Sara

About two months ago, my boyfriend called and asked me if I would like to go to watch an Iranian singer perform with him and his parents in Indianapolis. Normally, I would say no, since Middle Eastern music isn’t my type, but then I realized that this would be a great opportunity to experience something from a different culture and be able to write about it for this class. I immediately responded with a yes, and made plans to go to Indy to watch an Iranian performer named Sara.

About a month ago, my boyfriend, his family, and I made the trip to Indy. His family is Iranian and listens to her music all the time, so I felt a little out of place. When we arrived to the venue, we walked inside and the walls were lined with golden ornate decorations and Middle Eastern music was playing over the intercom. There were booths setup in the lobby with different Middle Eastern instruments on tables as well as jewelry, clothes, and other native Middle Eastern commodities. The lights flashed and everyone was herded into the auditorium to take their seats. Then, one single spotlight hit the stage and Sara came out.

She opened with one of her more popular songs that a lot of people around me knew the words to. I don’t speak the language, so I had no idea what she was singing about, but I could tell with her facial expressions that it was about something emotional. Some people actually got up and danced, which was the most entertaining part of the concert. They dance a lot differently from how I dance. They move their bodies differently, and the males actually are more fluid, and move more than the females.

It was an amazing experience, and I’m so glad I was able to be there.
This is my response to Encounter Project 3

Traditions

When I was thinking about this reflection question, I wondered to myself, how many traditions do I belong to? If I do something twice does it qualify as a tradition? Do the same people have to be apart of the tradition? While reading chapter three, I realized that like a lot of lore, tradition refers to several related concepts (65). The book said that tradition has three main concepts: being the lore we share and the process by which we share it, creates and confirms identity, and is something a group identifies as a tradition (65).

I sat for a while, trying to think of a tradition that I was a part of that I felt was starting to disappear or one that has already disappeared. I realized that one very common and important tradition that has faded for my family is thanksgiving. The book says that since traditions exist because they are meaningful, they rarely ever end outright (75). I find this to be extremely true with thanksgiving in my family. Every year my family and I went to Washington, Indiana to my grandparents for thanksgiving. The whole family would rent out a mess hall and everyone would bring food. After my father and grandfather passed away, my family stopped going and started having small thanksgivings at our house in Evansville, Indiana. We still keep the same traditions, like always eating turkey and dumplings, playing basketball and football after dinner, and ending the night with cards. The thing that is missing is the mess hall, and the people.

I actually had a hard time finding a tradition that is becoming increasingly central to my life. My boyfriend goes to Purdue, and about once or twice a month, I go to West Lafayette to visit. Every Sunday around one, my boyfriend, his best friend, and I go to IHOP. We haven’t missed a Sunday yet when I go to visit. It has actually become something that is unspoken, just understood, which makes it a tradition to me. It’s always just the three of us, and we usually always order the same thing every time.

My boyfriend is Muslim, so I have witnessed many traditions that I don’t belong to. The main tradition that I have been able to take part in was their big dinner for the end of Rhamadan. They have this huge feast at their house every year with traditional Iranian food such as blended potatoes, green beans, and broccoli fried in a skillet, and lots of rice. The music was absolutely intriguing and their dancing was quite entertaining. It is nothing like what dancing is like from my culture. It was one of the most enjoyable nights I have ever had, and was really excited to be brought into their religious tradition for a day.

This blog entry is my response to Reflection Questions for Chapter 3.Sims, Martha C., and Martine Stephens. Living Folklore An Introduction to the Study of People and Their Traditions. Logan, Utah: Utah State University Press, 2005

Music Genres

While reading Cassandra’s blog entry about going to see the band Phil Lesh and friends play, I couldn’t help but realize how alike we both are. It is really hard for me to go see bands that I don’t know their style of music or have never heard of them. I have seen a psychedelic band play before, but they weren’t anywhere close to my dad’s age. They were all in their 20s and probably hadn’t been playing for very long.

I actually do usually stick to commercial music, that is music which is played on the radio on popular stations. Occasionally I like to mix it up with some musicals here and there, but honestly I don’t have that much of a variety of music in my life. Cassandra’s experience going to see this band reminded me of when I went to go see an Iranian singer with my boyfriend and his family. At first I was very skeptical, but once I got there and heard her sing I absolutely fell in love with her music. I had no idea what she was singing about, or saying, but the instruments and sounds she made with her voice were phenomenal. This experience taught me to be more open minded about other musical cultures and to appreciate different genres of music.

This is my response to peer review #2.

A Taste of India

For my Encounter Group paper, I decided to tackle the task of going to an Indian restaurant and sampling some of their cuisine. I had heard that Indian food was traditionally spicy, but I wanted to find out a few more things about that specific culture’s cuisine before I went to the restaurant. I went on the internet and found out that most favorite Indian dishes are vegetarian, even though many traditional Indian dishes provide chicken, goat, lamb, fish, and other meats (Wikipedia). I also learned that the staples of all Indian food are rice and a variety of spices (Wikipedia). I figured that I like both spices and rice, so I was pretty excited to try Indian food for the first time.

I went home to Evansville, Indiana for the weekend to visit my family. Friday night after I got there, my mother suggested that the whole family go to lunch on Saturday at this new Indian restaurant called Karim’s. I figured this was a perfect opportunity to try many flavors of Indian cuisine and use my first experience for an encounter project.

My mother, her boyfriend, and my younger sister all went to Karim’s for lunch. We decided to order this combination platter that contained tandoori fish, which was basically spiced fish roasted in the oven. The only fish I really eat is salmon, so this type of fish really through me off. It was dark, and very, very spicy. I was preparing myself for more of a seafood taste, but there was no recognizable seafood taste to this dish. It was more like a very tender, spicy chicken. I didn’t dislike it, but it was too spicy for what I’m used to, so I probably wouldn’t order it again.

The next dish his platter contained was called nargisi kofta, which was basically meatballs stuffed with eggs. I actually really enjoyed this dish. It tasted like it might have been Americanized, since it was more salty than the usual mix of foreign hot sauces, spices, and herbs. I’m pretty sure that the nargisi kofta was the favorite food of the afternoon.

The last thing on the platter was the tukhm-e-murgh masala. I actually couldn’t recognize what it was, so I asked our waitress. She said that it was basically herbs and spices mixed up with eggs and curry. I honestly probably only had about two bites of this dish. It was extremely spicy, and I am just not used to that type of spice being incorporated into my diet. Also, it was really, for lack of a better word, mushy. I actually came to find that most of the food that Karim’s offered was more on the mushy side rather than crispy.

I actually really enjoyed the whole atmosphere of the restaurant. It was full of very vibrant colors and played traditional Indian music while you ate. Overall, I liked the food that I tried. It was definitely different from anything I have ever had, but it was a good experience. Also, I did find a new favorite food of mine in the nargisi kofta dish. I really appreciate their love for herbs and spices and use of flavors. I wouldn’t mind going back again.
This is my response to the second encounter project on the restaurant visit.

Works Cited
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_cuisine. Last updated October 5, 2007.

When I saw that our reflection question was about folk groups, I realized that I wasn’t sure what even qualified as a folk group. So many questions ran through my head. Can any group be a folk group? Does there have to be a specific number of people? Then I read that a folk group is essentially any group of two or more people who share a common factor (35). This is a vague way to think of folk groups, so then I went to look for how they form and start. The book lists five main ways that folk groups form: necessity, obligation or circumstance, proximity, regular interaction, or shared interest or skill (38). I have a specific group of people that I play volleyball with every week. This folk group was formed when we all met freshman year in a volleyball tournament that Teter dormitory was hosting. We liked the way each other played, and decided to form a group that gets together every week and plays volleyball for a few hours. According to the book, we formed because of a shared interest or skill (38).

Another important aspect about of folk groups is being able to identify yourself as a part of that group. According to our book, sometimes we choose groups that express the identity we want to create for ourselves, rather than find groups that express the identity we already have (41). I remember when I was younger I badly wanted to associate myself with my best friend’s religion, Lutheran. I wanted to be like her, so I felt that I needed to start going to her church, instead of my Catholic church. I now realize that the group that expressed the identity that I already had was Catholicism. Now I freely identify myself with the Catholic Church.

This blog entry is my response to Reflection Questions for Chapter 2.Sims, Martha C., and Martine Stephens. Living Folklore An Introduction to the Study of People and Their Traditions. Logan, Utah: Utah State University Press, 2005

A Weekend Of Cross-stitching

A very important form of folklore in my life is cross-stitching, specifically the tradition of going to my grandmother’s in Washington, Indiana one weekend of the summer and cross-stitching with her and her friends. Every summer, my grandmother picks one weekend to have a weekend long cross-stitching party. It is basically a group of elderly women, and myself, coming together and spending a weekend of gossiping, eating, and mainly, cross-stitching together. It is located somewhere in-between material and customary folklore.

The basic theme of the weekend is women empowerment. The whole weekend is really about women leaving their husbands for a few days, getting together with other women, and discussing things such as their children, marriages, past loves, and recipes, all the while cross-stitching. It is actually a tradition that my great-grandmother began. My great-grandmother was a housewife while my great-grandfather worked on the farm every day. To pass the time, my great-grandmother would cross-stitch. Eventually, it became a thing where she invited other women that lived around her to come over and cross-stitch. There was always one weekend during the summer where the farmers would go away and sell their produce to markets. My great-grandmother decided that during this weekend, they should have a cross-stitching party. As soon as my grandmother was old enough, she was able to learn and take part in the cross-stitching party. When my grandmother became a housewife herself, she decided to reignite the weekend long cross-stitching party, and when I was sixteen, my grandmother invited me to visit for the weekend and participate. It is definitely a feeling of being part of a group because it is the same group of women every year.

This weekend is extremely important to me. This group of women is extremely special, and they have taught me so many things that I will carry on with me for the rest of my life. The whole weekend is almost surreal, because they tell me stories of when they were my age and I can see how their lives have progressed and how my life may progress. It is the most important weekend in my life, and I always make sure I am able to be there. Even though I may not live in a small town my whole life, I definitely plan on carrying on the tradition that my great-grandmother began.

This blog entry is my response to reflection question number one.

I can completely connect with Ashley’s post in response to Reflection Question One about her and her husband trying to teach their four and a half year old daughter to tell funny jokes. I work at Campus Children’s Center which is a full-time childcare program mainly for the children of Indiana University’s faculty, staff, and students. It now provides care for children from birth through preschool. I have the pleasure of working in the preschool classroom with the three to five year olds, which much like Ashley’s daughter, are at an age where they are starting to tell jokes.

Like Ashley’s daughter, the main problems that the kids have are understanding the punch line and knowing where the punch line is supposed to be in the joke. We actually have a book of knock knock jokes in our classroom, which has become a favorite for a few of the children. Every day when I walk in, these few kids have me sit on the couch and read them a few jokes. They try to repeat each joke after I say it, but a lot of the time they will say the punch line after I say “Whose there?,” instead of waiting for the “Blank who?”. Although, once they finally learn how to tell the joke correctly, I, along with their family, schoolmates, and other teachers, will hear the joke continuously for the rest of the week. It doesn’t matter how many times each child tells the same joke, it’s still funny because they are just as excited to tell it the 30th time as they were the first time.

This is my first peer review posting.

For my first encounter project, I decided to stick with verbal folklore and chose to do the joke or other verbal art project. The type of joke that my project focuses on is the knock knock joke. The specific knock knock joke that I heard went like this:

“Knock knock.”
“Whose there?”
“Atch.”
“Atch, who?”
“Bless you!”

I heard this joke from one of my roommates three days ago. My two roommates, Ellyn and Marie, and I were in our living room, watching television and doing homework. Ellyn had her laptop with her and was checking her email when she came across one from her mother that contained twenty of her favorite knock knock jokes. She read a few of them to Marie and me, but she liked the one above the best. Throughout the whole night, Ellyn kept repeating the joke over and over again, laughing hysterically each time.

I know that knock knock jokes go way back, but I wasn’t sure exactly how long ago or how they originated. I figured my best bet was to go online and type in knock knock jokes to see what comes up. I ended up at www.wikipedia.com, which said that South African school children used them in the early 1950s, but the exact origin of the knock knock joke is uncertain. Another website, http://ask.yahoo.com/20060908.html, agreed that the origin of the knock knock joke is uncertain, but there is evidence of the use of knock knock jokes dating back to the time of William Shakespeare. According to this website, you can find a form of the knock knock joke in Shakespeare’s play, Macbeth, however, it did continue to say that there is no evidence that suggests this is how knock knock jokes originated.

After discovering that there is no real knowledge of when knock knock jokes originated, I do not feel like I can say whether this specific knock knock joke is old or new. If I had to take a guess, I would say that it came around in the 1950s when knock knock jokes were popular. Obviously, knock knock jokes are extremely widespread all over the world, but I wasn’t sure if this specific knock knock joke was known by few or many. I figured the best way to find out if this was a popular knock knock joke was to go online again and see if it was on popular knock knock joke websites. This specific joke was on every website I visited, but on some occasions it was worded differently, such as the “Bless you!,” would be replaced with “You’re Excused!,” or “Gesudheit!”. This is probably because this joke was passed verbally from generation to generation, undergoing different interpretations, much like the game telephone. Although we don’t know the origin of knock knock jokes, we do know that they are very widespread and is an extremely popular type of joke.

This post is my response to the joke or other verbal art project for my encounter project 1.