Category Archives: Life cycle

Phrase: “A Senior is Half a Teacher”

Nationality: Chinese
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Near USC campus
Performance Date: 2/21/2023
Primary Language: Chinese
Language: English

Text: “一个学长，半个老师”
Pinyin (Simplified): yi ge xue zhang, ban ge lao shi
Translation: One senior is half a teacher.

Context:
N is a junior at USC, majoring in Communications. N is an international student from China, Anhui Province. When N was a high school student, he was in a soccer team on campus which is the community he refers to in this phrase.
N: “There’s this sort of tradition, more like a phrase. The phrase is ‘一个学长，半个老师’ (yi ge xue zhang, ban ge lao shi). It’s like, ‘a senior is equal half a teacher, or half a coach. It’s part of a tradition in my soccer team when a junior would just, like, make the freshmen do whatever they want them to do. That’s just a tradition, I guess.”
Is that like a criticism of experience?
N: “I think it’s because in China, the people who go to sports, they don’t need to have really good grades. They just go to high school or college with their sports, they just go to practice. They’re more like a street gang, like a clique. So, because they’re bad, they want to control the people who are new.”

Interpretation:
This phrase is circulated throughout the students. It isn’t a proverb which relays some form of wisdom or life lesson to the listener and it is also not a joke, as there is no humor behind the reality of the statement. It observes a complex power dynamic and metaphorically summarizes it in a concise way, likely as a call to how unfair such a hierarchy is and an acknowledge about the inevitability of its insistence in the school system. It’s a stereotype of athletes at this school widely known and accepted by the students, a blason populaire of this community of soccer players. Such speech is usually created by an external audience, the students who are not in the soccer team themselves but are familiar with it. When asked why the juniors bully the lower classmen, the answer could be this phrase. It is a lighthearted observation of the corruption and power play at school and its unfair treatment of the students, so much so that N associates this phrase with his specific team. Simultaneously, it encourages no revolt against such a system, already knowing full well the impossibility of change that could come from speaking up. This acceptance adds to the stereotype, almost perpetuating its truth.

Game: Electric Shock

Nationality: Chinese
Age: 21
Occupation: student
Residence: around usc
Performance Date: 2/16/2023
Primary Language: Chinese
Language: English

L is a junior at University of Southern California studying Communications. He is an international student from China who is telling us about a game he played as a child from his hometown in China, Anhui Province in the city Hefei. His first language was Chinese, so throughout the interview, he would sometimes slip into Chinese and struggle placing the exact words in English.

Text:
L: “It’s just another version of hide and seek in the place where I live. Like every hide and seek game. The one whose finding the others is gonna have to stay in place and counts for 30 seconds but that specific place is, in this game, a big pillar. He places his hand on the big pillar and counts for 30 seconds before he goes off and finds the others. I think that’s it.”
Why is it called Electric Shock?
L: “When we find another one, we say “Electric Shock” and he can’t move. He could move before, like if he tried to dodge he can move but he can’t be seen. But if he is seen, then ‘Electric Shock’ and he can’t move. He’s frozen in place.”
How do you win the game, to just not get found?
L: “Yeah, and by finding them all. And there is a time limit. Like for ten minutes. Like, you can’t be looking forever. So, ten minutes. If you can’t find everyone, then yeah.”

Context:
“For some reason, we don’t call Hide and Seek Hide and Seek. We call it Electric Shock in Chinese, like that’s just a traditional version native to the place, it’s name is called Electric Shock…very childish, like before sixth grade. I really have no idea how we came up [with it]. It’s something that we come up with, like our community. Like, there’s like 20-30 kids who live around our community. We come to same place every two days to play them. We play it so often. I have no idea why, but I guess it was very fun.”
This was a game specific to the community of the informant, a game shared among all the children of that area in the city they grew up in. The informant specified that they played this frequently during their early childhood, but stopped before sixth grade. They used it as a way to have fun with other children, and viewed as something childish: enjoyable as a kid to play, but socially unfitting for an adult.

Interpretation:
In every culture and nation, there seems to be a childhood game or two with which any child can play. There are commonalities between Electric Shock and American hide and seek and freeze tag. But to call Electric Shock a fusion of hide and seek and freeze tag would be ignorant of the Chinese community that created the environment that fostered this specific game. The time limit, the hand on the pillar, even the title, Electric Shock; these distinct variations compared to other examples of hide and seek or freeze tag make it unique. Even though it seems to be only played in one city of one province of one country in the world, Electric Shock has become a piece of children’s lore, its own folk game. However, its specificity to one region in the world does not take away from its purpose, synonymous to all other universal children’s lore. These small, folk games children invent give them a chance to let loose society’s expectations and have fun. There’s freedom that comes with playing the same game with dozens of other people your age, laughing and playing together. No matter the game style, title, or variation, the special nostalgia, fond fun and freedom that’s associated with childhood are hardly taken away. That makes childhood lore unifying under whatever variation, but simultaneously unique to each child’s upbringing.

Minor Genre: Folk-Speech

Nationality: Puerto Rican/Dominican
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: USC
Performance Date: 2/20/23
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

“Culito de rana si no sana hoy sana mañana”

Translation: “Heal heal frogs butt, if it doesn’t heal today, it’ll heal tomorrow.”

Context: The context of this saying is typically used to provide comfort to someone who is feeling discouraged or disappointed about something that didn’t work out as planned. Additionally if a kid gets physically hurt, they would use the lullaby phrase to make them feel better. It suggests that sometimes things don’t work out right away, but with patience and time, they will eventually improve or heal. It’s important to note that this saying is often used in a light-hearted or playful way, especially when it’s being said to children. However, it can also be used in more serious situations to encourage perseverance and hope. The informant first heard this saying when they were four years old and fell on the playground. After coming home from school that day, their mother recited the lullaby to them and gave them comfort.

Analysis: As a child, this sounds as though it would be very nice to hear when you get a scratch on the playground. Although the phrase is most commonly used for children, I interpreted it having a playful and lighthearted tone, which may help to alleviate stress or anxiety in difficult situations or setbacks. It’s a reminder that sometimes it’s okay to take a step back, relax, and trust that things will eventually work out in their own time.

Children’s Folk Game: Bloody Murder

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: USC
Performance Date: 02/22/23
Primary Language: English

Context: The informant recalls playing the game in his early childhood in the open fields of the west. The game would have to be played in a very rural area, with few to zero houses around. Two teams would form in order to play the game, one would have a “base” while the other would go out and hide in the field. The team at the base would stay within the base for a twenty-four-second count without looking to give the other team time to hide. The main purpose of the game was to hide as deep in the field as you could if you were on the other team. This way the base team would be forced to go deep into the fields to find you, and if they spotted you they would yell “bloody murder”, which would cause the hiding team to chase the entire base team back to their camp. If someone on the base team got tagged by the hiding team then that individual would switch teams. This process would go on until one team had all members and there was no one left on one of the teams. The informant noted that the hiding team did not have to wait until a base member yelled bloody murder in order to run after them.

Analysis: Looking at this game from all accounts, one gets the sense that this folk developed around groups of children whose fathers went to war during the twentieth century. The tactics of the game mimic a lot of war tactics used during guerrilla warfare, and thus one can conclude that the children put together “bloody murder” from the circumstances their fathers were undergoing during wars. In a strange way, perhaps even an adult incorporated this among children in order for them to learn or be introduced to war tactics, this way the children would grow up familiar with the basics of guerrilla warfare. This ensures that the upcoming generations of the American military would have strong, knowledgeable soldiers and leaders. When looking from another lens, this game could have also been a bonding activity amongst children who had absent fathers on account of the war, and thus bonded with one another through “bloody murder.” Children’s folklore tends to be anti-constitutional and is spurred by their inner creativity and the hardships they faced from being institutionally controlled.

CTR Ring

Nationality: American
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: February 14, 2023
Primary Language: English

Context:

CTR Ring

The informant had been raised in a Morman family and society for most of their life and has many experiences with the cultural aspect of Mormonism and the type of folklore that had been embedded in them throughout their childhood. They describe the visual aspect of the ring when stating “It has a little green shield which stands for ‘Choose the Right’, which is supposed to remind you to do the right thing and make the moral choice whilst remembering to be a good person. The informant described the ring as being “mostly for kids and the younger group of the church.” They are to be given at any young age and “whoever is teaching the lesson that day will give them out after the service” as it is given by the church to wear. It is also dictated that the saying is used for multiple scenarios as “choose the right is a common saying in games like in mazes and how you would always get out by going right” The age that the rings are most commonly worn is between “late toddler years and stop around the age of twelve” therefore being worn for a large part of their childhoods.

Analysis:

The aspect of having a shield on the ring provides children with the chance to view the church and the society in that they are being raised in a protected environment where they can learn to grow and continue to learn the values of Mormonism. Engraving the acronym “CTR” on the ring and embedding the phrase ‘Choose the Right’ into their thought process allows the children to develop whilst remembering that they will always be protected as long as they do what is right by their culture and the church. The idea of incorporating the acronym into a ring is symbolic as rings are typically worn in a traditional manner when referring to marriage, therefore, using a ring to produce this message and phrase conveys the attachment that is built between the child and the religious group. This is similar to marriage as it possibly foreshadows the same Christian ideology of ‘til death do us part’ conveying that they are forever connected to the community, culture and religious upbringing and that the church will perpetually be linked to their being when ‘Choos[ing] the Right’.