Tag Archives: birthday

LMU Birthday Ritual

Nationality: Japanese American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Anaheim, CA
Performance Date: April 7, 2012
Primary Language: English
Language: Japanese

At Loyola Marymount University (LMU) inLos Angeles, it is tradition that on the night of a freshman’s birthday, that freshman has to be thrown into the Foley Fountain.

My informant is a currently a student at Loyola Marymount University.  She told me that she heard this piece of folklore when she was first taking a tour of the school; the tour guide had informed them that it was a tradition at this school although he had no idea where it had originated from.  When it was her birthday, her friends took her to the fountain and threw her into the water.  At the same time, my informant told me that this fountain throwing happened almost on a daily basis at night.

I asked my friend what she thought about this tradition.  She told me that as a viewer, it was always fun to watch people getting dunked in the water.  On the other hand, as somebody who was being thrown, it was quite scary since the Foley Fountain is known for being quite dirty.  However, afterwards, she said it was definitely one of the highlights of her freshman year at LMU.  I believe that this tradition is a right of passage at LMU as it is something that is expected of all freshman.  At the same time, I feel it is a quintessential part of the LMU student identity because my informant told me that whenever she meets alumni, they always ask her if she has been thrown into the Foley Fountain yet.

Wine Cellar Initiation: Coming of Age Ritual

Nationality: Italian American
Age: 53
Occupation: Homemaker
Residence: Pasadena, CA
Performance Date: 3/14/12
Primary Language: English

The informant is Italian, on her mother’s side, and still retains close ties to her Italian roots. She was born in Pennsylvania, where she spent most of her childhood.

I interviewed the informant on pieces of folklore that she might have experienced in her life. I asked her if she could think of anything in her life that could be considered folklore, any family legends, jokes, or rites of passage. She said she thought she might have something that could be considered a rite of passage ritual, but she wasn’t sure. I told her to tell me anyways. The ritual she described is recorded below:

“I was born in Vestaburg, Pennsylvania, where most of my extended family lived too. My grandfather had a wine cellar—he made wine. All of his grandkids—and his kids—weren’t allowed in the wine cellar. But around 16 or so, he would invite them down to the wine cellar for a glass of wine and this was kinda like when they were considered to be an adult.”

I then asked her some questions about this coming of age ritual.

Me: Did everyone in the family go through this, then?

Informant: All the kids did, my grandfather’s kids—my parents—and then us grandkids too.

Me: So this was kind of a big deal right?

Informant: Well, yeah, but mostly just because we were finally allowed into the wine cellar. I don’t think my cousins or me and my brother really cared about the wine at all.

Me: Was there any other aspect of importance placed on this ritual? Maybe something you get from looking back on it?

Informant: It made us kids feel special. Certainly, after being admitted into the wine cellar, we felt more grown-up and we thought that we finally had our grandfather’s approval.

Me: Approval of what?

Informant: Well, of basically life. We saw being allowed in the wine cellar as his recognition that we were finally becoming something—somebody—worthwhile.

Me: Yeah, so this ritual was mostly about gaining approval and recognition of worth?

Informant: Exactly.

Me: Do you still remember it because it was such a big part of your growing up?

Teresa: I think so. It was such a big deal in the family that I think it would be very hard to forget.

After learning about this ritual, I see it in the same way my informant does. It is very much a coming of age ritual, when a child is deemed worthy of becoming an adult. It is also interesting because it is closely tied to the fact that her family is Italian. What’s more appropriate for an Italian than being allowed to enter the family wine cellar on the brink of adulthood? Perhaps this is another reason why this ritual was performed: it allowed an Italian American family to stay close to their Italian roots.

Post Happy Birthday Song

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Massachusetts
Performance Date: March 13, 2012
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

My informant chanted to me a song that is sung directly after the commonly known “Happy Birthday” song:

“You sing the happy birthday song, and then right after that you sing:

Are you 1?

Are you 2?

Are you 3?

Are you 4?

Are you 5?

And then it keeps going until you reach the age the person is turning and they yell: Stop!”

My informant told me that this sometimes happens after the birthday song, but not always. She first heard it when she was at a birthday party in second grade. Once people reach an older age, the song becomes annoying, and often if the person is over 20 years old it is not sung because it is too long. Sometimes it begins and then other people cut it off because it is too long and annoying to go through every year until you reach the particular one that the birthday boy or girl is turning.

I remember singing this when I was younger. I am from the northeast, and I have found that it is common in that region. However, here in California most people have never heard of the chant. I personally did not like it, I found it annoying. In my experience once it begins to be chanted half of the people in the room participate and half roll their eyes and impatiently wait until it ends.

Chinese custom: Birthday noodles

Nationality: Chinese-American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student (Business Administration)
Residence: Atlanta, Georgia
Performance Date: April 2012
Primary Language: English
Language: Mandarin Chinese, German

My informant’s mother always makes noodle soup whenever anyone in the family celebrates a birthday.  Her mother’s mother, my informant’s grandmother, was from northern China, where wheat noodles were a popular food item. The long noodles represent long life. The person whose birthday it is must eat enough to be completely full so that he/she won’t ever be hungry in the coming year.

This custom turns every birthday into a family occasion. The family shares a homemade meal, which promotes family bonding. It’s a ritual of sorts to mark the transition into being a year older.

My informant skipped her classes on her birthday to go home and have a noodle meal with her family, which shows how strong a tradition this is for her family. She says that she will have to learn how to make noodle soup so that she can continue the tradition in the future.

 

Hispanic Folk Food way – Chilaquiles and Chinese Folk Food Way – Eggs

Nationality: Hispanic
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: 615 Childs Way, Room Tro368, Los Angels, CA 90007
Performance Date: 4/26/2011
Primary Language: Spanish
Language: English

My informant says this about his background:

“My parents are both um…from Mexico… and then they moved to the uh…Sacramento, California in uh ’88 and had my sister and I was born shortly after that in ’91…um…we lived in a mostly Hispanic neighborhood until the time I was in third grade at which point my Dad’s career brought us to a point where we could move into a high income neighborhood elsewhere in Sacramento and I lived there since until I moved to Los Angeles this year for college.”

My informant was raised in a Catholic family. He provided this Hispanic folk food way in the following conversation:

“Informant: So this is a folk food way, it’s interesting because I’ve heard of it outside of my family’s context and outside of the town that I grew up in, but uh…only rarely and never in the same way that I’ve seen with them. Uh…this food way is Chilaquiles, which are a uh… breakfast food in Mexico umm is basically a uh…chopped up tortilla, fried and served with, in uh… via you mix it with eggs umm, sometimes peppers… and then it’s served with really hot salsa on top and on a rare occasion, served with soul scream on top…that, at least in my home, this was a very uh, weekend-y thing because it takes time to prepare, we didn’t really have time for it on a weekday, um, at least for my parents growing up, it was very much, very much a luxury, um, because this has meat in it, you might get meat once a week and eggs were also…not quite as much and so, these ingredients, so…is very very simple. This was uh, uh, quite the, it was uh, a rare deviation from the usual diet, a very luxurious one.

Collector: What do you think is the significance of this uh, food way?

Informant: Uh, the significance is that it’s rarely reflective of the way that, at least the way that people who grew up in that town, um, it’s a very modest upbringing um…you don’t get fancy breakfast like you see in America where traditional breakfasts are pancakes, eggs, bacon, sausage, orange juice…very very simple, but it’s not as appreciated by the children who grew up with that because they don’t recognize the luxury of that sort of breakfast.”

This folk food way is very much reflective of the living standards of what my informant describes as a modest upbringing in a Mexican village. The addition of meat, eggs and soul cream, which are considered expensive food items in a small town like the one my informant’s parents grew up in, show the Chilaquiles’s role as a luxury or celebratory food–it’s a special food, something different from what is usually consumed. I find that many folk food ways are created out of this situation, where a specific food, such as eggs or meat, are main ingredients of a special dish (special as in special occasion) because it was considered a luxury food back in the day.

To show an example, my father often recounted to me about luxury food items in the past.

Here’s a little background on my father:

My father was born as a farmer’s son into a veteran’s family in Taipei, Taiwan. His father and mother ran away from China to Taipei during the Chinese Civil War. Many of his cultural practices and beliefs are taken from mainland Chinese culture. Because of his background, he is considered a “mainlander” in Taiwan (Chinese in Taiwan are divided into Mainland Chinese, Taiwanese or indigenous). My father graduated from Iowa University with an MBA. His B.A was obtained in Taiwan.

While my father often tells me how precious sweet foodstuffs, such as jawbreakers, watermelon and rock candy, were to him in his childhood, he never forgets to reinforce how precious eggs are. He said that in his childhood, eggs were extremely expensive so much so that families couldn’t afford to eat eggs. The only chance he would have to eat an egg was on his birthday. He came from a family of five and on their birthdays, his mother would make ??? (Yang Chun Mien, which directed translated would be “not complicated noodle” or “simple noodle”), which is basically water, noodles and scallions, and put an egg, one egg, in the soup, as a sort of luxury food. Thus, nowadays, when eggs are a lot cheaper, my father never forgets to add egg into the noodles.

From these recollections, we can see how historically rare food items have shaped folk food ways.

For more information on Chilaquiles, go here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilaquiles

For pictures of Yang Chun Mien, go here: pictures.