Tag Archives: birthday

Birthday Celebration

Text:

K.L. grew up in the United States and every birthday his friends and family presenting his birthday cake with sing to him and with lit candles on top of the cake. Most birthday songs he would often hear was, ” Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday to [name], happy birthday to you, and many more!”. And every time after the end of the song he would blow out his candles with a wish in mind, and would never tell anyone about the wish, or else it would not come true.

Context:

Every birthday celebration that K.L. went to growing up had people blowing out candles on a cake. He described, “I never really thought it was weird because everyone around me normalized it for me. But thinking about it now it does seem a little weird that we sing to a people on their birthday and they blow out candles on a cake”.

Analysis:

This is a form of homeopathic magic because the lit candles represent light and possibility of a wish. When a person blows out the candle the intention/ wish floats from the person’s mouth to the candle then into the universe with the smoke. The idea of a wish is transformed from a thought into physical form. The song and the candle also connect with the United States’ ideology of moving forward into the future, rather than reflecting on the past. The United States celebrates each new year looking forward for more. Wishing for something usually dose not involve the past but hopes for the future. This futuristic idea is often depicted in American pop-culture through movies and TV shows.

German Birthday Rhyme

Nationality: German
Occupation: Retired
Residence: Westergellersen, Germany
Performance Date: 4/10/22
Primary Language: German

Context:

HH is a retired former housewife who lives in Westergellersen, a small village in northern Germany.

Main Piece:

Am Fenster heute Morgen
Da saßen ohne Sorgen
Drei Spatzen und drei Meisen.
Ja was soll das den heißen?
Sie haben’s mir geflüstert.
Ich weiß es ganz genau:
"Name" hat heute Geburtstag.
Darum der Radau!

Translation:

At the window this morning
There sat without worries
Three sparrows and three tits.
What is that supposed to mean?
They whispered it to me.
I know it exactly:
It's "Name"'s birthday today
Therefore the noise!

Analysis:

This rhyme is longer and a bit more complex than the now ubiquitous ‘happy birthday’ song is in America, but it serves the same function. Both verses have a space to insert the name of the person who is being celebrated, which makes the chant personalized to the birthday celebrator. I think the inclusion of specifically named bird varieties, sparrows and tits, interesting because while these are common birds, they do place locational limits on the rhyme.

The final line of the verse, “Darum der Radau!” I found a little difficult to translate. I chose to translate word for word, but fear that the implied meaning may not be clear from this literal translation. ‘Darum’ can mean because of, therefore, or hence, and ‘Radau’ has a lot of adjacent translations including noise, racket, and hullabaloo. In effect, the final line of the rhyme is the speakers explaining why they are being boisterous and causing a racket (either through the loud reciting of the rhyme, or the celebratory event they are in the midst of).

Pavlova

Text:

Informant: I’ll be talking about, uh, the pavlova. which is a dessert that, and it’s a dessert that’s unique to New Zealand.

And, it’s a, sort of a meringue cake almost? um and you generally top it with a bunch of whipped cream and uh kiwi fruits, because that’s sort of like a New Zealand thing.

[Later in the transcript]

Informant: What else is interesting about it… OH it’s very easy to mess up. It’s sort of like, it takes a lot of skill to make a good pavlova. Like you have to practice a lot, um, and all the ones I’ve made- all the ones I’ve ever made have come out very bad, umm but my mother and especially like my grandmother, were very good at it. So it’s sort of like cultural heritage in that way.

Context:

Context of Performance: In-person conversation

Me: How did you find out about Pavlova?

Informant: I cooked it with my mom. So yeah, often times, it’s sort of a, like, a celebratory dish. Like for birthdays sometimes, or for Christmas, we would often times make pavlova.

Me: Do you consider [pavlova] to be something kind of exclusive? Would it be something that you typically only see New Zealand people make?

Informant: Yeah, generally. It would feel weird, to like, to see someone making Pavlova.

Personal Thoughts:

The informant made it clear that they learned this dish from their mother, who is from New Zealand. It is also interesting to note that the informant also noted that this dish is often topped with kiwis “because that’s sort of like a New Zealand thing”. This particular dish shows the relationship between food and its folk through the unique ingredients required. Prior to mass globalization, this food would only be able to be made by those with access to kiwis – such as people in New Zealand. It was also interesting to note that the informant considered this dish to be an exclusive heritage of sorts, despite finding an online recipe to give me. I guess that a specific family recipe would be more exclusive than just the general concept.

Additional Notes/References:

The following is a recipe given to me by the informant. He said that it was not exactly what his family does, but it’s roughly similar:

Member, A. (n.d.). Easy pavlova. Allrecipes. Retrieved April 28, 2022, from https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/12126/easy-pavlova/ 

Pabitin at Birthday Parties

“A pabitin is a grid of bamboo wrapped in cellophane.  We have those at birthday parties and what you do is you essentially buy a bunch of small toys like those packs of sushi erasers or something.  Small dollar action figurines or crayons or candy… you tie or tape all of it onto the grid so it’s all hanging off.  Then you tie a large string to the grid and put it up basically like a piñata with one person handling the end of the rope.  You gather all of the kids under the pabitin and the person holding the rope can decide how far down he’ll let the grid fall to the children, and they have to jump up to try to grab the goodies.  Half of the fun is setting up how the toys and gifts are scattered and preparing the children.  I also like watching the children’s creativity get teased as they jump for the toys.  Bamboo is used for everything, like building houses… I don’t really know how we ended up making our native products out of bamboo, heheh.  So the material in itself already has cultural roots.   If in Mexican parties you always have a pinata, it’s the same idea for us Filipinos, where our children’s parties are characterized by pabitin.”

Background: The informant is a 20-year old college student who has witnessed several Filipino birthday parties in the past.  She has only been a witness, however, as she uses a wheelchair for transportation.

Context: This piece was told to me during a luncheon after our Sunday services.

This tradition puts a more competitive and high-energy spin on the normal act of providing gift bags to party guests.  The kids have fun as the adults tease them out of getting the goodies from the grid, and there are often bigger prizes than others that the children are already eyeing before they get to compete.  The grids can also be made of bamboo, which is light and flexible, and also one of our cultural agricultural products.

Filipino Debuts

“My experience with the debut was centered around presenting me to the world as a woman.  I know there’s stuff from before about, like… presenting women to the men of the community as of age or ready to be, like, married off.  But when Filipina girls turn 18, the community typically throws them a huge party called a debut (day-boo) and it’s just like the big birthday where everyone now considers them an adult.  For mine, my parents picked 9 aunts and 9 uncles to be my godparents for the party… well some of them were my actual godparents from baptism, but the others were people I’ve gotten close to as I’ve grown up.  Everyone gave me a speech, and the men danced with me.  I think at my mom’s debut though, they actually had her dance with, like… dudes her age as like a courtship thing.  That would be really weird and creepy now and, ugh, there’s no way I would ever do that.  But I guess that’s what was normal then.  And I mean, that’s also what the debut was for in its origins, where it was the sign that men could finally begin courting the woman for marriage.”

Background: The informant is a 20 year-old who had her own debut in 2019.  She was born and raised in the United States and is the daughter of Filipino immigrants.  She has never been to the Philippines, but was raised with her parents’ values.

Context: The piece was shared to me over Facebook Messenger video chat.

It is interesting how customs change in different countries and timelines.  Debuts in the Philippines in earlier decades served a more practical purpose, to present women to the bachelors of the community and to officially dub her as available.  This party also represents the liminal space between being a child and a woman with adult responsibilities, as this party also occurs around the same time where the celebrant goes to college.  Many Filipino-Americans also tend to leave home around this time, while those who have been raised in the Philippines tend to stay in their parents’ homes until they are married and have a new family to preside over.  Such customs around marriage do not exist as prevalently for those who were raised in the United States, as we place less of an emphasis around only leaving our parents’ household to raise one of our own.