Tag Archives: team bonding

Malaysian High School Taunt

Nationality: Malaysian

Occupation: Full time student

Residence: Baltimore, MD

Text:

“People with bad knees masturbate too often”

Context:

The informant played rugby throughout high school and college. He first heard the phrase in high school in Malaysia, where it was used by both coaches and players to shame newer members of the team who complained about being in pain. The informant said the phrase at a rugby match to a teammate who was out injured with a torn ACL.

Analysis:

The phrase shows the way that pain is viewed within the culture of a rugby team. To admit being in pain is seen as weak and is strongly discouraged and shamed. This is partially out of necessity; rugby is a violent sport, and being able to endure pain is important to be able to successfully play the sport. However, it is a part of the culture of rugby to appear tough, and this includes playing through injuries. Missing games due to injury (no matter how severe the injury) is shameful in rugby culture, and injured players are taunted and mocked until they return to the field. Additionally, injuries are such a frequent part of rugby that everyone at some point has to deal with them, and when you are injured it’s your turn to be teased.

The Champions Chalice

Nationality: Malaysian

Occupation: Full time student

Residence: Baltimore, MD

Item: A silver vase called The Champion’s Chalice

Context: The informant played on a rugby team and told me about a tradition involving a silver vase nicknamed “The Champion’s Chalice” that a previous member of the team had stolen. After a win, the rugby team would gather and everyone would drink beer out of the vase to celebrate the victory. After every match the team would gather and drink, but the Chalice was only used following a victory.

Analysis: Both the vase itself and the use of it give insight into the brotherhood that forms within a rugby team. The origin of the vase was it being stolen; when it was first stolen, nobody on the team snitched about who stole it, showing a commitment to supporting teammates off the field. The ritual of drinking out of the vase following a win acts as a form of initiation into the team, and as an extension the brotherhood. For a new member of the team, they must prove their strength by contributing to a winning team, and once they have proven themselves they can share a drink alongside their teammates. For existing members of the team, the Chalice acted as a physical prop to commemorate a victory, and distinguish wins from losses.

Slogan: “Two lines, one stripe, 干!”

Nationality: Chinese
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Near USC Campus
Performance Date: 2/21/2023
Primary Language: Chinese
Language: English

Text: “两横，一竖，干！”
Pinyin (Simplified): liang heng, yi shu, gan
Translation: Two horizontal, one vertical, fight!

Context:
G is a Chinese international student from Anhui Province, Hefei City in China. During high school, he played in a soccer team.
G: “It’s about my soccer team in high school. It’s what we do before game. It’s a like slogan that we do before a game. Every player comes and together to form a circle and we put our hands together and we yell it. And the slogan goes “两横，一竖，干！” It’s not really a good translation, it’s like fighting but not in a good way. We’re using it positively but not in a good way. It’s almost near “f**k” but it’s a positive way we’re using it.”

Interpretation:
There is an interesting juxtaposition to be mentioned with the positive denotation of such a negatively connoted word in this chant. This folk phrase, or folk chant is said for good luck and to release tension. It invokes a feeling of unity and comradery between players, which completely changes the meaning of the word in this specific context and therefore, changes the tone of the chant. On the surface level, it is merely a saying that describes how to write the word “干“ in Mandarin. The word itself, as G describes, means something negative and almost taboo whenever spoken aloud in a social setting different from this one. Perhaps because of the presence of the specific competitive sport team-player like atmosphere and tension about competing at all, this phrase seems to take the aggression of the phrase and repurpose into a chant of good luck and release of nerves. The act of doing it with fellow team members joins this community together and that they have something to share strengthens their bond. The meaning changes once it is uttered aloud in this context, making this folklore exclusive to this group of people and therefore only understandable to those who can understand the context that it is said in. This phrase has the exclusive purpose of bringing good luck and releasing tension similar to that of a charm.

The Buckeye Jar

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Columbus, OH
Performance Date: April 30, 2021
Primary Language: English

Main piece: KP: Our team does have this tradition where usually once a week we’ll have this giant glass container, very pretty, engraved, it says “Ohio State Rowing” or whatever, and Ohio State has the Buckeye nuts, we’re “The Buckeyes”, and everytime you want to congratulate a teammate, or point out how hard they’ve been working, you go up in front of the whole team, you take a buckeye, and put it in the glass jar. So in the beginning of the year we have no buckeyes, and then at the end of the year we have a whole jar of them, and that shows how far we’ve worked, all year, how much we’ve helped each other, how much we like each other and support each other. 

HB: So you just go and find a nut on the ground?

KP: So we have a couple buckeye trees by the boathouse, so we got buckeyes from there. I think we bought some of them, but most of them were collected by our former head coach because he was weird like that and he liked to do that. But yeah, so that’s kind of cute. 

HB: How do you announce it [that you’re putting the buckeye in]?

KP: So you go up in front of the whole team, and be like “This one’s for KP for working hard during lift” and then you drop it in. 

Background: KP is a sophomore coxswain for The Ohio State University rowing team. After coxing competitively in Maryland clubs for four years, she was recruited to cox at Ohio, which she has now done for two years. She seemed proud of this tradition, and has actively participated in it during her time at Ohio.

Context: I asked KP if her team has any “lucky” objects or superstitions they do/interact with before competitions. While this is not either of those things, she believes that this tradition is one of her team’s most important ones.  She believes that it fulfills its purpose of showing how much her team cares for each other.

Analysis: This ritual serves as team bonding. The folk object; the fancy glass jar engraved with “Ohio State Rowing” represents the team itself; the prestige of the institution. Over the course of the year, as team members laud the actions of others, it becomes full. The metaphor there is then an obvious one of togetherness. However, this jar is not (in the opinion of KP) seen as important as the buckeye nuts, which are either gathered by the person who wants to reward their teammate or collected from inside the boathouse. The buckeye nut (and therefore being a Buckeye, as a symbol of the school) in this context has positive connotations. It is accompanied by another team member acknowledging hard work or skill level, and encourages other members of the group to bond or work harder so that they too can be given this compliment. One then wants to and takes pride in being a Buckeye, or a member of OSU, as it is something that has been earned and a title given to them by other members of their group.

Band Chain Link Necklace

Nationality: American
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 18th, 2019
Primary Language: English
Language: N/A

Informant:

S, a 22-year-old Caucasian female who was born and raised in Colorado. She went to a catholic school and played saxophone in the band. Her family practiced Catholicism regularly. She is now a senior in Computer Science at the University of Southern California.

Background info:

S spent her summers at band camp, where her and the others in band would spend the entire time getting closer to each other as friends. Her director would always make them do group bonding exercises so that the kids would interact with others they wouldn’t normally. S was in band for all four years of high-school.

Context:

Late at night, a lot of weird conversations happen. Because S is on a project with me, we were working together at around 2:00am when we started discussing traditions that stuck with us from our childhood or teenage years. The following is a one of the group bonding exercises her band director had the team do.

Main piece:

“One of the biggest lessons we had to learn in band was that we are only a single link in a chain. If one link breaks, the whole chain breaks… The director would always compare this to a violin concert. If one violinist is off key, the whole piece is off key… We had to learn to think as a single unit, walk as a single unit, and play as a single unit. Our director would give out a single chain link on a piece of string to each member of the band at the beginning of camp We had to wear it all day every day to remind us that we are only as strong as our weakest link. If any of the band members lost their chain link, our director would tell us that we would have bad luck that season… Of the four years, only one time someone lost it, and we did terribly that year.”

Thoughts:

I like this tradition because it does embody the English phrase “a chain is only as strong as its weakest link”. Having to wear a physical link around them is a cool way to remind people to better themselves for the good of the team. Other traditions also involve wearing a physical reminder of something important. In Christianity, for example, people often wear a cross or crucifix, or even have a statue of Jesus on the cross in their home. Losing an item of importance is also a common way to get bad luck in a lot of superstitions. It was interesting to hear that the one time someone did lose their chain link, the team did poorly. The thought of something going wrong can lead to it actually going wrong if one gets into that mindset. My football coach would always tell us that if we believed the other team was better than us, then we would already be defeated because we allowed ourselves to get into that mindset.