Category Archives: Rituals, festivals, holidays

BABY BEACH GHOSTS

Nationality: Indonesian
Age: 48
Occupation: Shopkeeper
Residence: California
Performance Date: 4-24-2018
Language: Indonesian Primary / English Secondnary

BABY BEACH GHOSTS

 

Main Piece:

 

Indonesia is a land and island with a lot of spirits. You must be careful whenever you are leaving out at night.

 

My mother used to tell me that there are ghosts of babies, or what look like babies, that crawl out of the ocean and night in the beaches.

 

Background Information:

Why do they know this piece?

This is something that my mother told me/warned me about.

 

Where/Who did they learn it from?

From my mother.

 

What does it mean for them?

It is a very spooky story. Because of this story I don’t like going out at night even if my friends asked me to. Especially to the beaches because I heard other people (friends, family) seeing these baby ghosts crawling on the beach multiple times.

 

Context of Performance:

Talking to mother through the phone.

 

Thoughts:

This is very creepy and although I never seen it during my time in Indonesia, when I did come back to Indonesia for the first time since I left, I did feel a lot of spiritual presence there, especially during the night/midnight of the new year.

 

Hidirellez

Nationality: Turkey
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Residence: U.S.A
Performance Date: 04/08/2018
Primary Language: Turkish
Language: English

The following story is collected from my friend. She lived in Turkey for the most part of her life. Now she lives in the U.S.A. She talks about a traditional event. This interview is done face-to-face. “A” refers to me, the collector. And “B” refers to the participant.

A: “Do you celebrate any tradition?”

B: “Every year to celebrate Hidirellez, the new spring, we write our wishes in a paper and we bury them near a rose tree at midnight. After burying the paper we go to sleep. Next day, we wake up early in the morning, like at 6 AM,  and go back to the tree. We dig out the paper and walk towards the sea. Then we throw our wishes to sea, and the reason is that; we believe that, there are two souls that represent the earth and the water. “Hidir” represents the earth and he takes your wishes at midnight and brings it to god, I guess, and “Ellez” is the soul of the water, who makes your wishes come true.  And these wishes should not be seen by anyone else but the person himself or herself.”

A: “Do you practice this often?”

B: “Yes I try to practice every year. But could not for the last 2 years”

A: “What kind of things do  you wish?”

B: “Like I said before… no one should see your wishes”

A:”Do they camo true?”

B:” Yes they do”

A: “All of them?”

B: “Not all of them”

A: “Do you believe in it?”

B: “Yes I do believe in it but it’s more of a tradition then reality.”

A: “Is this a common practice in Turkey?”

B:” Yes and also Persian”

A: “Where did you learn it from?”

B:  “My mother and my friends, when I was in high school.”

Hidirellez is still one of the most famous traditions in Turkey and Iran

7 Layer Burrito

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Performance Date: April 20, 2018
Primary Language: English

“When I was a probably a toddler, my dad would give me a bath and clean me. So like he’d bathe me and then when I got out he would rap me in a towel and like tuck in the sides super tight. Basically, I was a burrito. Then he’d pick me up in his arms and carry me to the living room. My brother would be playing video games or something and my mom would be working over in the corner at her desk. He’d lay me on my Thomas the tank engine rug where you’d build like train tracks over. It was a fat rug, play mat type thing. I’m still fully tucked. Then he’d say ‘who ordered this 7 layer burrito’ and look around at  my bother and mom. My mom would then get out of her chair and pretend she was eating me like a burrito.”

 

“The 7 layer burrito was my favorite burrito from Taco Bell. Whenever we went to taco bell I’d always get it, but the funny part was I would always take most of the stuff out of it so it wasn’t even 7 layers.”

 

“This didn’t happen every bath I took, but it happened a lot. At least twice a week. My dog would come over and lick my face and then my dad would yell at him to stop eating human food.”

 

“My grandpa didn’t do that to my dad. I think it was more of a thing just between my direct family. It had a lot to do with my obsession with the 7 layer burrito.”

 

My Interpretation of the story:

 

I think that it is completely normal and in most cases encourage to have traditions like this in your family that are directly related to each member personally. This story, to me, shows the importance of generating specific and personal relationships with your family. Your family knows you best, your like and dislikes. Generating traditions that stick have to stem off of ideologies and characteristics that are all shared, meaning that they are hard to create with larger groups, especially if they come from different backgrounds. Creating a tradition with in your family can have a lot more success because as a unit you should share a lot of beliefs and tendencies. Also, it allows you to continue the tradition through the family and maintain your identity as a family into the future generations. It is important to establish traditions and rituals in your family to develop closer relationships and enforce the importance and relevance of your family. Certain cultures stress family and personal matters over work ethic and individualism, offering them the opportunity to develop deeper relationship with those they grow up with and live with. The Interviewee’s father spent the majority of his life in Greece, which can be looked at as a collectivist society. The father is demonstrating his cultural values of family and group work through developing traditions and enforcing relationships in his family.

Yom Kippur

Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Performance Date: April 20, 2018
Primary Language: English

“Yom Kippur is the holiday after Rosh Hashanah, which is the Jewish New Year. It is celebrated exactly 10 days after Rosh Hashanah every year. Growing up, my family always went to temple for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur to celebrate the holidays and fullfil their purpose. Yom Kippur is a holiday that allows the Jewish people to think about their mishaps and their sins and improve yourself in the coming year. In temple, we were always given a couple minutes to have self-reflection, but what my family did differently was we also did it afterwards at the break fast. On top of self-reflection, we had a tradition of passing around a roll of challah, each taking a piece, and then once everybody had a piece, we would throw it at each other.”

“There is a common tradition in Jewish culture that does something similar to this. People usually put a piece of bread into a bowl of water as a sign of repenting their sins. I guess you could say that this is my families version of that.”

“None of my family is super religious, but we do follow the general holidays and ideologies of our religion. Like, we go to temple for major holidays and have a Passover Seder, but nobody turns off all their technology and walk to work like you are supposed to on Shabbat.  I guess this tradition can be looked at as the reformed version of the other bread in water tradition, just like we are the reformed version of the Jewish people.”

 

My Interpretations of the story:

 

I personally enjoy the fact that this family has taken a broader tradition and altered it slightly to personalize it. With this being said, it is important to note that by doing this, the tradition isn’t technically the tradition it was before. While there are certain aspects that remain consistent, there are reasons for the original tradition being the way it is. In changing or altering the tradition, many important parts of the tradition can be lost and therefor change its meaning or purpose. In this specific case, the tradition is supposed be a symbol of repenting for your sins, while the rendition version seems like more of a fun, family bonding experience. Traditions, when applied to specific cultures, have much history going into their making, purpose, and requirements, and can be somewhat exclusive to their specific culture. When these traditions are altered and spread to others, the cultural uniqueness can be lost in addition to the ultimate goal of the tradition.

My dad’s whistle

Occupation: Sales Associate
Performance Date: April 13, 2018
Primary Language: English

“Growing up, I loved running errands with my dad. He always took me to, what seemed to me at the time, the coolest places. Realistically it was just like home depot or ace hardware, but all of the fun tools and stuff fascinated me. Being a kid though, I always had the tendency to wander off and explore on my own and see what I could find.”

“It’s not really safe for a kid to be wandering around the store alone, especially in that day and age, so my dad sort of developed a call to let me know where he was so I could find him. It was a whistle with three different tones. The first tone was lower, and then the second tone went higher, and then the third tone went lower again. It’s not like it was the most unique of calls, realistically anybody could do it, but I always knew that it was him whenever I heard it. I knew that if I heard that whistle that I was needed somewhere for some reason and immediately had to find my dad, even if it wasn’t an urgent situation.”

“I asked my dad where he learned that tune from and he said that he just kind of made it up. He said growing up he was never able to whistle and that when he finally learned to a little bit, those were the only three pitches he could hit, and together they made that tone. That was the tone he always whistled to I guess I just associated it with him. Now I do that whistle too when I’m looking for people, even though they probably don’t know what it is.”

 

My Interpretations on the story:
The whistle in this story can be considered a symbol to that family. The tone is specific to that family because of the way it originated, therefor can be looked at as symbolic to that family. Because the father generated that call through the only tones he was able to whistle, it is unique to him and his family. Additionally, this call has imprinted a meaning in the mind of his family as something that is specific to their father or husband and represents him, giving the call more of a purpose than just finding other family members. I think that it is also gives the family a sense of uniqueness, because this tone is specific to them rather than taken from other wavelengths of life.