.  These eggs also had some coins in them, as well as small candies. When we had found the eggs, she hid them again, although this time it was easier for us to find them due to us knowing the hiding spaces. My aunt also attempted variation in this ritual by hiding items such as small boxes during the easter egg hunt which were filled similarly to the eggs.

My Analysis:

I believe that the context of this was an attempt to revive an old family tradition that my family no longer practiced now that we had grown out of it. My takeaway is that this easter egg hunt also attempted to evoke feelings of closeness and togetherness that evolved out of previous iterations of this familial tradition.As a childhood ritual it did bring back memories of my childhood, and I guess reminded me of this ritual that I no longer do, and probably will not repeat next year.

Easter Tradition in Hungary

Nationality: Hungarian
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Residence: USC
Performance Date: 4/13/15

Background about Informant:

Anna is a 22-year-old exchange student from Hungary, studying business at USC. She was born and raised in Budapest and has knowledge of many facts and traditions of Hungary.

 General Description from Informant:

“We have a strange Easter tradition when boys have to pour water/perfume on girls – they do it with a bucket of water on the countryside but in cities people usually spray perfume. I personally always hated this tradition. Especially because by the end of the day, girls usually smell like a perfume store – never wash your hair the day before! And when I was around 6 my best friend’s friend who came to water her poured a whole bottle of perfume into my face by accident and it all went into my eyes. It was as pleasant as you can imagine.

The guys have to say or learn or write a rhyme “I went to this forest and found this flower, can I water this flower?” and the girl is the flower. And then they spray perfume or water on you.

Either the rhymes are sexual for teenage guys or kind of cute/dumb for non-teenagers. And it’s really cute when little boys remember the rhymes.”

Follow-up Questions:

  • Where/who did you learn it from?
    • “My parents when I was a kid, we always do this.”
  • What does it mean to you?
    • “I don’t like it because of the perfume. But it’s normal because it’s part of the Easter tradition. I’m fine when it
  • Why do males throw water on females and not vice versa?
    • “In the countryside, guys did everything. Also part of guys meeting girls and meeting your wife, and of course the girl is the flower and not the guy. How else would they meet the girls otherwise?”
  • What do you think this festival symbolizes?
    • “Something about fertility but I don’t know. But maybe it’s just a nice thing too.”
  • Who are the participants?
    • “Guys of all ages – even the grandfathers. And women of all ages too.”

 Analysis from Collector:

I think this Easter Tradition found in Hungary is in line with many other Spring/Easter festivals found around the world. Spring festivals usually revolve around new life, reproduction, and fertility. In the Hungarian Easter tradition the woman represents the flower and the guys represent the fertilizing or stimulant. The flower represents virginity and fertility, while the watering represents the fertilizing of a flower and stimulating growth. Simply, it represents sexual intercourse between men and women for reproductive purposes.

The fact that the grandfathers and older women take part in the tradition seems a little strange, as fertility is usually centered on a younger generation. This part of the tradition may have changed with the times for everyone to participate and have fun. However, I believe the tradition started in the countryside as a way for men and women to meet each other and ultimately lead to reproduction.

Day of the Dead in Mexico

Nationality: Italian
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: London, England
Performance Date: 04/27/15
Primary Language: Italian
Language: Spanish, English

Day of the Dead

 

The informant is a 19-year old student attending USC. She was born in Avellino, and has lived in central Mexico, London, and Italy in her life. She speaks Italian, Spanish, and English and is majoring in architecture. The following is what she shared with me about Day of the Dead from when she lived in Mexico for 6 years.

 

Informant: “In Mexico there was the Day of the Dead.”

Interviewer: “How do they celebrate it?”

Informant: “They made like alters with food, and they have it out for the dead. There are a certain amount of days it goes on.

Interviewer: “Did you have any friends who celebrated it?”

Informant: “Yes, but we did it at school too. We did the sugar skulls.”

Interviewer: “What’s a sugar skull?”

Informant: “It’s a skull made out of sugar. [Laughs]. You just bought them at the supermarket. You could decorate them yourself.

Interviewer: “What is Day of the Dead about?”

Informant: “To celebrate the Dead! The people that have passed on come back to life at night.”

Interviewer: “is it scary? Like are the dead perceived as bad?”

Informant: “No, it’s good. They are good spirits.”

 

Thoughts:

Day of the Dead is a pretty well known and considerably popularized holiday. It was interesting to hear how indifferently the informant was about Day of the Dead and the customs around it. Perhaps having lived in a culture where the dead aren’t perceived as “bad” or as haunting makes the whole notion of dead coming back to life something casual.

Talking to the informant about how Day of the Dead was celebrated in Mexico reminds me a lot of talking to Israeli soldiers when I was in Israel this summer about bar and bat mitzvahs in Israel. One might think that Jewish rituals would be more extreme or that people would be more devout in a Jewish state, but in fact, it seemed the opposite. All of us American-Jews were surprised to find out that for the Israeli soldiers we talked to, bar and bat mitzvahs (Jewish coming of age ritual) were just parties for the bar or bat mitzvah and his or her friends as opposed to the religiously-heightened ritual they are typically performed in the United States.