Category Archives: Childhood

Inky Binky Bonky

The Story:

“When I was younger, I had this tradition that I did with all of my friends. It started with my cousin, she taught it to me. But one of my favorite games growing up was tag and the way that we determined who would become or who would be the first to be it was Inky Binky Bonky. What we would do is we would come together and we would put our feet in a circle, and then we would chant the song while pointing onto each other’s toes. “

 “Inky Binky Bonky, 

daddy had a donkey, 

donkey died, 

daddy cried, 

what color was the donkey’s butt?”

“and then you land on somebody and then they give a color. If they’re like pink, you go P-I-N-K pink and then you’re out. That person’s out. And then you keep going until you have one person.

I taught the rhyme onto other people. My cousin did it because when I was younger the only rhymes I think were mutually accepted and known or widely known were like bubble gum bubble gum in a dish and Eenie Meenie Minie Moe, but Inky Binky Bonky, I had never heard of it. My cousin taught it to me and then I taught it to all of my friends.  The last age I played it, I would say maybe when I was like 11 or 12. I learned it, I want to say either kindergarten or first grade.  A twist I added was if it landed on me, I would count how many feet it would take for me to be it. Say a color that was longer, I knew that if I said pink, it would land on me, so I’m saying orange or I’m saying something else so that it’s somebody else. But yeah, I would just  use the color in my mind to navigate what I wanted to do and where I wanted to go.”

Reflection:

This interview and the informant reminded me of childlore and the multiplicity of folklore and how it can transcend regions but still have the original intent. The counting rhyme functions as a folk narrative in a shorter form, a verbal performance that assigns social roles and the weight they carry via rhythm, chance and choice. This also touches making do with whichever mediums are at hand and still perpetuating the original intent of the folk media. This version of a counting game, as well as some of the tactics used when determining social roles as implied by the rhyme are especially interesting. Although there is no direct author of this rhyme, it still exists and has several variations in different locations and regions. Further, it shows the creative control the informant and players of the game have when choosing the color when playing the game. It goes to show that while several versions of a game may exist, the original intent remains and the initiation players take to achieve the desired outcome. 

Arctic Fox

The Story:

“When I was in third grade, I moved to a different part of the city and changed schools. The first book we read in class was The Fantastic Mr. Fox. Our teacher used an origami activity to tie into the book and taught us how to make origami foxes. In the class, we used orange origami paper, but since that class I have made the origami foxes out of whatever resources I had around- like i did in class on Thursday!”

Reflection:

Reflection:

The informant’s story was a good example of folk art when mixed with personal memory and communal creativity. The emphasis on the folk art being created with “whatever resources I had around” is an example of making do with whatever is at hand. This draws back to the importance of folk art, since it essentially is the presentation of messages or historical context via a multitude of mediums. Furthermore, the folk art and its prevalence in the informant’s life shows how the folk art, despite the material used to make it, will always carry the historical and contextual significance when being recreated and taught onto other individuals. The story exemplifies the folkloresque of the integration type. The origami fox activity is an attempt at a connection between book and another tangible media form, yet seems folkloric as it allows the opportunity for the children to form shared connected ideals and emotions of the origami.

Spooky School Tale

Context:

Age: 19

Occupation: College Student

Location: Los Angeles, CA

The Story:

One of my friends lives  right next to this  old, like, middle school, it’s called Hogs Hollow, But because  one of my friends lived right next to there, and we would hanging out there, and one day after school was over we would sometimes like pop the fence and run around in there because they would leave all the doors open, so you could kind of just wander around in there. 

There were all these kinds of maze-like passages and stuff. I hadn’t been into the school but some of my friends had and so we decided to go in there and we were kind of wandering around it was dark and we decided to split up just because we thought it would make it more scary, you know, like, because we knew it was a bad idea. Then somebody heard a voice. And everybody started freaking out and running, and one of my friends  tripped over something and fell into a bunch of equipment, and there was all these loud noises and stuff, and everybody got freaked out.

Everybody went back to school and was talking about it, so it’s become a little bit more of a known thing at my school. I was kind of happy to be in sort of like the founding group of this our own little legend of this unknown myth. There were also some embellishments, I remember some stories saying we heard the voice at exactly 3 a.m. which I don’t think was true, but started going around, and that somebody saw like a little  middle schooler running around. It was kind of fun to see it like in real time develop into this sort of legend. 

Reflection:

When originally hearing this story from the informant, I thought it was interesting that the that the school operated as a contemporary legend that is set in the real world. The informant’s clarity of no one else being present but the friend group, but the rumor still spreading around the school is an example of metafolklore. Therefore, the location of this story, the school, starts ordinarily, but through the metafolklore and different versions created and spread, becomes saturated with fear and inauthenticity. Further, I think the real aspects of the story, such as the group splitting up and it being late at night also pave the way for embellishments of the story to amp it up in metafolklore. Although no time of the arrival was given and it was never shared which voice was heard, speculators assumed it was at 3AM and the voice of an old middle schooler was heard to fit the narrative of other folk stories they may have heard before. The informants proximity to the story allows for a social bonding factor for those within the folk group, but also ritualized performance that enacts group identity and belonging. 

Lion Tokens

Text:

“You got lion tokens — like coins — for being a good student, for paying attention, or like, maybe everybody else was goofing around, but you stayed focused. You got this currency you could use to buy homework passes, late passes, or even pencils or plushies, which was really interesting. And the students started trading them. It became a matter of pride.”

Context:


The informant attended the only gifted program on the South Side of Chicago, which required a competitive exam to get into. The token system was officially implemented by the school as a behavioral incentive program, but students created their own informal economy around it, trading, strategizing, and assigning social value to the coins in ways that greatly exceeded the official purpose. For the informant, tokens were more than just access to privileges; they were a sign of recognition and status within the peer group.

Analysis:
What started out as a tool for institutional behavioral management was turned by students into a completely colloquial folk economy with its own logic of value, exchange, and prestige. This is an example of how folk groups shape institutional structures to their own social ends. Officially, the tokens were meant to enforce individual compliance. But they became objects of collective negotiation and peer status, ones they were able to hold over one another and use as proof of social capital, not just a currency for getting out of homework. In a gifted program already competitive in admission, the token system took on another meaning as a visible marker of academic and behavioral standing. Students were given an institutional framework; they inhabited and elaborated it to reflect the status of popularity, even in early childhood, producing a parallel folk practice layered atop the official one.

Doljanchi

Text:


“So when I was one, I had this huge birthday party, and they laid out certain things — like a stethoscope, or money, or rice that symbolizes success. And then the baby has to pick one of them, and that’ll determine their path in life. A stethoscope would mean a doctor or something like that. I think I chose the rice. That’s from my Korean side.”

Context:


Doljanchi (also Dol) is the traditional Korean first-birthday celebration, and, officially, the Doljabi ceremony plays a vital role as an object-choosing ritual. Objects placed before the child vary by family and period but generally include objects that symbolize prosperity, health, scholarship, longevity, and professional achievements. The informant, who is half-Korean, inherited this practice from her father’s side and recalled it with pride, linking it to what she saw as a broader Korean cultural ethos of persistence and upward mobility.

Analysis:


Doljabi is one of the most recognizable folk rites in Korean culture, a fortune-telling performance at one of the earliest celebrations of a child’s life. Its endurance, even among second-generation Korean Americans, speaks to its profound cultural resonance. But most importantly, it’s not truly believed that the child’s choice is literally determining their future. The ceremony is more of an aspirational blend of parental hope and communal adornment. The informant’s observation is especially rich in that she ties the Doljabi to an understanding of Korean national identity, where the practice is not simply a matter of family heritage but an expression of a people’s relationship to ambition, hard labor, and prophetic evolving throughout life itself. And this shift from family tradition to ethnic pride is exactly how folk traditions maintain meaning in diasporic contexts: they become bearers of a larger tale about who a people are and where they have come from.