Tag Archives: children

Knock-Knock Joke with a twist

Nationality: USA
Age: 19
Occupation: Student of USC
Residence: Thousand Oaks
Performance Date: 2/20/2023
Primary Language: English

Background: A traditional American Joke with a prequel to build up the punchline.

Person1: “Why did the chicken cross the road?”
Person2: “I don’t know, why did the chicken cross the road?”
Person1: “To get to the idiot’s house”

Person1: “Knock-Knock!”
Person2: “Who’s there?”
Person1: “The chicken”

Informant: This is a cruel joke that I was the unfortunate victim of in my youth.

Analysis: As a non-American, this is the first knock-knock joke that I found funny. Knock-knock jokes are usually meant for children and the informant confirmed that they heard about this from their elementary school friend when they were young

Hand Lizard

Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: Feb 14 2023
Primary Language: English

This hand gesture is supposed to look like a snake or lizard. There are multiple variations, where the pinkies are used as a tongue vs used as a tail, but the main concept is that it looks like a reptile

My informant learned about it in elementary school. It was way to differentiate who was “in the know or who was not”, sort of as cool thing you could do with your hands. However, the hand gesture was not exclusive, in that if someone didn’t know how to do the gesture they would be taught.

I recognized this hand gesture as it was something I used to do in my childhood despite being us growing up 4 years apart and across the country. Much like my informant, for my childhood it was used as something cool you can do when you were bored and it wasn’t ever withheld from others.

Zapatito blanco, zapatito azul. Dime cauntos anos tienes tu: Children’s folklore/game/counting-out-rhyme

Nationality: American
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 2/16/23
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

Text: “Zapatito blanco, zapatito azul. Dime cuántos años tienes tú.” “Little white shoe, little blue shoe. Tell me how many years are you.” 

Context: EC’s relationship to this piece stems from her Mexican culture influenced by her childhood specifically within elementary school. Given that she attended a predominantly hispanic elementary school in Whittier California, EC would often hear this children’s folklore/game/counting-out-rhyme within her classmates ranging from kindergarten through third grade as they spoke Spanish. They would typically say the phrase and touch everyone’s shoe according to every syllable of the phrase as they were getting ready to play a game and the goal was to determine who was “it”; similarly to “bubble gum bubble gum in a dish, how many pieces to do wish?”. EC interprets this speech as a fun way to determine who was ‘it” when playing hide-and-seek or tag. She explains that this phrase takes her back to her childhood where playing with friends at recess showcased innocence. She interprets this phrase as a sweet, youthful, random, and nice sounding statement used to get the game started. 

Analysis: The cultural value that I see present within this children’s folklore/game/counting-out-rhyme relates to the customs of childhood within society. Despite the fact that this phrase has cultural value within the Mexican/Hispanic community, it ultimately revolves around the culture of childhood considering that it is a shared experience among many elementary aged children due to the variations in both English and Spanish. Given the fact that even though I am Mexican myself and have never heard this phrase being said at school, I often heard the English bubblegum version. Overall, I see this children’s game as a pure indicator of childhood innocence as it is a silly pre-game ritual used to determine the start of a game whether playing tag or hide-and-seek. I interpret this children’s folklore/game/counting-out-rhyme as a creative standpoint considering it has similar rhyming components and various alomotifs that connect to the English version that I grew up playing.

Nun Riddle

Nationality: Caucasian
Age: 48
Primary Language: English

Text: 

Q: “What’s black and white and black and white and black and white and black and white and red all over”

A: “A nun falling down the stairs” 

Context:

My aunt describes hearing this on the school bus riding to and from middle school. She mentions that sometimes the joke was preceded with the well known riddle, “what is black and white and red all over”, to which a classmate would answer, a “newspaper”. Then the asker would propose the above question. 

Analysis:

The above text is a cross between a riddle, and a dark joke in my interpretation. Going off of Oring’s argument, riddles question reality, disrupting the rigid categories we use to control the world. They transcend our perception of reality, which is an act of rebellion in itself. This riddle could certainly serve this purpose. An important factor beyond this interpretation, is that the joke/riddle was circulated among children. It’s a widely held folkloric idea that children’s folklore often rejects institutions. This is because children are so highly institutionalized on a day to day basis, especially in a school setting, where this joke/riddle was told. Another societal function that riddles serve in some cultures is to aid in education. Their structure is helpful for practicing memorization, and they provide an exercise in logical thought, as well as language manipulation. Interestingly, this joke subverts a well known riddle, to which the answer is “a newspaper”. I could see this subverted riddle emerging partly as a way of rejecting the institution that is public school, and its education tactics. Additionally, the subject of the joke/riddle is a nun. Nun’s are representative of yet another institution, one of Christianity. Of course there is also the basic factor of this joke being slightly gruesome and dark, referring to blood and injury. This could be an example of Narvaez’s idea of rebelling against societal pressure to mourn foreign tragedies. But it is also likely that children would gravitate towards gruesome or dark humor simply because it is not what the institution deems “school appropriate”. 

Star Tipping

Nationality: American
Age: 21
Occupation: Graduate Student
Residence: Berkeley, CA
Performance Date: 2/24/23
Primary Language: English

Background

My best friend was raised Mormon, and all of the kids at his local Mormon sect would play “star tipping” in the field behind the church at night. He states that he doesn’t remember any significance to the practice, just that it was a game that they played. To star tip, he and the other youth at the church would pick a star in the sky and stare at it while spinning around until they fell. He is a college student, transgender, and of European descent. He left the church when he turned 18.

Text


SS: At the specific church building that we went to, there was a big field in the back and at night after a youth activity, sometimes we’d go out there and do star tipping.

SS: And so you just pick a star. Sometimes it happened to be an airplane, but you pick a star and you look at it and then you spin in circles. Well, it’s still looking at it until you fall over and all the youth would do it.

SS: And I don’t know anything more about it other than it was something that we did.

Analysis

This might just be a simple children’s game, but it is notable for the fact that it was a game shared amongst the entirety of the children among their sect, with a specific name for it. Looking online, there doesn’t seem to be much by way of “star tipping” aside from a few Tumblr posts from an ex-Mormon who mentions it in the tags.

Aside from “entertainment value,” this game may have been encouraged by the church as a way for the youth to connect with each other. Given the celestial cosmology of the Mormon faith, in which those in heaven occupy the “heavens,” this might have been a way to connect a game/practice with Mormon belief. Aside from that, the game may have been a way to pass time in the long, often boring late hours of Mormon seminary.