Tag Archives: religious

Song about Catholic Schools

Nationality: Latino
Age: 86
Occupation: Retired marriage and family therapist
Residence: Santa Barbara, California
Performance Date: March 14, 2012
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

“The dearest spot in Phoenix,

Here in the Golden West,

Is our old dear St. Mary’s.

The school we love the best.

Hurrah for St. Mary’s,

The school we love the best,

(repeat these two lines.)

 

We are proud of our schools

And our unbroken rules,

Obedience to God and our country.

Since this nation took birth

Catholic schools have proved their worth,

Always first in American teaching.”

My informant reports that this song was customarily sung in his school when he grew up. Somewhat cynical about his Catholic upbringing, he postulates that Catholic schools invented songs such as this one in order “to justify their existence.”

This song seems intended to foster school spirit and strengthen the Catholic Church. Meanwhile, however, the song also intertwines Catholic and American identities to fashion a new, Catholic-American identity; it teaches children that they should be proud both to be Catholic and to be American. In this way, the song is both religious and patriotic. Children are taught to be obedient both “to God and our country,” although it should be noted that the song places obedience to God before obedience to the United States.

If you tell a lie, god will strike black spot on your heart

Nationality: British
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: London, England
Performance Date: 4/20/12
Primary Language: English

“If you tell a lie, god will strike black spot on your heart”

My informant was first told this by his father when he thought he was telling a lie. It reflects the strong religious beliefs of his father. I asked my informant what would happen if he had a black spot on his heart, and he wasn’t sure. Despite this, this threat succeeded in scaring my informant into telling the truth.

擲筊 – Fortunetelling Blocks

Nationality: Taiwanese
Age: 43
Occupation: President of an electronics company
Residence: Newport Beach, CA
Performance Date: April 14, 2012
Primary Language: Chinese
Language: English, Taiwanese

擲筊 (Bwa Bwei) Blocks and the Different Responses擲筊 (Bwa Bwei) is an ancient from of fortune telling. My informant, a Buddhist, uses these wooden blocks as a way to ask Buddha questions. Bwa Bwei comes in the form of two curved red blocks; one side of the block is flat and the other is round. The blocks are thrown onto the ground and the way they land represent different answers. In figure A, one lands on the flat side and the other lands on its round side. This represents a "yes" answer. Both figures B and C represent "no" answers, but have different meanings. For figure B, Buddha is angry at the question being asked. For figure C, Buddha is laughing at the question. The blocks have to be thrown three times and get the same answer all three times in order to be a confirmed answer.

My informant told me about this ritual when we were visiting a Hsi Lai Temple, a Buddhist worshiping center.  She told me she had learned this from a monk when she was little girl attending Temple.  She uses this method to answer a lot of personal and financial question.  An example of questions that she was ask are “Will this business deal be good for the company?” and “Will my daughter get into college?”  I asked her if she truly believed that Bwa Bweis revealed the best answers and possibly, the future.  My informant replied that for her, they have never been wrong.

I think that this form of fortune telling is a way to emphasize and support the idea of destiny.  Since the questions asked tend to be ones that reveal what will happen in the future, the answers seem to suggest that the future is set in stone and is just waiting to happen.  At the same time, I also view this practice as a stress reliever of sorts since the questions are usually associated with stress-inducing topics.  By getting an answer, the person no longer has to really worry anymore since the result is inevitable.

Long Ear Lobes, Long Life: Vietnamese Belief

Nationality: Vietnamese American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 4/12/12
Primary Language: English
Language: Vietnamese
The informant is a 20 year old, Vietnamese American female. She is a junior at the University of Southern California, but was born in Boston, MA. Both her parents are Vietnamese and were born in Vietnam.

the informant described a particular folk belief in Vietnam where people think that if a person has long earlobes, then he or she will have a long life. I asked her where she thought this belief came from and while she wasn’t certain, she thought it might have to do with the Buddha, who is always depicted as having very long, stretched out earlobes and who is considered to be somewhat of an immortal or at least transcendental figure. This made sense to me because it was what I immediately thought of when I first heard this particular folk belief. The informant also made the point that this approach to the belief was indeed plausible because Buddhism is the main religion in Vietnam.

Finnish Lutheran Saying

Nationality: Finnish, Swedish American
Age: 77
Residence: Temecula, CA
Performance Date: 4/8/12
Primary Language: English

The informant is 77 years old. She was born in Minnesota and is of Swedish and Finnish decent. She was raised as a Lutheran but converted to Catholicism when she got married.

I interviewed the informant during Easter Brunch. She gave me a piece of family folk speech:

“‘No one goes to heaven except a Finnish Lutheran.’” This was something my grandmother used to say all the time. Eventually my mother and my aunt picked it up, too—my aunt especially. She used to tell me this all the time. She really believed that Finnish Lutherans were the only ones to go to heaven so when I converted to Catholicism, this was a big issue for everyone. My aunt thought I had damned myself! I never really believed that kind of stuff, but I think it was such a big deal in the family because they really identified themselves as Finnish Lutherans. They considered themselves a part of that close-knit community and took religion very seriously.”

This is a really interesting piece of folk speech, particularly because it appears that the informant’s family really did believe it and placed a lot of faith in it. Even though my informant didn’t necessarily believe in it herself, she still felt the effects of the belief when she converted to Catholicism. While she didn’t mention this specifically, this piece of folklore could also have been her family’s way of instilling a type of fear in the children, trying to get them to be good and to abide by religious doctrine.