Tag Archives: tradition

Goosey Night (AKA Mischief Night)

Text:

M: “So on Goosey Night, we’d all sneak out and we’d bring ivory soap. It was always ivory soap. And you’d go around and you’d be putting soap all over people’s car windows so they can’t drive. And we’d throw eggs at people’s houses and stuff. People called it mischief, we called it goosey night”

Context:

M grew up in New Jersey. Every Halloween Eve, the kids in his town partook in “Goosey Night.” A night full of pranks, mischief, and mayhem.

Analysis:

The phrase “Goosey Night” is a form of esoteric form of folk speech. Most people call Halloween Eve Mischief Night, but my father and the kids he knew called it Goosey Night. By have a different, unique name for the night, the kids were able to communicate with each other in ways outsiders wouldn’t understand. The pranks and mischief of Goosey Night are rituals – repeated, patterned actions. It was a tradition for kids to break the rules once a year, on Goosey Night. In a way, the kids existed in a space of liminality because they weren’t ignorant babies or knowledgeable adults. If an adult partook in Goosey Night, they would most likely be arrested, but kids could because they existed in the in-between space.

Salad After Dinner

Text:

“We always ate salad after dinner”

Context:

My dad grew up in a large Italian-American family in New Jersey. Every night they would have family dinner. They would eat different meals depending on the day of the week: spaghetti on Sunday, leftovers on Wednesday, etc. However, one thing remained the same: when salad was eaten. Salad was always eaten after the main course. At school, my father would sometimes tell other kids that his family would eat salad after the meal, and the kids would make fun of him, not understanding why his family did that.

Analysis:

Eating salad after the main course is a very Italian tradition. It’s a ritual because it is a repeated and patterned act that followed every family dinner my father had. My dad believes they ate salad after dinner in order to promote digestive health with the fiber. After having spent time in Italy, I agree with my dad’s belief and add onto it saying that salad is eaten after dinner in order to not be full for the main course. The pasta, fish, or meat dishes in an Italian meal are considered the highlight. It is considered almost disrespectful to not finish the main course, so eating salad after the main course ensures that you remain hungry for the meal and don’t fill up on salad. With food being so innate and important in Italian culture, it makes sense that rituals such as this one exist surrounding dinner time.

Meal Train

Folklore: A meal train is a tradition where following a member of the community having a baby or another significant event, the community organizes a group of people to help make and provide meals immediately following the event.

Context:
The informant encountered the practice through her local church and after moving to Los Angeles. The informant noted they were exposed to the practice a bit as a child, but not in such a large and traditional scale. It is to help provide meals to a member of the community and help them in times where the extra care is helpful.

Analysis:
The folklore is used to help bring together community and emphasize care for its members especially those in tiring, difficult, or wonderful situations. The experience brings people together and helps the member receiving the care feel appreciated.

Chinese New Year’s Red Envelope

Folklore:
Giving red envelopes of money to members of the family until they get married at Chinese New Years.

Context:
The informant is a Chinese American student at USC. She described the practice and noted how the rule of marriage being the end marker of the tradition was a variation she noticed through her experience. The extra money helped with people still not married or able to comfortably give out the red envelopes by themselves. The informant noted how it tied into a larger normal of giving money as a gift on all occasions and presents were rarely specific items. Finding money is able to better support them and prevent negative outcomes such as embarrassment of not liking the gift and returning it.

Analysis:
The folklore reflects a larger value of caring and supporting the members of their greater family. The money allows for the most function to the receiver and prevent emotionally negative outcomes from lack of knowledge. The tradition of money also allows for the support of each members needs and not just the wants that giving a particular gift might not be able to address.

Fallen Rose

Age: 19

I was there when my grandma passed. The room had that still, suspended feeling—like everything was holding its breath. I had brought a single rose and placed it gently beside her on the bed, not really knowing what else to do except be there and give her something soft, something beautiful.

When the doctor finally said the time of death, everything seemed to freeze. And then, right in that exact moment, the rose slipped off the bed and fell to the floor. No one touched it. There wasn’t any movement that I could see that would’ve caused it. It just… fell. It caught me off guard, but it didn’t feel random. It felt like something had shifted the second she was gone.

A year later, on her birthday, I went to visit her. She’s in a mausoleum—completely enclosed, no wind, nothing that could disturb anything placed there. I brought another rose and set it carefully on her tombstone. I stood there for a while, talking to her quietly, like I used to when she was here.

Then I said our phrase, the one we always shared: “I love you more.”

Right after I said it, the rose twitched.

I froze. I remember staring at it, trying to make sense of what I had just seen. There was no breeze, no movement around me—nothing that should’ve made it move. It was small, but it was real.

So I said it again, a little more sure this time. “I love you more.”

And that’s when the rose fell. Completely, unmistakably, off the tombstone.

I didn’t feel scared. If anything, I felt this overwhelming sense of calm, like something familiar had just reached back toward me. In that moment, it didn’t feel like coincidence. It felt like her. Like she heard me, like she answered in the only way she could.

I know I can’t prove it. I know how it sounds. But I also know what I felt standing there—that same quiet certainty, like the moment she passed. To me, that was her way of saying hi, of reminding me that the love we shared didn’t just disappear.

And ever since then, I’ve held onto that. Not as something I need to explain, but as something I experienced—something that felt real in a way that doesn’t need proof.

Context: This story was told to me during a topic of religion. It was me, my roommate, her, and her friend. She stated that she does not believe explicitly in god, but instead believes in spirits. She then elaborated, telling this story.

Analysis: She thinks that it was her grandma. I think it was just a coincidence. It resembles the flame motif and ancestral ghosts. One attribute that could represent why she believed more was that she was younger, and she was very close to her grandma. Her emotional state could have been less stable, making her easier to persuade. I also believe that in her family, ghost stories were accepted more, making her easier to sway.