Category Archives: Life cycle

Lechon

Age: 51
Occupation: English
Residence: Corona, CA

Text

“When I think about big Filipino parties like weddings, baptisms, birthdays, Christmas, and even some funerals, the first thing that comes to mind is the lechon.

Lechon is a whole roasted pig, skin golden and crispy, head and all. It’s not just food; it’s also a spectacle. When the lechon arrives, someone always yells, “andiyan na ang lechon!” (the lechon is here), like someone famous just arrived. People gather around it, phones out, kids ready to grab, and family members grabbing their plates to have a piece.

Here in California, we usually order it from a caterer. It arrives crispy and ready to eat. The most important part of the lechon is the skin. It’s crispy, salty, and slightly sweet.

Lechon isn’t just something we are eating. It is a real celebration that marks abundance, pride, and hospitality. It shows that you spared no effort to feed your guests, too. Sometimes it can become a competition of who had the best lechon.

Even when there are other yummy dishes like pancit or lumpia, the lechon is always the centerpiece. It almost feels like the lechon is the guest of honor.

When I see lechon on the table, I don’t see just food. I see a tradition. I see a family showing love the Filipino way, which is full of laughter and full bellies.”

Context

The informant of this narrative was born in the U.S. to immigrant parents from the Philippines and grew up attending traditional Filipino gatherings in both domestic and community settings. Her story centers on lechon, which is a whole roasted pig that serves as the focal point of large celebratory events. The presence of lechon transforms an ordinary gathering into a culturally significant event, and its performance carries a deep symbolic and social meaning.

My Interpretation

From a folklore perspective, lechon functions as a material symbol of abundance, kinship, and collective identity. While it is technically a food item, it is best understood as a ritual object within the context of Filipino celebrations. Its preparation and presentation serve as a ritualized performance, where cultural meaning is enacted, remembered, and passed down.

The centrality of lechon to the events positions it as a symbolic quest of honor. The pig, therefore, is not just food but a performative symbol that embodies both economic investment and cultural pride. Its role aligns with the folkloristic principle that everyday practice scan function as nonverbal, expressive culture, encoding shared beliefs and values.

Lechon also serves as a visual and sensory expression of Filipino-American identity in diaspora. Even when the preparation changes from backyard firepits in the Philippines to pre-ordered catering in California, the core symbolic structure remains there. This demonstrates the multiplicity and variation that define folklore: traditions persist not because they are static but because they adapt meaningfully to new environments while preserving key elements. 

In this sense, lechon is more than just a cuisine. It is a ritual marker of festivity, community, and cultural continuity.

Happy Birthday sung in three languages

Nationality: Taiwanese-American
Age: 20
Occupation: Animation student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA / Queens, NY
Language: English

Text:

JC: “Okay, so um… for context, well you know this but my parents were originally from Taiwan, but my dad grew up in Costa Rica, so he’s picked up an understanding of Spanish. And in my family, we had this big group of like… in a lot of holiday celebrations, so like New Years or in the summer, we all tend to gather around and like, celebrate a specific holiday. And as a tradition we sing happy birthday first in English, ’cause everyone understands it, and then in Chinese to kind of like.. just for all the grandparents to understand, for them to join in, and for.. all of the like, Taiwanese people around. And then for the Costa Rican side, we end up singing it in Spanish.”

Context:

Informant JC is part of a multi-cultural and multi-lingual family. He added, “I always thought that was very interesting, like my family dynamic. I’m primarily Taiwanese-American, but we still ended up incorporating like a lot of Costa Rican cultural bits. There’s like, having Costa Rican food on the side, or being more open to Costa Rican culture. I also feel like because we’ve all like, grown up in America, like my parents moved when they were very young, and my relatives came in more progressively, and they’ve had to assimilate to American culture. A lot of what we end up doing feels very American.”

Analysis:

Happy Birthday songs are ritualized celebrations of the human life cycle, commemorating the completion of an approximate solar year since a person’s birth. They provide an opportunity for one’s community to get together and reaffirm their bonds with a person.

JC’s multilingual birthday ritual is especially significant in light of broader political changes. From 1949 to 2007, Costa Rica had diplomatic relations with Taiwan. After nearly 60 years, Costa Rica decided to break off this relationship in favor of establishing ties with China. Despite these shifting political alliances, JC’s family birthday ritual demonstrates that community bonds extend beyond the borders and interests of the nation-state.

Miyeok-guk (미역국), Seaweed Soup

Text:
Miyeok-guk is a seaweed soup often with beef or mussels, simmered in sesame oil and broth. It is commonly eaten as postpartum recovery food for mothers or birthday soup.

Context:
The informant states that they ate this soup every year on their birthday back in Korea. The first time they ate it as a child, their parents did not explain anything but instead just told them it is a birthday thing. Despite seaweed being a very common food in Korean dishes, they know it is unique because their family usually don’t eat seaweed soup for breakfast.

Analysis:
For mothers, eating miyeok-guk is both a health practice and a rite of passage into motherhood. It is used at the threshold of life stages, particularly childbirth, which is a highly vulnerable and transformative period in many cultures.
As a commemorative food, it is not as a celebration of self, but as a gesture of gratitude to one’s mother. Miyeok-guk is a symbolic reenactment of birth—a sensory and emotional link to one’s origin.

Preshow Pump

Nationality: American
Occupation: Student
Residence: Illinois
Language: English

WH is a part of stage crew as the lighting director at their high school. Before every show, they, along with the other members of the stage crew, perform a group stretch every time, to sync up the crew and make them get in the right mood for the production. After this however, WH and one of his friends always go one step further by doing a “preshow pump”, where they perform one pullup for each run of the show. For the opening show, they’ll do one pullup, and by the 5th show, they’ll have done 5 pullups.

This ritual came about beginning as an inside joke between WH and his friend, who brought it up as a whim on a random occasion. However, it quickly caught on as an inside joke between WH and his friend, as well as the rest of the crew. WH is adamant it is a requirement to make the musical go better and has started a tradition for the musical specifically. After with the pullups, WH and his friend do a tough guy chest bump and generally hype themselves and the crew up.

This performance is a connecting piece between WH and his friend tying them to this specific event. Because there are a very limited number of performances each year, creating meaning from each one and getting in the right headspace to perform your best is extremely important. As a senior in high school, WH is also on his last round of musicals and mentioned how these shows were part of the core of his high school experience. Looking back, when WH ever meets his friend, they are connected by this ritual, along with everyone else involved in the show. This tradition also plays upon subversion of norms and breaking taboo within the high school culture, as kids in the performing arts at this high school are known to be unathletic and averse to working out. By exploring this stereotype, the crew can also tap into the macho swagger and feel fully pumped up for the performance.

How did the chicken cross the road?

Text: “How did the chicken cross the road? To get to the other side.”

Context: This narrative joke was shared by the informant, who recalls hearing it as a young child. The joke was a staple of their childhood, passed down through their family and peers as a simple, classic form of humor. The informant remembers hearing it over and over, often in moments when the goal was not to get a laugh from a punchline but to enjoy the lightheartedness of the joke itself.

The informant’s experience with this joke was part of a broader cultural exposure to humor, specifically American humor, as they were not born in the United States. Upon learning English and becoming familiar with American culture, they encountered this joke in school and among friends, and it quickly became a part of their repertoire. The informant reflects that this particular joke stood out because it was so basic yet somehow funny in its simplicity.

Analysis: The “How did the chicken cross the road? To get to the other side” joke is a perfect example of a narrative joke. What makes this joke work is its simplicity—there’s no complex setup or twist, just a straightforward question and answer. The humor comes from the fact that it should be more elaborate or have a surprise twist, but instead, it’s just a basic, logical answer. That kind of anti-humor, where you’re expecting something more and get something totally simple instead, is what makes it funny.

This joke has become an iconic part of American culture, and it’s one of those pieces of folklore that gets passed around for generations. The way this narrative joke is shared—over and over again—highlights how jokes can be a kind of cultural glue, bringing people together. It doesn’t matter if you’ve heard it 100 times, it still has a kind of nostalgic value, and it’s part of how humor is passed along in a community. The fact that it’s so straightforward also reflects how humor doesn’t always need to be complicated or fancy. Sometimes, it’s the simple things, like a chicken crossing a road, that make us smile and connect with others.

Informant Info

Race/Ethnicity: White

Age: 63

Occupation: Talent Acquisition Manager

Residence: Oak Park, CA

Date of Performance: April 5, 2025

Primary Language: English

Other Language(s): Hungarian, German

Relationship: Parent