Tag Archives: tradition

Name Days

Nationality: American
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: April 22, 2019
Primary Language: English

Context: My informant is a 21 year-old student from New York, who recently moved to Los Angeles to attend USC. While discussing how she celebrates Easter as a Greek Orthodox, she mentioned another tradition that caught my attention.

 

Background: The tradition is referred to as Name Days, and has been a custom of Greek Orthodox culture for centuries. My informant explained that she and all of her siblings celebrate their name days, as they are all named after saints.

 

Main Piece: “For Greeks, your name day is more important than your actual birthday. Your name day is the birthday of your icon, or the saint that you were named after. Me and my siblings are all named after saints, and the same goes for my more distant relatives. Greek Orthodox people are really into using generational and famous names that are important in their history. So I’m named after Saint Katherine, so my name day is some time in November, but my actual birthday is in May. Obviously being in American culture now, my birthday is equally as important, and I celebrate it with my family and friends, but my name day is still a huge deal in my family. On my name day my parents always go all out with the presents, we have my whole family over, and it’s just a big celebration. The same goes for all of my siblings. It’s pretty great because it’s like having two birthdays every year that are equally as celebrated. I also see how important it is to my grandparents especially that we celebrate name days so it’s something I definitely want to pass on to my kids too.”

 

Analysis: I found this tradition very interesting, as I had never heard of Name Days prior to this encounter. After doing additional research on this ritual, I learned that they are actually celebrated in many countries across Europe and Latin America. It’s a nice way to celebrate yourself, as well as the historical icon that you were named after.

 

Coin in the Cake

Nationality: American
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: April 22, 2019
Primary Language: English

Context: My informant is a 21 year-old student from New York, who recently moved to Los Angeles to attend USC. She wasn’t able to go home for Easter this year, as she usually does, but she described a tradition that her family practices every year on Easter.

 

Background: She explained that this tradition normally takes place in Greek tradition on New Year’s Eve, but that her family celebrates it on Easter instead, as she and her siblings usually spend New Year’s with friends.

 

Main Piece: “So this is usually done on New Years, but we always do it on Easter since that’s one holiday Greek Orthodox people take very seriously, so we’re almost always all together as a family. We’re always separated on New Years so this is just the best time to do this tradition I guess. Basically, my mom or grandma will bake a cake, and they bake a gold coin into the cake itself. They put it in the oven, take it out, and then they cut it all up and serve it. The person who gets the piece with the coin in it is supposed to have the luckiest year out of everyone else. Essentially it’s going to be like their golden year. It kind of defeats the purpose that we do it in April of every year, but Easter also represents rebirth and whatnot so I guess it kind of works when you think about it.”

 

Analysis: It’s interesting to see how much a culture’s folklore can be taken into interpretation. The meaning remains the same, but the tradition is made flexible. I found it compelling how many different traditions there are throughout cultures to ensure a lucky or prosperous year ahead.

The Night Before Greek Easter

Nationality: American
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: April 22, 2019
Primary Language: English

Context: My informant is a 21 year-old student from New York, who recently moved to Los Angeles to attend USC. She and I were discussing her Easter traditions and whether she still celebrates her Greek Orthodox traditions despite being away from her family.

 

Background: The following ritual is deeply rooted in the Greek Orthodox tradition and takes place the night before Easter Sunday. My informant can’t place the exact root of this ritual, but it’s likely to have been performed since biblical times.

 

Main Piece: “In Greek Orthodox tradition we follow the biblical Jewish calendar, so pretty often Greek Easter doesn’t fall on the same day as American Easter. Like this year it’s the week after American Easter. The night before Easter, we go to church at around 11pm, and we wear all black to mourn Jesus’ murder. We go the night before because it’s the night before Jesus’ resurrection. Everyone lights a candle, and we say a few prayers. Then at midnight everyone starts walking around the church chanting christos anesti, which means Christ has risen. Since coming to school, it’s hard to go back home to celebrate with my family, so my parents make me go to a Greek Orthodox church in Downtown L.A. This is the biggest holiday in Greek Orthodox tradition, so it’s really important to them and honestly for myself that I keep it up even while being away from home.”

 

Analysis: It was interesting to learn that Greek Orthodox culture follows the old Jewish calendar. As a Jew I follow the same calendar in regards to holidays, the New Year, and so on. But I wasn’t aware that other cultures still follow this historical timeline as well.

 

Cutting Hair for Chinese New Year

Nationality: Chinese
Age: 78
Occupation: Retired
Residence: San Mateo
Performance Date: 2/15/2019
Primary Language: Chinese
Language: English

[The subject is MW. Her words are bolded, mine are not.]

ME: Can you tell me about a Chinese New Year tradition?

MW: Chinese New Year, or Chinese New Year eve, we will put the whole table. Mother cook, or have the servant cook, all kinds of goodies, but we cannot eat first. But they still put the wine and the chopstick, and the whole table, but that’s let the ancestor come, ancestor, I mean we don’t see them- the people already pass away like my grandma, or grandma, you know? My mother always, we cannot- the kids eat later, just have to let them, still, put the best food, all warm, but we cannot touch the chair. It’s grand-grandpa, and grand-grandma, let them eat first. And after the time, bring the food back to the kitchen, and then bring it back and then we can eat.

And then also, in Chinese New Year, we have to go to have a haircut, the kids all have to go have a haircut.

ME: Why is that?

MW: It’s like for a new year, then you have to clean up the whole thing. And the next day, we have to go to, for our auntie, and grandma, those kowtow. And then they give us a red envelope.

Context: MW is my grandmother, who was born in Shanghai and then lived in Hong Kong later on in her youth. She moved to San Francisco as a young adult and has lived in the Bay Area for the last six decades. She is a native Mandarin speaker, but is also fluent in English. I sat down with her and asked her to talk about some traditions and stories she remembers from living in China.

Thoughts: I am half-Chinese and have lived in the United States for my entire life, so while the tradition of eating a big dinner on Chinese New Year is familiar to me, but the less common tradition of getting a haircut for the new year was not. I believe that this tradition could be associated with Frazer’s concept of homeopathic magic, because the chopping of the hair seems to represent chopping off what you no longer want to hold onto from the last year, and creates good luck going forward.

Shabbat Dinner

Nationality: Jewish
Age: 19
Performance Date: 4/20/19
Primary Language: English

The following is a Jewish tradition.  The informant is represented by an S and I am represented by a K.

Piece:

K: Okay, so can you tell me about some of your Jewish traditions.

S: Okay, so we have Shabbat, which is a celebration, every Friday night… uhh… basically you have Shabbat service, like uh, you say prayers, and uh, light candles, and uh… I wouldn’t quote myself on that ’cause I’m not positive, but I think you do light candles every Shabbat, and then uhm, it’s a tradition to have wine on Shabbat nights… Uh, some people who are… more orthodox or conservative, do like no cell phones on Shabbat, and like Shabbat is very serious for… those type of people. And uhh, what else do we have?

K: What’s the significance of this religious tradition for you?

S: Uhhh… Shabbat, uhm, it means a lot to me.  It’s a time where I get to come together with my family, who I love very much, and I don’t get to see often, so when I celebrate Shabbat, it’s a way of, you know, getting in touch with religion and celebrating my culture… and yea.  It’s just a great way to get together with people in the Jewish community.

K: And what’s like the setting of it.

S: The setting? Like where is it?

K: Yeah.

S: Oh yeah! So usually you have it at someone’s house.. uh.. they’ll just have a nice dinner prepared… common dinner would be like matzo ball soup and latkes… I don’t know if that’s important or not, but… and it’s at someone’s house usually, and it could be anywhere from like 10 to like 50 people.

Context:

The informant was sitting at her desk, working on some homework for a music class, and I walked into the room and asked about her Jewish traditions.  She was sitting in a chair, and I sat down on my bed.  There was a group of our friends in the living room talking and hanging out.

My Thoughts:

I think this is a really cool Jewish tradition.  I grew up in a Catholic household, so for me, this kind of reminds me of Sunday mass with little tables of food located in the chapel or outside the church for after mass.  I think it’s cool this is a dinner, though, and it’s hosted at a household with so many people.  It’s definitely a way for people to get together every week and celebrate their shared religion/culture.