Extra Credit Film Review

I recently watched “The Shakers”, a film by Tom Davenport and Frank Decola suggested by www.folkstreams.net. In this documentary, Shaker women were interviewed and told about their lives and experiences in the Shaker community, and also the history of the Shaker religion. One fact that stuck out to me was their belief in celibacy. The Shaker community started out with 6,000 members about 100 years ago, but in 1974 when this film was produced, only 14 sisters remained. Towards the end of the video, these women also explained that in some places, they have closed the option for new members because they fear that these new members are only seeking to inherit the Shakers’ assets and not truly follow all of the Shakers’ beliefs. This struck my interest because I find celibacy very puzzling; how is one to procreate? I expect the entire Shaker community and religion is about to cease especially because of the new decree to not admit new members and their inability to have children. This idea puzzles me because my notion is that most religions want to procreate and initiate new members in order to keep their spiritual beliefs alive and thriving. I wonder what the Shakers’ thoughts would be if everyone on earth conformed to the Shaker beliefs. Would they agree on the death of reproduction and therefore the halt of all population growth on earth? It is an interesting topic to think about, but unfortunately there are not too many Shakers left on earth to ask these questions. I found the dedication of these Shaker women both eerie and inspiring. It seemed that they had no ideas or interpretations of their own, but simply were copycats of their original leaders. I find all of this skeptical because I think spirituality should derive from personal growth and not because of a childhood promise made by one of the women interviewed in this documentary. But their devotion to their faith and set beliefs, I find inspiring and I strive to be that dedicated to my own spirituality.

Overall, this film was very informative and interesting, but also depressing because of the realization that the Shaker community will cease to exist in a very short time.

This post is a response to the Extra-Credit Film Review assignment.

Chapter 7 Reflection

If I had access to endless amounts of time and resources to study and research a project anywhere in the world, I would travel to Uganda, Africa. I definitely would take interest in the orphans who lost their parents due to AIDS. I have a heart and an interest in global poverty and how developing nations suffer without help from industrial nations like the United States. I would study how the kids manage without their parents, the community’s response, and the actions taken to better the lives of the children. It would be interesting to investigate where the United States and its citizens could contribute and help those who do not have the money, resources, or education that is readily available to us. I think that our culture and society has enough compassion for those who suffer across the world, but are unaware of the extent to which they suffer. With my studies, I would hope to return to the US and give accounts of my first-hand experiences and provide information on the African children and ideas of how our nation can help, but also bring it to an individual level. I feel like more people would be willing to help out this cause if the knowledge was presented to them in a convincing manner, which would make my studies worth the while. I would be wishing to decrease ignorance on foreign poverty, bring attention opportunities to make a difference, and possibly bring hope into the lives of African orphans.

This post is in response to the Chapter 7 Reflection.

2nd Peer Review

I read an entry on the blog Dutchess 2010 on the Sixth Reflection Question. Her interpretation of folklore surrounds her memory of her father, her parent’s relationship, her current marriage, and her children. Her explanation of each type of folklore is very powerful and beautifully expressed. She relates to different types of folklore, but she focuses on the aspects that compel her and that she finds important. For example, she specifically thinks about her father’s storytelling abilities when she studies the Story Telling component of folklore. She has included several pictures of different rituals and memories, including her son’s duct tape suit that he made probably for a traditional dance or other formal.

This outlook on folklore is very encouraging to read and perceive because it shows that not all aspects of folklore have to pertain directly to you or your life, but your own perspective is what truly matters. Certain rituals might mean more to a person than specific performances, or friends might dominate family values, or second husband’s relationship over first. It is interesting to read which perspectives reign over the others for different people.

This is in response to the Second Peer Review.

Chapter 6 Reflection

I find the intersectionality theory or approach the most compelling out of those discussed in Chapter Six. I prefer this model more so than the others because I agree that many factors contribute to the way you perceive different aspects of folklore.

For example, whether you are male or female really affects your stance on various cultural values including abortion, dress code, or even the history of voting rights. Gender plays a large role in folklore interpretation.

Personal experiences are crucial to your own development and viewpoints on most issues. Your socio-economic status might alter your opinion on taxes or government programs. Relationships that you have with people who are of a different sexual orientation greatly affect opinions of gay rights and marriage.

This theory is the most compelling because I don’t believe there is a direct formula or pattern that determines someone’s outlook on folklore like the Structuralist theory suggests. I also don’t agree that every issue has a corresponding meaning and purpose like the Functionalist theory. I think that the Intersectrionality theory describes the best approach to folklore because every person has a different lifestyle, background, and experiences that affect their perception on life.

This post is in response to the Chapter 6 Reflection Question.

Material Culture (Object)

A few days ago, I was down the hall from my dorm-room visiting my friend, Rachel. I noticed on the shelf above her desk a box-like wooden figurine. I asked her what the unfamiliar object was and she called it a dreidel. I had heard that word before and a few things came to mind, first was the Jewish celebration, Hanukah, and second was the song that goes, “Dreidel, dreidel, dreidel, I made you out of clay”. Rachel and I began to have a great cultural conversation. She continued to explain to me the significance of the Dreidel and why it’s important to Jewish culture. I know that Rachel is a valid source for this information because the dreidel is her artifact, she attended a boarding school, American Hebrew Academy, her major is Jewish Studies, and she’s very disciplined about her spirituality and keeps strict Kosher.

Her perception and use of the Dreidel is as follows:

In December when her family celebrates Hanukah, they light the candles held by their Menorah and afterwards, they play a game using this Dreidel. When you roll the Dreidel, depending on what side it lands on, you either gain or lose one of the fifteen coins you start with. Somewhat like the popular game of Monopoly, the game can keep going for long periods of time because the game does not end until one player wins everything.

This specific Dreidel was hand-made by Rachel’s twelve year old brother, Sam. Sam attends a special school where he receives assistance in his learning. Last December before the Holiday season, his entire class constructed their very own dreidels and painted the symbols on each side themselves. This object is very significant and special to Rachel because it symbolizes her religion and a celebration which she enjoys, but it was also a gift made by her brother and given to her.

This post is in response to Encounter Project #6.

Chapter 5 Reflection

My perception of performance has greatly changed after reading ‘Chapter 5: Performance’ in Living Folklore: An Introduction to the Study of People and Their Traditions by Martha C. Sims and Martin Stephens. This segment explains that performances are not always the extravagant events that we have come to label them as in our culture. Performances take place several times throughout everyday experiences. Certain “Markers” or signals open up the way for performances to take place even in casual settings. For example, I would have never thought of a joke as a form of performance before I read this text. But now, it makes sense to me why certain jokes would be labeled as such. The familiar phrase “Knock-Knock” opens up the situation for the joke teller to display or perform his sense of humor or wit. Even a simple conversation between friends can be deemed as a performance. With key phrases such as, “Did you hear…” or “Can I just say…” performances are about to take place through the telling of a story. I had never thought of such common occurrences to be identified as a performance, but with a vast definition that performance has acquired, everyone can be called great performers.

This post is in response to the Chapter 5 Reflection Question.

Chapter Four Reflection

My junior year of high school, I applied to be apart of our school’s chapter of the National Honor Society.  In order to apply, students needed to achieve a 3.5 GPA or higher and answer several questions regarding character, honesty, and community service.  Luckily, they accepted me into this organization; the only step left was to undergo the infamous induction ceremony.

         One Thursday evening, the National Honor Society had planned to hold its induction.  All the inductees wore nice attire and given a V-neck sash to wear around the neck.  We filed into the auditorium in two lines: each inductee standing next to a senior member.  The inductees branched off onto the stage while the current members sat in the audience.  The president of Geneva High School’s National Honor Society, the teacher sponsor, and the principal made speeches congratulating us on obtaining this prestigious position.  We continued with a candle lighting ceremony where each inductee would light their very own candle by taking the flame from four larger candles at the front of the stage.  Each of the four large candles represented the four characters that NHS emphasizes: scholarship, leadership, service, and character.  After lighting all of our candles, we recited the NHS pledge, and we became official members.

         This “high context” ceremony and ritual was and still is very important to many students.  The accomplishment of acceptance into NHS is not a low achievement, but in fact, one in which to be very proud.  As cliché as the ceremony was, including the candles and the pledge, we all knew and understood the deeper meaning and significance behind this event.  This ritual “made intangible values, beliefs, and attitudes… concrete and visible” (Sims and Stephens 97).  All of our efforts to uphold scholarship, leadership, service, and character were visibly recognized by our parents, the school administration, and our fellow peers.

 

This post is in response to the Chapter Four Reflection Question.

Third Encounter Project

This past weekend, I was privileged enough to attend my friend Melissa’s house for dinner. This was a very special evening because it was the celebration of her younger sister’s adoption day. Melissa’s sister, Claire, was adopted seven years ago from Guan Zhou, China on February 28^th. This past Friday, Melissa and I traveled up to her hometown of Crown Point, Indiana for this event. Every year her family puts on a big party for this celebration and there’s always a large gathering at their house. Melissa’s mom makes a ton of Chinese food for all their guests to enjoy and this weekend was no exception. The food was wonderful and tasted very authentic; except for the Americanized fortune cookie that was indeed a mandatory item. Throughout the evening, there was Chinese music playing all over the house that really set the mood. Melissa and the rest of her family spent the night telling stories of Claire the past seven years and even the story of her adoption. I heard Melissa say once, “People ask me what it’s like to have an adopted sister, I ask them what it’s like to have a biological one. I can’t imagine my life without Claire, she was meant to be a part of this family. God knew it was meant to be.” This statement touched my heart and I felt so blessed to have been invited to this honorary event. This family loved Claire so much and didn’t view her as an outsider, but as always part of the family even while she was in China.

I learned quite a few things that night about the Chinese culture, especially a lot of facts about their adoption procedures. In the country of china, there is a law that states that each family can only have on child in order to minimize their population increase. As a result, many families are forced to have several children because each time they have a daughter they have to give her up until they have a son because that is what is valued in their society. This means that orphanages across the country are filled with baby girls awaiting adoption. The country will soon find itself in a population crisis when the number of available Chinese men greatly outnumbers the available women. The Machay family definitely did their part when taking Claire into their home and family. This was a splendid celebration and learning experience that I will never forget.

This post is in response to my Third Encounter Project: Ritual, Festival, and Celebration.

Chapter 3 Reflection

1. Every thanksgiving while growing up, my entire family would meet at a lake in Glen Ellyn, Illinois for a morning hike. This tradition started when my Dad was really young with his three other siblings and my grandpa would take the kids out of the hosue so that my grandma could cook and prepare for guests. Even when my Dad and Aunts and Uncles were grown-up and having families of their own, the hike was still very important and a habitual part of our thanksgiving traditions. My grandpa passed away last March so this Thanksgiving we wanted to continue the tradition he started. Instead of driving to the lake in Glen Ellyn, we hiked around the park next to his house where two trees were planted in his honor. With my sisters, my parents, my aunts, uncles, and all my cousins, we took a picture in front of both of my grandfather’s trees. This changed tradition is important to my whole family because its continuing the tradition my grandpa once started and also respects his love for nature and the trees we had planted.

2. The Little 500 is a race that has been existent at IU for a very long time. But recently, it has come to my attention that everyone seems to be increasingly excited and enthused for this ongoing tradition. Every student is aware that the Little 500 takes place in the springtime, and without fail, every year all the students get even more enthused about the race come second semester. Since this race is incredibly vital to the students at IU, I recognize that it has become increasing central in importance to not only me, but the student body in general.

3. My best friend, Brooke, and I were highly involved in the organization, Young Life, all throughout high school. When we were juniors, our Young Life leader, Bethany, decided to create positions within Young Life for students such as us. Since we never missed a Young Life event and demonstrated our love for the Lord, we were asked to be junior student leaders. This meant that we would have responsibilities at Young Life club, be held accountable for our actions, and meet with Bethany once a week and read from the Bible, another book, talk about our faith, and talk about life in general. The best time in all of our schedules to have these meetings was early Friday mornings before school at 5:30 at a local coffee shop. It was a very early time to meet, but it was the best time of my week. We did this every morning for two years and Brooke, Bethany, and I became so close. Since Brooke and I are away at college now, we meet with Bethany over breaks at the same coffee shop, but because we don’t have school, we choose to meet at a later time.

This post is in response to the Chapter Three Reflection questions.

Album Review

I listened to a recording from the Smithsonian Folkways Recordings website (www.folways.si.edu). The album is entitled the “24 Best-Loved French Folk Songs”. I chose this album because I feel like it is a purchase that will enlighten me, but also be very useful. I am very interested in the French culture and am inspired to learn more about their society and language. I was intrigued when I viewed the song list to this album to see if any American folk songs have stemmed from or even resemble these loved French songs. I was correct with this assumption when I listened to track 3 “Frere Jacques” also known as “Brother James”. In track number 11, there were thirty seconds of only instrumental that sounded almost exactly like the American folk song, “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star”. It was very interesting to listen to the different accents and styles. There were several different styles of songs on the album. Track 15 “Il pleut Bergere” was similar to a lullaby, where as number 16 “La tour prends garde” sounded more like a march. There were a few tracks that I really did enjoy. “Savez-vous planter les choux” was very funny, a song about planting cabbage; it made me laugh that this song was included in an album dedicated to France’s most loved folk songs. I also enjoyed “Ah! Mon beau chateau!” It reminded me of any American sing-a-long song because of the echo effect displayed by the singers.

All in all, I benefitted from hearing the different language and accents presented in the songs, but the styles were fairly familiar because of American folk songs that resemblance them.

This post was in response to my Second Encounter Project.

Reflection Question #2

As stated in the text, belief is “one of the most powerful elements of any kind of folklore”. I agree with this claim wholeheartedly as I am strongly affiliated with a non-denominational Christian organization or group called Young Life. Recently, I have officially become a leader in this group which means each week I lead different events for Eastern High School students in Greene County, Indiana which is about thirty minutes West of Bloomington. Within this large organization of Young Life there are several sub-groups; for example: on-staff leaders, volunteer leaders, committee members, high school leaders, middle school leaders, high school students, middle school students, and many more. Specifically in Bloomington alone, there are six separate groups of volunteer leaders. Five groups lead at different high schools: North, South, Edgewood, Brown County, and Eastern) and there is one group of middle school leaders who are affiliated with all the surrounding junior highs. I have really benefited from being incorporated in the Eastern High School leader team, which includes three guys and three girls, they have become similar to a family while I am away from home at school. It has been interesting to view how the dynamics of the team have changed since I have joined. I feel I have brought new ideas to the table and have gotten my other teammates more excited about the workload involved with leading this semester.

It has been very fun and beneficial to be apart of such a group, especially while at school and away from home. Young Life has held me accountable for my beliefs, stepped in to help me out whatever the circumstance, and has been an incredible support group when feeling lonely or out of place here on a big campus like IU.

This post is in response to the Reflection Question #2.

Peer Review #1

Grace demonstrates a great interest in her first encounter assignment. She obviously did an abundance of research before she wrote her review of the Mandalay restaurant. Grace is very detailed in her description in her review and gives great background information and an excellent introduction into the cuisine type. I particularly enjoyed her first opinion of the restaurant when she first enters and is warmly greeted by the manager. This displays Grace’s efforts to make her restaurant visit not only about the food, but the experience in its entirety. I thought her experience and encounter was very authentic and valid because she tried several entrees similar to a professional restaurant. In the review, Grace slips in facts about the Burmese cuisine including that 75% of their diet consists of rice; these facts made her experience engaging and interesting to read.

This post is in response to my first Peer Review.

Restaurant Visit Project

Last weekend, my friends were talking about visiting a Hibachi restaurant nearby; I was completely unaware of such a term and was scared to confess my lack of knowledge and preceded to lookup the reference in order to redeem my ignorance. A Hibachi is a Japanese word that describes a round or square device that holds heated charcoal. North Americans have replaced the traditional Japanese meaning of the word Hibachi, “fire bowl”, with the meaning for their word Shichirin. Hearing the word Hibachi in the US refers to a type of restaurant in which the chef comes directly to your table and prepares your food in front of your eyes on a stove top similar to the classic Japanese Hibachis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hibachi).

I visited a Japanese Hibachi restaurant, Asuka on College Avenue, with a few of my friends to celebrate a birthday. When walking in, we were warmly greeted and brought to our table. Not long after our order was taken, our personal chef, who was Japanese, arrived at the stove top in front of our semi-circular table. He awed us with tricks including: the throwing and catching of an egg with a spatula, creating a cylinder of sliced onions and causing it to arise in flames as we sang “Happy Birthday”, and forming the shape of a heart with fried rice. The food was absolutely excellent and incredibly fresh. I stepped out of my ordinary go-to poultry dish and ordered an item from the seafood category: shrimp. To my surprise, I greatly enjoyed the shrimp our chef prepared and I would recommend it to anybody, even those who normally steer clear of salt water creatures. My friends allowed me to sample their orders and I was very impressed with the chicken and vegetables, but shockingly, I did not want to trade anymore of my shrimp for more of the other platters.

It has finally been brought to my attention why Hibachi restaurants have become increasingly popular. My night at Asuka was not only a fantastic meal, but also a fun and memorable experience. Luckily, there are Hibachi restaurants being established all over. Locally in Bloomington, Asuka is the only Hibachi restaurant that I have heard mention of, but in Indianapolis, there are several to choose from: http://maps.google.com/maps?f=l&view=text&hl=en&q=Hibachi&near=Bloomington%2C+IN&btnG=Search+Businesses.

This post is my response to the Restaurant Visit Project.

Folklore in My Life.

Every day, I am presented with different opportunities to recognize folklore; through conversations, habits, surroundings, and many more interactions. While reading and studying the various definitions to folklore, I am specifically reminded of a creative way in which I communicate with friends from around the world. Using ideas formulated from Ann Brashares book series, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, and the popular movie, three of my “sisters” and me share and send around a special pair of earrings. In the book series, four best friends mail a pair of pants around to one another during the summer while they are all away from home. I send my special earrings to Holland, Michigan, where my older sister attends college, to two of our great friends who live in Trondheim, Norway, and then south in Caracas, Venezuela, and back to Bloomington, Indiana; and repeat. We inherited this idea from the movie because we loved the idea of keeping in touch and not only sending letters, but also including the earrings which are a physical reminder of our bond and closeness even though there are many miles between us.

My “sisters” and I made this concept our own and live it out day to day. It is not a dead cultural activity only portrayed in the movies, but it is active, evolving, and a new tradition in my life.

This post corresponds to the assignment Chapter 1 Reflection.