Category Archives: Old age

Retirement, seniority, death, funerals, remembrances

Tomb visiting day in Taiwan

Nationality: Taiwanese/American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Performance Date: 04/22/18
Primary Language: English
Language: Mandarin Chinese

Background information:

My friend introduced me to a practice that he and his relatives often perform surrounding the celebration of his ancestors. He is of Taiwanese descent, as he was born in San Francisco, California and both of his parents were born in Taipei, Taiwan. His family moved to California since before he was born and have assimilated into the American lifestyle but still stay very true to their Taiwanese roots and take great pride in their Taiwanese culture.

 

Main piece:

My friend said that throughout his childhood and growing up, he would always celebrate his ancestors with his relatives. He explained that there is a special day in Taiwan where family members all get together and visit the tombs or graves of their ancestors. When they visit their ancestors, they do everything from pray to bring a large amount of food for both them as well as their ancestors to enjoy. He explained this as not being an event of sadness, but rather a celebration where family members are able to reconnect and bond over their unity in their family and eat traditional Taiwanese foods. He said that his family members come from all over Taiwan and therefore all of his family members travel to the location where their ancestors are buried, when they are celebrating this day, showing the importance that people place on this event and how crucial it is that everyone attends.

When I asked if there was any dish in particular that was popular for this event, he responded that fruit is very common to bring, along with other desserts such as red bean desserts and rice cakes, emphasizing that sweets are often preferred in his experience.

 

Personal thoughts:

Upon hearing this tradition, I felt that this was a fantastic way to celebrate relatives that have passed away because everyone in the family is joining in on this event, unifying the family a great deal. In addition to the unifying and memorable factors of this celebration, I feel that the great amounts of food definitely make this event even more successful, as I have always experienced that having food at events usually makes them vastly more successful and memorable.

Chinese Funeral Customs

Nationality: Half Chinese, Half Caucasian
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Residence: San Ramon, California
Performance Date: 4/22
Primary Language: English

Interviewer:  Are there any practices in your culture that revolve around life transitions, like funerals, weddings, or birthdays?

 

Informant:  So at Chinese funerals there is often a viewing beforehand where it’s like a reception and people make speeches and you bow and pay your respects to whoever has died.  And then before you sit down for the service you are given a red envelope that already had money and candy in them.  They are usually prepared by the immediate family of the deceased and then handed out to guests.  And when you go up to casket after the speeches in a specific order depending on family and friends, we did it that way because we didn’t know everyone that had come so we just wanted to have an orderly way of doing it.

 

Interviewer: So who are the envelopes for and what do you do with them?

 

Informant: The envelopes are made of the guests.  You don’t give the envelopes to the deceased or the family of the deceased they give them to those who have come to pay their respects.

 

Interviewer: And what do the envelopes symbolize?

 

Informant: Well I haven’t been to a lot of funerals but I believe my grandparents said that it was for good luck and a way of spreading prosperity.

 

Interviewer:  Do you do anything else?

 

Informant: After the viewing you get into your cars and drive to the cemetery.  At the cemetery then you say more things as the casket is getting lowered.  We also put fake money in the grave with the caskets and we bowed again, and said a prayer.  Some people depending on their relationship to the person who has died, they get different colored ribbons based on the placement of that person in the family.  And then once you get to the cemetery you take off the ribbons and put them in with the casket.  SO my mom wore a ribbon at my great aunt’s funeral but my brothers and I did not.  After everything is done at the cemetery, it is customary to go and visit another place before going home from the cemetery.  You have to spend the money you are given and eat or visit some other location as a way to not lead the spirit back to your home.  And then once everything has passed, the newly dead become part of other festivals like the Ching Ming festival.

 

Interviewer: So in a way everything is connected! That’s actually really cool. Thanks again for sharing.

 

Background: The informant is a Junior at USC studying human biology and a roommate of the interviewer.  She is a second generation Chinese American and is also half Italian.  Her grandparents immigrated from China when they were young and had her mother and uncle.  She has two brothers as well.  For her this piece was also a learning experience because she has only been to a few Chinese funerals and was especially new to taking on a role within the funeral customs.

 

Context: This interview was done during an afternoon in our apartment.  The context of the informant experiencing this custom was when her great aunt died in the previous year on her mother’s side. It was the first time someone relatively close to her had died and she had to take on certain roles like passing out envelopes and where her mother had to engage in the custom of wearing a colored ribbon.

 

Analysis: This piece extremely interesting because I had never heard it before.  It also provided a lot of context for other festivals that the informant had shared with me. Being able to better understand the cycle of a culture’s beliefs made the pieces less like random facts and more like I was truly learning about my roommate’s culture and traditions and where they came from.

 

How to Live a Long Life, According to a 102 Year Old

Nationality: American
Age: 102
Occupation: Retired
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 02/28/17
Primary Language: English

Informant is 102 years old, and has become quite practiced in answering the question, “what’s your secret for living so long?”

She was recently hospitalized after an operation, and the interviewer was able to record the following instructions for living to an old age:

Well, the thing is this, it’s all about the moderation.  And being consistent.  You don’t let anything fall by the wayside.

So everyone knows you move around every day, not to little and not too much, I like to climb stairs when I can and take walks.  Everyone knows about exercise  And you eat some vegetables every day and more is better than less, everyone knows that, but the thing my mother really believed in and that she learned from her mother who learned it from her mother and that I haven’t yet gone a day without doing is every day you have a little bit of chocolate, just a piece of it or chocolate ice cream or something.

Used to be we would come home from school for lunch and there would be maybe some cabbage soup or something, kasha and mushrooms or what have you, but always there was a piece of plain chocolate cake and a big glass of milk, and you don’t go back to school until you’ve had your cake and milk.  And on the weekend it was for breakfast.  But every day it was very important to my mother because her mother taught her, every day, you have a little bit of chocolate.

My mother was hit by a car so we don’t know if the chocolate would have kept her alive so long or not, but her mother, she lived for a long time, and she did it every day.  And I’m 102 and I do it every day.   And my sister, she’s 97, and she is in very poor health, and she never ate the chocolate because she didn’t want to be heavy.  But I tell her you can’t live on bread alone and she tells me that’s not what that means and I tell her who’s to say what’s living?

Compliment or Curse?

Nationality: American
Age: 55
Occupation: Financial Consultant
Residence: Yonkers, New York
Performance Date: March 15, 2017
Primary Language: English

Informant: The informant is Thomas, a fifty-five-year-old man who has lived in Westchester, New York for his entire life. He is a financial consultant for hospitals, has two children, and is of English and Russian descent.

Context: We sat across from each other at the kitchen table in Thomas’s house one afternoon during my spring break from college.

Original Script:

Informant: When I was little, my grandmother always told me about her belief that if I, or anyone for that matter, complimented something in her home, she felt that I wished her dead because I wanted the item. I was at her house one day when I was about twelve years old, and she had just gotten a new coffee table in her living room. I admired it, and she responded, “You wish me dead!” Then she went to my dad and said, “Your son wishes me dead; she wants my coffee table.”

Interviewer: Why do you like this piece of folklore?

Informant: I like this piece of folklore because after she died, my family said that I should be the one to get the coffee table. It’s still in my living room today, and every time I look at it, I smile and recall what she told me.

Personal Thoughts: I think that this piece of folklore is interesting because I had never heard of someone being offended by a compliment, or taking a compliment as a curse. What I like most about Thomas’s story is that his family got involved in accepting and appreciating the folklore after his grandmother had passed and gave him the coffee table. In a sense, the tradition can then say alive through Thomas.

Joke – “Directions for grandson”

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Nationality: American
Age: 46
Occupation: Small Business Owner
Residence: NJ
Performance Date: 3/26/17

Informant is my mother who was raised in a jewish family and in turn raised a jewish family herself. She belongs to a congregation and tries to instill jewish values on her children. She insists but cannot prove that this is a jewish joke:

 

A grandmother is giving directions to her adult grandson who is coming to visit.

“First, come to the front door of the apartment” she says,

“I’m in apartment 201. There’s a big panel at the front, press 201 with your elbow and I’ll buzz you in. Come inside the elevator and with your elbow, press the 2nd floor button.” She tells him, “When you get off, my door is there. Hit my doorbell with your elbow and i’ll let you in. OK?”

Her grandson says “Ok Grandma, but why am I hitting these buttons with my elbow?”

She says back “What…. you’re coming empty handed?!”

 

I think it’s interesting that she considers it a jewish joke, because I agree. The loving-but-demanding grandmother character reminds me of my own outspoken relatives. This is not the first time I have heard this joke from her, but it is a family favorite and we repeat it amongst ourselves in the family. As my mother puts it, “In a jewish family, you never show up empty handed. You just don’t.”