Tag Archives: Childhood

Rubber Ducky

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: USC Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 04/22/12
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

The informant is currently a student at the University of Southern California and went to elementary school in Northern California. The game was described in a casual setting where the informant and all audience members were sitting on the couch. The actual piece of folklore is performed in a school setting during recess for young children.

Informant: Uh so this game…it’s called Rubber Ducky, I couldn’t tell you why it was called that…And it was played, so there’s two teams, as many people as you want can be on the team, doesn’t even have to be an even number of people on each team…Um, just like however you divide it up. And you play, like, with a basketball court, on the short length of the basketball court. One’s on one side line, the other’s on the other side line, those are where the teams are. And you can either divide it like, the field extends from like, the base line to half court, or full court, depending on how many people you have. And, uh…you get as many dodgeballs as you want, it’s very very, well, depending on the amount of people, and you just hit the dodgeball to the other side. If it lands, you get a point, if they catch it, you don’t get a point.

Audience Member: Hit it with what?

Informant: Just hit it with your hand. Just hit it over, spike it over, throw it over.

Audience Member: Over what?

Informant: Over the basketball court. And you have to hit it, and if it lands on the other side of the basketball court, then you get a point. But if they catch it, or if it lands before the other sideline, then, you don’t get a point.

Audience Member: Can you lose a point?

Informant: No, you can’t lose a point, you just don’t get a point.

Audience Member: So you play this where?

Informant: Elementary school. Me and one of my friends made it up.

Audience Member: How does it end?

Informant: Uh…You just play to a certain amount of points, or play until, you know, recess is over.  Whoever is winning at the end.

Audience Member: And your whole elementary school played?

Informant: The whole elementary school, people in other grades. Teachers got in on it, and coached and like reffed it. It was awesome.

The game described is a game that does not involve many rules and is easy to learn. The title of the game “Rubber Ducky” has no relation to the actual game and seems to serve as more of a humorous title to amuse children. It is also a nonviolent and simple game, which is probably why the game became so widespread across the informant’s elementary school, and why the teachers allowed it and encouraged its growth. The simplicity of the game comes from the fact that two 8 year olds created it and the widespread popularity of the game in the informant’s elementary school shows how fun and easy it is to play, allowing it to multiply and change across grades , time, and possibly schools.

Unlike most folklore, the origin and the creator can be traced back to my informant. Although the game is not completely unique, taking aspects of several different sports and games, the name and its execution causes it to be considered a new game. Its rapid spread from two people to an entire school shows the power of folklore, and the informant states that last that he heard, which was a few years ago, the game was still being played in the elementary school. Therefore, it can be said that this children’s folk game follows the idea of monogenesis, and can be tracked back to its origin.

 

Ring Alivio: Italian Tag

Nationality: Italian- American and "mix of other ethnicities"
Age: 58
Occupation: General Surgeon
Residence: San Diego, California
Performance Date: 3.23.12
Primary Language: English

Ring Alivio (pronounced by informant as both Ring Uh-Leevy-oh and Ring Leevy-oh) is an Italian version of tag where one person is It and everyone else is at base, which is a safe area. Running out of the safe area means you can get caught by the person who’s It, but you leave the safe area to show you can run out and back to base without getting captured. Once captured, you go to jail, which you cannot leave. Once everyone is captured and taken to jail a new person becomes It.

Ring Alivio described verbatim by informant:

“Ring Alivio: a game of tag. One guy was It and uh anytime a person left the base which was a safe area he had to capture that person in the jail and once he captured everybody uh a new person became It so we used to play it all the time on the playground um because we didn’t have any other games we could really play we didn’t have balls. It was really interesting because most of my friends were Irish American but we still called it Ring Alivio. We learned it from some of the older Italian kids.

We played it from kindergarten through the sixth grade, because, again you know it was the only game we could play on the playground because it was just a big concrete parking lot… at Catholic school. (disruptive dog howl) We had a lot of fun. I remember uh [my mother] was very upset with me because in my first year of Catholic School I tore my I tore five pair of pants because the uh um you know I played, I played and sometimes the game got a little rough and playing on concrete all the time if ever you fell and scraped your knees you’d scrape the knees right off your pants so she was kind of upset with me after that first year. And, well, I had a uh I once got slammed into a bus. So.

The parked buses were, are base, and so you hold your hand against the bus um and then you run out and you run back to the bus and one day I ran back to the bus but the guy who was chasing me didn’t stop and he just ran up my back and slammed my head into the bus, the side of the bus, and I busted all my teeth.

Once you leave base you can get caught… you leave base because you’re tough you’re provocative. Who wants to stay in at home? You want to run (cooking wife interjects and he repeats what she says) You want to be free. (dog howls) You wanted to prove to the guy who was It that you were faster, that he couldn’t catch you.”

The first thing that comes to my mind is that “ali,” in Italian, means wings, which allow one to fly and be free, though the informant was not sure as to how Ring Alivio should be spelled. The theme of purposefully leaving a safe place to be wild and free, knowing the threat of getting caught and being thrown into jail, appears to be characteristic of the age group. From 6/7 to 12/13 when this game is played, kids lose their child-like “innocence” as they become aware of their choices and begin making deliberate actions. The person who’s It captures them and puts them in jail, where they are stripped of such freedoms, which perhaps holds a dramatic resemblance to punishments by parents, teachers, or other authority figures. That this game was wildly popular at a Catholic School in the 1960’s is no surprise, with the rigidity of the belief system and inherent strictness surrounding all behavior at such an institution. Running free in the game of Ring Alivio is a benign way of resisting this oppressive feeling, all the while leveling the natural competition between kids during that time when social hierarchy becomes more and more apparent.

Northern Californian Campfire Story: The Ring Man

Nationality: American
Age: 53
Occupation: Partner at Ernst & Young
Residence: Manhattan Beach, CA
Performance Date: April 15th, 2012
Primary Language: English

Interview Extraction:

Informant: “The story of the Ring Man goes to back when I was growing up, and my dad and his best friend Jim Kaddy who used to go camping in the woods, around where our cabin is in Lassen. And up there, there would be when we were little; there are these trees with these rings on them. There were painted white rings, around various parts of the forest. And so what they told us was that the Ring Man paints a white ring on these trees. And the reason he does that, is that at night various campers are camping out in the woods and he comes to their tents when they are sleeping. And for the girls, he leaves them candy. But for the boys he finds, he kills them. And when he kills them, he puts a ring around the tree for each boy he kills. So you should never go out at night when you are camping, or the Ring Man will get you.”

Interviewer: “So the Ring Man only kills boys? Why?”

Informant: “Because boys are noisy. But you only tell that story at night, when you are camping.”

Analysis:

“The Ring Man” is a campfire story that is unique to the informant’s family.  The story is intended to be told as a campfire story, specifically to younger children.  The reason why the story is intended for children is because only children would believe that the rings on the trees indicate the murder of little boys.  Adults know that the rings on the trees actually indicate the lumber has been marked to be cut down by local logging industry, which has a strong presence in Humboldt County culture of where this story originated.  The high number of trees marked with rings makes the story more believable to the children, because the proof of the Ring Man’s existence is something you can really see.

The violence present in the tale indicates that the authors of the story had a dark sense of humor, and created the tale to playfully tease their children.  This tale also serves as an educational warning to the young audience, in that it warns them of the evils and violence that are present in the world that they should be aware of.  In this sense, “The Ring Man” tale is very similar to other folk tales that warn children of the evils present in the world such as “Hansel and Gretel”.  Another interesting aspect of this story is the idea that the Ring Man only kills boys, because they are noisy.  This comes from the stereotypical belief that girls are sweet and quiet, which is why the girls get sweet candy, and boys are loud and obnoxious.  Therefore the performer of this tale also uses “The Ring Man” as a warning to little boys that they should be well behaved and quiet or the Ring Man will kill them.  The fact that the story puts an emphasis on the importance of being well behaved also indicates that the authors of the story put a high value on manners.

I have heard this tale many times when my family and I would go camping. When I first heard “The Ring Man”, I thought the tale was real, and I became extremely upset when I saw three trees marked with the white rings by an elementary school.  After expressing this to the informant, he explained that the tale was not real and my anxieties were soon forgotten.  There is a sense of pride that comes from the story because it is unique to the informant’s family and a part of their traditions.

My informant was born in 1957 Arcata, California to a high school basketball coach and his wife.  After earning his undergraduate degree in engineering from the University of California, Davis, he moved to southern California to obtain his MBA in business from the University of Southern California.  He now a partner at Ernst & Young. He lives in Manhattan Beach, CA with his wife and has two children.

Joke – What’s Black and White and Re(a)d All Over?

Nationality: Mexican-American (2nd. Gen)
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Downey, California
Performance Date: January 2007
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

Q: What’s black and white and red all over?

A: A newspaper.

My informant first heard this riddle in third grade during a show and tell in her elementary school in Downey, CA.  Some of her classmates that did not have anything to show could just tell a joke they knew.  One of her classmates gave this riddle, and no one had been able to figure it out in her class.  A newspaper is certainly black and white, and it is “read” all over.  The children persistently thought what object could be the colors black, white, and “red,” so they were stumped.

Riddles like these are handy for entertainment purposes.  I believe that people tell such riddles because they would like to engage a crowd big or small.  When told a riddle, people are naturally inclined to solve it, and if they give up, they are eager to know the answer.  Usually the answer is a very simple one whereas people trying to solve the riddle looked too deeply into it.  That is also very entertaining when the answer turns out to be something that was so obvious, but they never thought it would be that easy.

 

Annotation: This riddle was in the 1995 movie “Batman Forever” in which the villain, the Riddler, played by actor Jim Carey asks this riddle.

Preventative Chinese Childhood Folkbelief “Genitals on Head”

Nationality: Asian American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Room 3303C, 920 W. 37th PL. Los Angelos, California 90007
Performance Date: 4/23/2011
Primary Language: English
Language: Chinese

My informant is second generation Chinese American female student. She grew up in Chongqing, China but moved to America when she was six and a half. After coming to America, she has moved around from Texas to California to Iowa and finally to Missouri. She mentioned the following childhood belief during a group study session when we were discussing our childhoods:

“Informant: Ok, so, this was in kindergarten. Like…we had bathrooms where the boys and the girls went to the same bathroom and so like the thing was if you like looked at the other person’s genital area, you’re supposed to grow the thing on your forehead [laughter] and so if girls looked at a guy’s penis [giggles] they’ll have a penis grow on their head [laughter].

Collector (me): So did you believe in this? Where did you learn this?

Informant: No, I was in the bathroom when someone was talking about it and I overheard.

Collector: Why do you think this belief spread?

Informant: Um…I guess…probably parents told their kids not to do it and that’s how they were going to scare them.”

I consider this folklore homeopathic childhood magic in the sense that it carries the quality where “like attracts like”. In this case, looking at genitals of the other sex, causes one to grow said genitals on one’s head. And children, especially little girls (in my informant’s case), believing in this magic and unwilling to grow genitals on their heads, will try not to look at the genitals of the other sex. As my informant believes that Chinese parents told their children this folklore to scare them, this folklore is obvious in its preventive nature–stopping childhood sexual curiosity. In that nature, this folklore reaffirms the perhaps university and global belief that children are meant to be kept innocent, naive and sexless. Moreover, this folklore implies the gender/sex division of children as early as kindergarten, which seems to be an aspect of preventing sexual curiosity.

However, considering how the “scare effect” is achieved, the belief “don’t look or you’ll grow one on your forehead” doesn’t scare one unless that person is relatively familiar with what genitalia looks like. That is to say, the only reason a little girl wouldn’t want the male genitalia growing on her head would be because she knows what it looks like. So, this folklore also implicitly shows us that children might be familiar with or already exposed to the other sex’s characteristics in an period as early as kindergarten (or at least in China where this folklore originated from).

It also begs one to consider, if there was such a focus on sex/gender division and naivety, why were boys and girls made to go to the same bathroom at my informant’s school.