Tag Archives: relationships

The standard rule of a relationship

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

“Uh so  the standard rule of a relationship is to never go to bed mad, uh which is one my parents like, and on e I really like too: never go to bed mad, because you don’t have fun you are asleep and you’re mad so you should hash out things or if you can’t hash out things completely, then you should take a break and have some ice cream or something, and everything’s going to be fine. Uh, in ballroom dancing, as well, though it’s not as common, I’d like you to think that if you are, uh, mad at your partner, then you do not want to end a practice mad, because then you are probably never going to practice again. Uh, you want to, well same thing as going to bed, only it’s not the bed thing, so if you and your partner get mad at each other, 1) stop it! That’s dumb. 2) You want to fix that and apologize to your partner, and 3) if it happens consistently, then you want to find a new partner because that’s not an ideal way to dance.”

 

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 saying “never go to bed angry” is common advice for any relationship. The reasoning behind it is that if you do not sort out the argument before you go to sleep, then it will only fester, and will eventually grow into the destruction of that relationship. Things may look better in the light of day, but each person would be less likely to sort out their issues the next day, and will just keep the anger bottled up inside. The informant also suggests that the argument cannot be sorted out right away, then take a break from the conversation, and eat some ice cream or something, but still come back to it before you go to sleep. This allows both people to calm down and look at things logically. The disagreement is more likely to be sorted out, then.

This folklore was collected after asking the informant about advice for new dance relationships. The informant learned this proverb from his parents, who probably heard it from their parents or their friends. It is a proverb because it never changes much, but is passed from person to person, and offers advice in a short catchy phrase.

The informant goes on to apply this common relationship advice to his ballroom dance partner relationship. Instead of “never go to bed angry,” it becomes “never end a practice angry.” The anger will be all you can remember about your partner, not how well you dance together, and it is much less likely that those partners will ever practice again.

The informant offers three pieces of advice in relation to this proverb. His first point is that you should not get mad at your partner in the first place. There are few reasons to get mad at your partner, and none of them should include their skill level. Never get mad at your partner for being unable to get a move, because there will come a time when you have trouble with a different move. If you do get mad at your partner, then you should calm down, explain why you are upset, then apologize to your partner for getting mad. Both partners are just doing their best and there should not be a reason to stay mad. However, if you do keep getting angry with your partner and they do not fix whatever the problem is when you tell them, then maybe it is time to switch dance partners, because it is very hard to dance well when you are upset, and no one wants to be angry all the time you are dancing.

People don’t change

Nationality: American
Age: 40's
Occupation: Head Track and Field coach at USC
Residence: Los Angeles area
Performance Date: April 15, 2015
Primary Language: English

The informant was born and raised in Colorado. She all her life has used proverbs that her grandmother taught her to develop relationships. Her grandmother helped in assisting her by giving her proverbs to live by that apply to any situation and any human.

“A tiger can’t change its stripes”

Informant…

“My grandma would always tell me that a tiger cant change its stripes. By this she meant that a tiger will always have stripes, you can cover them up, you can shave them off, you can try and hide them, but the stripes will always be there. This connects to humans because it translates as a person can’t change, he can hide who he is, pretend he is someone else but he won’t ever change. This is important to know because if you meet some and you get a bad feeling from them or if down the road they do something in your relationship that disappoints you and shows you who they really are you have to realize that they can’t change who they are. This also is good to apply to yourself. When I was young and insecure about myself trying to be like everyone else and fit in, my grandma would tell me a tiger can’t change its stripes meaning that you are who you are and no matter how hard you try and change yourself, you can’t and you will always have your stripes.”

Analysis…

This proverb summarizes humans pretty well. A tiger can’t change its stripes is really important in our society because it seems like everyone is always trying to change themselves to be something they aren’t and hide who they are to fit in. This proverb reminds us that we are who we are and we can’t change it so we should embrace our stripes and our characteristics rather than covering up who we are and what makes us us. I think this proverb is inferring that we are all unique and shouldn’t try to hide who we are and our differences are good and should be appreciated. This is helpful in a society where the look is the most important thing, where you have to look and be a certain way to be accepted.

This proverb also summarizes how we should treat other people. It is normal for people to love everyone and to think the best about people, which is something I do, but when a person proves to you over and over that they are a certain way that means that is who they are. Good or bad, their action could be positive of negative but it is a reflection of who they are and it is important to know that a person can’t change because then we won’t expect something from that person that they can’t give us, and we can decide if that is the kind of person we want to be around.

Sorority and Fraternity Pinning

Nationality: Vietnamese American & Caucasian
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 30, 2013
Primary Language: English

My informant shared with me how her sorority celebrates one of its members getting pinned by her senior boyfriend in a fraternity. First, the fraternity shares with the president of the sorority that a member of their fraternity is intended to pin a sister in the house. When a date for the pinning is set, the sorority informs the house that a sister is getting pinned, but the girls do not get to know who. Any girl in the sorority who has a senior boyfriend is asked to come to the ceremony wearing a red dress and to send the president the names of her two closest friends in the sorority. Then, on the day of the pinning, all members of the sorority are required to wear black dresses except for the girls who are eligible to be pinned. These girls will be in red. The girls in black gather in the sorority house with the lights dimmed and stand in a huge circle. A ritual song is sung while the girls in red join the circle and stand in-between their two closest friends. A candle is passed to the right, starting from the ritual chairwoman, around to every girl in the circle once. On its second time around, after it passes the girl wearing red who is getting pinned, her best friend standing to her right will make to pass it to the next girl, but then actually pass it back to the sister getting pinned. The two closest friends then blow the candle out together. That signifies that it’s that girl, and this is when she first finds out she is getting pinned. After the candle is passed around, all the sisters line up outside of the house where the fraternity and the sister’s boyfriend are waiting. The boyfriend and his best friend as well as the girlfriend and her two closest friends stay standing on the porch so everyone can see them. The sorority president introduces everyone and officially announces that the sister is getting pinned. All of the close friends give toasts to congratulate the couple and the boyfriend talks about his relationship with his girlfriend. Then the fraternity presents him with his pin and he pins it on his girlfriend.

 

These ceremonies are very fun and exciting for both the fraternity and the sorority as pinning is comparable to a pre-engagement promise. The fraternity brother is giving up his active pin and is essentially reduced to pledge status within the house. It’s a little bit old fashioned, but the girls appreciate this public acknowledgement of their relationship. My informant was just involved in a pinning ceremony at her sorority at the University of Southern California, as her best friend was recently pinned.

Amor de lejos es amor de pendejos

Nationality: American
Age: 18
Occupation: College student
Residence: San Francisco, CA
Performance Date: 4/30/2013
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

My friend first heard this from her father.  The translation is “To love from afar is love for idiots.”

My friend initially interpreted this proverb as a criticism on being unable to act on emotions for another person.  To “love from afar,” as in, to love without actually confessing it to the person, is love for idiots.”  She’s learned, however, that the proverb is more often used in context of long-distance relationships.  So being geographically far from your significant other and choosing to continue to love them is foolish.  My friend doesn’t have a particular significance attached to this proverb, but she did think that it was rather interesting.

I agree with my friend’s understanding of the proverb, though I wonder if other people beyond her do think of the proverb in the same sense that she originally thought of it (with “love from afar” being similar to “love within the mind”).  I find it interesting that  this proverb discourages love if it’s from a distance.  It suggests that there is a belief that a relationship is only wise or legitimate if it’s grounded in physical reality.  I’m not entirely sure why that would be the case, but perhaps love was often presumed to be associated with marriage.  So a real relationship should be properly consummated, either through sex, marriage, or person-to-person interaction.

This proverb has also seemed to regain some significance with the advent of the internet.  Maybe the idea of a “long-distance relationship” through webcamming is still considered unwise by most people in this community.  If that’s the case, then this Mexican proverb affirms that the idea of physicality is essential to romantic relationships (as a college student in the United States, I hear comments about the futility of long-distance relationships often, and a proverb like this seems particularly fitting for that situation), and that this way of thinking is important to multiple cultures.

“All good things end”

Nationality: American
Age: 21
Occupation: Filmmaker
Residence: Pasadena, CA
Performance Date: 3/27/12
Primary Language: English

We were consoling a mutual friend when I first heard my informant use this phrase. The friend’s girlfriend had just broken up with him and she had been his first serious relationship. He was heartbroken and it was a few weeks later. All this friend had talked to us about in the past few weeks was the breakup. We were having a conversation in a larger group and talking about a TV show that had been cancelled even though everyone had loved it. My informant simply said, “All good things end.” Then he looked at our friend and the three of us chuckled a little bit; the rest of the group didn’t know why but we all knew my informant was also talking about our friend’s relationship. Even though he was still depressed about the failure of said relationship, the friend found the situation funny because of how my informant had clearly intended his comment to apply to the relationship as well as the TV show.

My informant can’t remember where he first heard the phrase or if he simply created it, though I have heard it elsewhere as well, but he likes it because by stating this property of the world as a fact, it makes something difficult easier to accept. I agree with that interpretation. People want to hold onto the past, but life keeps changing and everything is ephemeral. It’s one of the hardest aspects of reality to accept. Packaging it up into a succinct expression and serving it to someone makes it seem simpler, more understandable. It shows us that we must accept that the world works this way.