Tag Archives: school

The Paper Fan

Context:

The interviewee attended the same elementary school as me. She is currently in her early 20s and studying in college in China. The events she describes took place during her elementary school years, in a typical Chinese classroom setting with approximately 40–50 students per homeroom.

Text:

“So it became a trend, a fashion, really,” the informant said.

The informant recalls that back in elementary school, she learned how to fold a simple paper fan using homework paper without any glue or scissors, so students could basically fold it whenever they wanted (especially during class). At one point, everyone in the classroom was trying to make their own paper fan.

The trend eventually got stopped by the teachers because they noticed students getting distracted in class from making paper fans. Some paper fans were confiscated, and students stopped making them. The trend ended quickly—within a week, like many school trends do.

Analysis:

This account reflects how small, improvised practices among children can rapidly develop into collective trends within a tightly structured environment like a Chinese public school classroom. The paper fan activity demonstrates how shared constraints (limited materials, classroom setting, and boredom) can encourage creative folk practices that spread quickly through the imitation. At the same time, the teacher’s intervention highlights the role of institutional authority in regulating informal student folk culture.

The Worshiping of Confucius During Finals

Context:

The informant is a senior undergraduate student at USC, but she finished all her previous education in Chinese public school. Where the education system drastically varies from the US.

Text:

“On Chinese school campuses, you often see bronze statues of Confucius. In hope for Confucius to bless them to do well on their monthly exams, students often offer various “sacrifices” to the statue. For example, they would place snacks and milk around the statue as a tribute. The offerings completely surround the statue. They do this in hopes of getting good grades on their exams. Some students might say, “Wow, both hands are full!” Others might ask, “why must it be Confucius?” This is because students believe Confucius can bring them good luck, and that he is respected as the “Teacher of all teachers.” He is seen as the originator of the examination system in a way. So if they pay respect to this founding master, he will bring them good luck. That’s basically the idea.”

Analysis.

This ritual shows how students turn a respected cultural figure into a practical ritual tied to academic success. The ritual is not formally required, but it is shared and repeated among students, giving it a collective meaning. The choice of Confucius reflects his association with education and scholarly authority, linking traditional values to modern exam culture. Overall, the practice demonstrates how students adapt cultural symbols into simple, everyday actions to cope with academic pressure.

Reid Hall Customs

Text:

“It’s almost like a respect thing — treating Reed Hall as a nice place, you know? Like, you’ll go to other places to be rowdy and stuff. But Reed Hall is supposed to be the place where you are, like, content and calm. So I think it is just a respect thing, because it is like someone’s house, and you’re made very aware of that.”

Context:

The informant attended a private boarding school in Illinois, which dated back to the 1800s. The school’s original headmaster lived in a building, Reid Hall. Pictures of the building during the headmaster’s residency were made visible around the building to mark the historical continuity. The informant initially shared this tradition during winter break, after insisting that the lights be turned off before we left the building, and later reflected on it.

Analysis:

Reed Hall illustrates how place-based folklore can come from more than fear-driven origins. Many campus ghost legends function as a form of protection, keeping certain spaces intact and, over time, evolving into etiquette. Instead of the building behind being haunted, the students were clear that it was someone’s house, fostering a behavioral norm of care and respect. The folk belief has moved past supernatural claims and has actually been folded into the school decorum. The informant’s insistence on turning out all the lights is evidence of successful folk transmission: the etiquette has been internalized and can now operate on a subconscious level.

Lion Tokens

Text:

“You got lion tokens — like coins — for being a good student, for paying attention, or like, maybe everybody else was goofing around, but you stayed focused. You got this currency you could use to buy homework passes, late passes, or even pencils or plushies, which was really interesting. And the students started trading them. It became a matter of pride.”

Context:


The informant attended the only gifted program on the South Side of Chicago, which required a competitive exam to get into. The token system was officially implemented by the school as a behavioral incentive program, but students created their own informal economy around it, trading, strategizing, and assigning social value to the coins in ways that greatly exceeded the official purpose. For the informant, tokens were more than just access to privileges; they were a sign of recognition and status within the peer group.

Analysis:
What started out as a tool for institutional behavioral management was turned by students into a completely colloquial folk economy with its own logic of value, exchange, and prestige. This is an example of how folk groups shape institutional structures to their own social ends. Officially, the tokens were meant to enforce individual compliance. But they became objects of collective negotiation and peer status, ones they were able to hold over one another and use as proof of social capital, not just a currency for getting out of homework. In a gifted program already competitive in admission, the token system took on another meaning as a visible marker of academic and behavioral standing. Students were given an institutional framework; they inhabited and elaborated it to reflect the status of popularity, even in early childhood, producing a parallel folk practice layered atop the official one.

Fast Paper Airplane

Text: Pictured below is the fully-folded fast paper airplane.

Context:

The image above shows the paper airplane that was made. This airplane is specialized to be faster and go farther than other paper airplanes. The creator of the airplane knew how to make many different planes, and assured me this one was the fastest. It landed in second place in a paper plane throwing contest. The creator of the airplane used to fold these planes while playing in elementary school.

Analysis:

The multiplicity and variance in paper airplane designs illustrates the folk dispersal from children in action. Different kids compete against each other to showcase their better, faster, more advanced folk items. This specific element of competition leads to more folk items being created, and those items, the paper airplanes, to be constantly optimized, until a fastest airplane is made and disseminated. Other factors also affect a plane’s popularity, like its ease to build, and its durability. Ultimately, paper planes are a great example of folk item culture amongst children, and showcase children refining and expanding their folk knowledge, as they compete amongst each other while playing.