Tag Archives: customs

Bujería

Nationality: Cuban American
Age: late 20's
Occupation: USC spanish professor
Residence: Los Angeles Area
Performance Date: April 15, 2015
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

The informant’s family originated in Cuba. Her mother was born and raised in Cuba but her father was born and raised in America. Her Cuban culture and background comes from her mother’s side and folklore that her mom picked up over the years and shared with her. The folklore from this informant comes from family stories that are shared amongst the family as lessons or as advice. 

Brujería (Quemada)  

The informant’s cousin Pache was in love with a gipsy and traveled around Spain with him. He taught her how to be a brujería, translated in english as a person who practices voodoo. Her favorite bruja, translated as what the person practicing voodoo creates or potion, to create was a Quemada, in english Quemada is translated as burned, but it is in this tradition a potion used to fend off evil. A Quemada “spell” is made by first an alcoholic beverage mixed together in a huge clay pot, an incantation is spoken over the mixture, the mixture is lit on fire (where quemada comes from), and the people involved drink the quemada. This ritual was meant to get rid of evil spirits so Pache and her boyfriend would do the quemada usually to people who were just married to rid them of evil spirits in their relationship.

Analysis…

Rituals similar to this are definitely not practiced in the culture that I am constantly in. I am not familiar with them, but when I hear about them I am seriously intrigued. It is extremely interesting that voodoo and potions are viewed as a way to rid a person, house, or relationship of evil spirits. When the informant was telling me about her cousin and what she experienced and the rituals that she performs really struck me as interesting. I guess for me, I didn’t realize it was a real cultural tradition in modern culture to practice these types of practices. It is interesting also that Pache usually only performs these rituals when a couple is married and maybe if someone buys a new house. I connect this to religion because people are married and that is an important step religiously, and people moving into a house usually will pray over the house because they want to purify it. With Pache’s Brujería, it is really similar, she performs her ritual at weddings and to rid evil spirits. Maybe in some way the two are connected and that would be another interesting subject to explore.

Don’t correct your ballroom dance partner

Nationality: American
Age: 25
Occupation: PhD student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 3/10/15
Primary Language: English

“So there’s a whole, uh, laundry list of tips for doing well at a competition, and uh, interacting with a dance partner. As it turns out, interacting with a dance partner is a lot like having a life partner in the sense that you’re stuck with them, uh, until something terrible happens and, well that’s we call them your dance wife. I don’t like those terms myself, but they’re on t-shirts, too, you can find, uh, I’m, uh, you know, ‘I heart my dance wife’, uh. Uh, so, there are some rules, though, like there are rules for being in a real relationship. Rule one is that you, um, never ever want to correct your partner, if you can help it, because if they are your dance partner, then that means that you two are probably at the same dance level, which means that if they are doing something stupid, you are also doing something stupid, probably even more stupid than them, because you are the kind of person who wants to correct them, and you probably never realize the stupid things you are doing yourself, and you never get called out on because your dance partner doesn’t want to do the same thing, so your dance partner because it’s rude and you are probably the one to make a mistake in the first place. They’re probably doing just fine. So there’s that.”

 

The informant is a PhD student at the University of Southern California, studying linguistics. He is also a member—and next year’s president—of the University of Southern California’s Ballroom and Latin Dance Team. He specializes in the American Smooth dances (Waltz, Viennese Waltz, Tango, and Foxtrot), though also knows the International Latin dances and many social dances, like Hustle and Salsa. He has been in the USC Ballroom and Latin Dance Team for 2 years, and did ballroom dance at the University of Michigan for 2 years. He competes in the Silver and Gold level Smooth dances, and has placed highly in numerous competitions.

 

The collection was made after asking the informant about certain customs of ballroom dance for when you are interacting with your dance partner. What he speaks of is a common concept among many ballroom dance couples, and is considered necessary for a successful dance partnership.

 

Ballroom dancing is different than many other dance forms, because it is entirely danced with a partner. If there is solo work, it is in connection with what your partner is doing. How dancing with a partner works in ballroom dancing is that there is one person who is designated as the “lead” and one who is the “follow.” Leads are generally male and follows are generally female, but that is certainly not exclusive. As the names suggest, it is the leads job to lead the follow in the many dance. The lead is in charge of moving the couple around the dance floor, deciding what moves to do where, and matching the tempo of the music. The follows job is to follow all of this, without any verbal communication with the lead. All the follow has to go on are hand signals and what ballroom dancers call “connection” which is the tension between the two dancers’ hands which allows the lead to move the follow where he will.

A dance partner, as the informant explains, is often compared to a life partner because of the amount understanding and respect that must be felt by both dancers. Even the least active dance couple is still required to be in incredibly close quarters with their dance partner for at least a few hours, and the most active dance partners practice a few hours a day together. Any anger or mistrust can escalate quickly and dissolve the partnership as easily as any relationship. That is why dance partners are often referred to as “dance wife” and “dance husband” as the informant says.

One of the main guidelines to a successful partnership is to never correct your dance partner. This is not something anyone is officially taught, but something that can only be learned by listening to other couples mention it or watching how they work together. Each dance couple has a different dynamic, yes, but all of the very successful partnerships, the ones that last for years, have this in common. It is as the informant says: if you are correcting your dance partner, than you are likely doing something even worse because you are focusing on them not yourself. There must be come constructive criticism during practices, especially if one person is teaching the other a new move, but the corrections should never be constant and should never get personal. This will lead to the deterioration of the partnership over time.

Taking Off Shoes – Japanese Domestic Customs

Nationality: Japanese
Age: 21
Occupation: International Student
Residence: Calabasas, CA / Hokkaido, Japan
Performance Date: 4/13/2014
Primary Language: Japanese
Language: English

About the Interviewed: Yuki is a Japanese student  from the University of Hokkaido, currently studying western art and culture. She’s currently participating in an American homestay at a friend’s house in Southern California. Yuki is ethnically Japanese, and she’s said that her family has lived in Japan for a long time. She’s about 21 years old.

My subject, Yuki, was telling me about the customs involved when entering a Japanese home.

Yuki: “Japanese people don’t wear shoes in the house. We have a Gedabako [shoe rack] for putting shoes when you enter the house.”

I ask Yuki why she thinks that Western People and Japanese People have different ways of doing things.

Yuki: “I don’t understand why westerners wear shoes and walk on the floor. You can get dirty. In Japan, we walk on the floor in our feet, so it’s good to keep the floor clean.”

I tell Yuki that it might be because Japanese floors are lined with tatami mats, which Japanese people sleep, eat, and generally walk upon barefoot.

Yuki: “Not all Japanese people sleep on mats. But it’s important to keep them clean. (laugh) Walking indoors with shoes on is still something I find difficult.”

Summary:

In Japan, it’s seen as customary to take your shoes off when you enter the home. This is probably because Japanese people typically walk around barefoot, as well as sit upon the floor when they eat and sometimes sleep.

Japan isn’t the only culture in the world that has a custom against using shoes indoors. Countries in Europe, like Germany, Switzerland, and Scandinavia, as well as other Asian countries like Thailand and Korea, also have taboos against getting the floors dirty. I think it’s interesting that certain cultures are fine with the sanitation limits of using shoes indoors, yet others are more wary. Customs are oral traditions that are performed/enforced to maintain a cultural standard.

“Take off your shoes, please”…?

“Fight Heat with Heat”

Nationality: Korean
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: April 9, 2013
Primary Language: English
Language: Korean

“Fighting heat with heat. During the hot and humid summers, Koreans have the belief that eating hot or spicy things can cool you down, as well being in hotter places.”

Grace explained this seemingly paradoxical statement, that after being in an even hotter place or eating a hot thing, the original hot temperature of the summer will seem cool. She said that hot soups and spicy dishes are popular to eat in the summer, as well as are Korean spas. These spas are called jjimjilbangs, which have hot rooms of varying temperatures, in which people basically go inside to sweat. Supposedly after being in these rooms, people feel refreshed and cool, and sweating is even suppose to improve the skin, working also as a beauty treatment. She herself partakes of this tradition, as for some reason when the weather starts to turn hotter, she’ll find herself attracted to steaming soups and enjoys visiting the jjimjilbangs with her friends.

At first I found this tradition to be a bit puzzling, but after Grace’s explanation, I came to understand it. I’m not sure if I can personally relate to it, as when summer comes, I find myself craving ice cream and smoothies, not hot soups, but it does make sense that after being in a hotter condition, the original condition does not seem as bad.

Greetings in Indonesia

Nationality: Korean
Age: 54
Occupation: Teacher
Residence: Jakarta, Indonesia
Performance Date: April 18, 2013
Primary Language: Korean
Language: English, Indonesian

 

“When you greet someone in Indonesia, they only touch your hands on the tips very gently using both hands. So if describe it, it’s like you stand facing each other and put your palms together. And then with your hand, you will touch the other person’s hand only on the tips. This is hard to explain in words. They never grab your hand to shake it like in the western way. Also, if you are a young person and you greet the elders, first you kiss the elder’s hand and then you bring the hand onto your forehead gently. That’s how you show your respect. Between females, when they greet each other, they share kisses on both cheeks, also very gently almost not using their lips.”

This way of greeting, for my informant, looked very elegant and polite. She thought it was a better way than the custom of shaking hands in Western culture. It is very polite which is an important part of the culture in Indonesia. It also shows respect to each other and to elders, which is another important part of the culture. This way of greeting is more personal than just shaking hands, it helps to start relationships between people in the correct path.

For myself, I also find this way of greeting to be very elegant. In Korean culture, we also show respect to our elders by bowing, although handshakes are also common. Handshakes can sometimes have different connotations than just greetings however, as we are even taught of the best way tot deliver a handshake in professional situations. A firm but not too overbearing grip is usually recommended, as different pressures can have different meanings. When there is tension between two people, they are often depicted as aggressively shaking each others hand, trying to win over each other with the strength of their grip. In this way handshakes can almost be something condescending or something used to analyze the other. However, the Indonesia custom is not like his as it shows deference to each other and affection in their relationships.