Category Archives: Rituals, festivals, holidays

Mid Autumn Festival

Nationality: Chinese-American
Age: 21
Occupation: student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 4/18/17
Primary Language: English
Language: mandarin

Background: Anna Lim is a 21-year-old student living in Los Angeles, CA. She is a student at USC. She is currently studying electrical engineering.

Original script: “Hmm.. festivals that I celebrate with my family? Honestly the first one that comes to mind is the Mid Autumn Festival. It’s held on the night of a full moon but just being real with you, I don’t really remember the significance behind it. I just know that it’s a night that I go out with my family, and you know, party it up and play games and eat lots of good street food. It’s just like a carnival, but there’s something a little magical about it because it’s a full moon. My favorite part of it is the lighting of lanterns. I used to make my own lanterns with my family and go to Redondo Beach and let them go. We would write a wish on the lantern on the inside and then we weren’t allowed to tell anybody what we wished for because it wouldn’t come true if we did. I always asked for money. Never got it. And then after letting the lanterns go we would eat mooncakes!! Always super excited about the mooncakes. But yeah, it was probably my favorite holiday as a child.”

Background Information about the Piece by the informant: Her family always celebrated the Mid Autumn festival as a full day event. The family would spend time together in the day and then go to a local festival at night.

Thoughts about the piece: This holiday sounds like so much fun! I actually went to the Mid Autumn Festival in LA for the first time with my roommate this past year and it was a lot of fun, with live music, games, and delicious food. I’m pretty sure it was not truly authentic because it’s LA and it’s such a huge conglomeration of cultures, but I still was able to experience a lot.  

 

For another version of this holiday please see https://www.travelchinaguide.com/essential/holidays/mid-autumn.htm

Holi

Nationality: Indian
Age: 19
Occupation: student
Residence: Santa Barbara, CA
Performance Date: 4/16/17
Primary Language: English

Anshika is a sophomore at UC Santa Barbara. She went to Whitney High School in Cerritos, CA, which was a small public high school that was #1 in the nation.

Original script: “There’s a festival called Holi that we celebrate with my family. It basically translates to ‘festival of colors’ and people use the holiday to celebrate the coming of spring. We have these chalk like colors that we throw around with each other. People wear white shirts coming out to the celebration so the colors show up better. My mom told me it basically is supposed to look like a flower field of different colors all around. It’s supposed to be a family celebration but it’s grown quite popular throughout the years. Last year, I invited my friends who weren’t necessarily Indian and we just ate Indian food together and then threw colors at each other afterwards. It was awesome.”

Background Information about the Piece by the informant: My informant has celebrated Holi with her family every year. It is a huge family tradition and she invites all her extended relatives as well. Family friends are also welcome to the event. It is mostly the children that participate with the throwing of colors.

Thoughts about the piece: I have actually attended a Holi before with one of my friends and I can personally attest to how fun and celebratory this festival is. It’s fun for everybody regardless of what religion or ethnicity you are.   

 

Sister Day Tradition

Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Tracy
Primary Language: English

Sister day is a holiday passed down in my family. It is a day that celebrates having sisters. Today my sisters and I and my mom and her sisters participate in the event. The day consists of the sisters spending the entire day together and exchanging small gifts. This day celebrates the special bond that sisters have. My mom and her sisters used to go on a hike or camping trip for sister day. My sister and I used to go to amusement parks. Then we got our puppy, Bliss. Now she joins in the event since she is a sister. So now we go to parks or lakes so that Bliss can really enjoy the day with us. My mom thinks this tradition came from a mixture of Irish traditions, but other than that she is not sure of the origin of this tradition. I asked my mom what she thought of the tradition. She said, “I think that this really brought my sisters and I together. It really made us value each other. Having support from your sisters is invaluable. I love having their support when things don’t go as planned. They really help you out with things that parents can’t.” When I asked my sister the same question she said, “I love hanging out with you. We don’t always get along but I still love you. This tradition lets us put our differences aside and remember that we love each other above all else.” My sister is a political science and economics major. She plays water polo and is a member of many “fandoms”. A “fandom” is a group of people who follow, generally, a television show or a novel. Some of the fandoms that she belongs to follow shows such as Supernatural, Doctor Who, and Naval Criminal Investigative Service(NCIS). The group develops terminology that is only understood by other members of the group. For example, many fandoms “ship” certain characters. This means that the members of the fandom or just fans of the show want two characters to become a couple. My mom has a degree in biochemistry and a Master’s degree in education. She teaches math to high schoolers. She enjoys doing math puzzles and learning to code. As a result, she has collected an enormous amount of folklore. Predominantly from her students. Some of this folklore is unique to each niche while other pieces span multiple groups. This provides a unique perspective on folklore from these rather similar groups.

I love this tradition. It’s always fun and I love spending time with my sister. It is especially important to me now that I am away at college and I don’t get to see her as often as I want to. Many families today do not get along. We see it in television and music very often. Divorce rates are higher today than they have been in the past. Thus, I believe that having a day to celebrate with part of your family is really important.

Fountain Tradition

Nationality: Irish
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Primary Language: English

Almost every University of Southern California student knows that in order for seniors to graduate they must run through every fountain on campus right before they take their spring senior finals. Neither my informant nor I know the origins of how this tradition started. Pretty much every one hears about this tradition when they tour the school or become a student. I have heard the story from multiple different places. My friend told me that recently administration is trying to stop this tradition. She elaborated, “last year they put fences around all of the fountains two weeks before finals. The ‘official’ story was that the fountains were under repair before graduation. The year before that they drained the fountains claiming that they were trying to conserve water during the drought. But I heard that a few students fell during a fountain run one year so the administration wants to stop kids from doing it to avoid a lawsuit. They try to beat around the bush when it comes to addressing the issue. I wish they would stop and just let seniors have this one thing.”

 

My friend is a computer science major. As part of the computer science community she collects and forwards a myriad of folklore specific to this unique group. Computer science folklore is unique and reflects the beliefs and the culture of the group. Per my informant, as well as personal experience, computer science majors have a unique sense of humor that develops from the difficult coursework, the long hours spent on the computer coding, and the group dynamic required to get through the major. This humor is often expressed through memes and jokes only members of this group can understand and appreciate.

 

I understand the university’s need to keep students safe. I feel like they could be more understanding and ingenious about how they solve this problem. Clearly this tradition is very important to students. Instead of just shutting it down the university should find ways to allow the students to participate safely. In addition, the university is full of intelligent students who are more than capable of figuring out ways around these barriers. I have yet to see what they come up with, but I am sure that if the tradition is important enough they will find a way.

Hockey pregame song

Nationality: Canadian
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 4/23/2017
Primary Language: English

Tim Marino is a 20 year old engineering student at USC. He was born in Calgary, Alberta and had lived there his entire life. Tim grew up a victim of Canadian stereotypes, playing hockey and eating maple syrup. Because he played hockey, I asked Tim if him or his team had any rituals they would do before games. Tim said before every game they would sing the same song, and it goes as follows:

“There was a dirty bird (repeat), that had a dirty bill (repeat), that sat upon (repeat), my window sill (repeat), so I lured him in (repeat), with a piece of bread (repeat), SO I COULD SMASH (repeat), HIS FUCKING HEAD (repeat)”

Tim said they would sing this repeat after me song before every game as it would get him excited and get his blood boiling. Because it was an aggressive song, and because his entire team would get very into it, he said it would help them have more energy when they entered the game. I personally think the lyrics don’t matter as much as the team environment, with everyone chanting one thing in unison and yelling it as loud as they can. I just wonder why they chose these lyrics to sing.