Question the third

Here it is, the question for the 30th (it might not be worded the same way as in class, but the intent is the same).

At your job, have you ever been taught a technique (a way of doing something to make the work easier, more interesting, more efficient) by a co-worker as opposed to more formal training?

You know what I mean, right?

Some answers to the "religious" question

Interesting group of answers this time: asking about religion is always intensely personal (and a danger in this age of religion being ensconced ion the private sphere), but all of it is food for thought.

In all cases I think my religious identity is a part of my folk identity
because without my religious background, there wouldn’t be all of the great family traditions and customs to follow, especially those that my family and I have at Christmas and other national holidays. It makes it easier too that my family consider both identities and both are practiced with great respect without one over-riding the other in any way.

I know that is is possible to have the fact that you are not religious part of you folk identity, but I do not believe this is the case in my situation. In my opinion for religious identity to be part of your folk identity you must relate to others of similiar religious beliefs based on your shared beliefs, wheither these beliefs be formal, non formal, or non existant. My religion and my religious beliefs are one of the last things that would either bring me together of seperate my from others on my behalf.

I would consider religious identity to be part of my folk identity because I feel that a person's beliefs makes up a large part of who they are. I am catholic and in being so, it effects my folk identity in the way I have been brought up, in the way I interact with my family as well as other groups and it also influences the way I act in every day situations. Relgion is present everyday and without it I feel my identity would be very different.

My final example, is how I got caught up in the controversy that raged over Boularderie and the diocese that serves the parish there. Last year they wanted to take the kneelers out of St. Joachim’s Catholic Church in Southside Boularderie. People who hadn’t been to church for years, including myself were up in arms. How dare they try and change a long standing tradition of the church. I would have thought people would be happy to get rid of them, however, the irony however, is that most people including Catholics detest the kneelers, they are hard to kneel on and hard to get up and down from. Yet it was enough to divide the community and get people from all religions weighing in on the topic.

I consider my religious identity to be a part of my folk identity. My religion is part of who I am, which also ties in with the folk identity aspect of my life. This narrows down where I stand on my beliefs as a Christian. Atheists consider their lack of religion part of who they are, and in part, a part of their folk identity. Religion is just another aspect of the many I have of who I am in connection with my religion as a part of my folk identity.

I don’t very belief any religion, but I belief there is some one watching what are we doing everyday. But in Chinese tradition, most people belief Dao which start from thousand years ago. Some of the traditional festival is from Dao. Like by the Chinese lunar calendar, the seventh day of the Chinese New Year, it’ s considered as the birthday of human being in Dao, most southern Chinese will go to the temple of Dao to celebrate this day and make a wish for the new year. In my family tradition, on that day, we will climb to the top of a hill or a mountain in or near our city, to wish we could get to the top in our lives or careers in the New Year. Dao and Buddhism have the most significant influence to Chinese, but most Chinese are not pious follower of Dao and Buddhism. For instance, Dao and Buddhism are prohibiting marriage, drinking alcohol, eating fresh, but we don’t follow these rules.

No, I do not. I do not think i have a "relgious identity". My religion is not a way in which I define any part of myself. Not being a spiritual person who prays to a God or attends church services on a regular basis it is not something that makes me who I am. Religion is not something which has been preached in my family, nor is it something my family uses as a way of distinguishing themselves from another group. It is a nearly non-existant quality in both my personal life and my life within my family and other groups.

Considering that folk may be defined as people who are the carriers of culture, and especially as representing the composite of social mores, customs, forms of behavior, etc., in a society, it is without a doubt that I consider religious identity as part of my folk identity. My religious identity is a part of my culture and who I identify myself as. It is my faith that I consider perhaps my most significant self-identifier. My faith shapes my decision-making and even perception of the world and so therefore shapes me as well. Thus, it is without a doubt that in answering a question such as who are you that my Christianity would be an essential factor in my response to such a question. My faith makes me who I am!

Personally I do not feel my religious identity is a part of my folk identity but then again I do find it difficult to identify what falls into my folk identity. The Catholic religion was a part of my identity when I was a child, perhaps because it was forced upon me. Even then I cannot say with certainty it was a part of my folk identity. What should be considered a part of my folk identity would be my families Polish, Scottish, or Irish background. However in my family this is neither celebrated nor acknowledged. It is not something we experience through the food we eat or the parties we throw. Therefore to state what part of my folk identity is would be difficult, but it does not include my religious identity.

I have to say that I didn’t really understand what the question is exactly asking, being as I lack the religious requirements for the question. However, if I were religious I would think that yes it would be a part of my folk “identity”. Religion can be looked at as a common factor that brings people together. Some religions themselves seem to be more “folk-ish” than anything. Like Native-Canadian religions they are more narrative than anything. There is no real text saying how and what to believe, it is based more on the information passed down to you by people who already have knowledge on the religion. Even looking at more “Americanized” religions there are parts that have nothing really to do with the religion itself but has become a tradition within that group. For example one of my friends is catholic and her church puts together this huge feast for the church members a week before Lent, and has done this every year for as long as her family can remember. It is usually the same people who put the event together and the event itself has unspoken customs attached to it that are followed every year even if they are not mentioned before hand. So even though the religion itself is very structured, the events that co-exist with it are not. Those events are what connect the “religious” identity to folk “identity”.

Religion identity is in close relation with folk identity. The folk draws material on religion, influencing the evolvement of religion its spreading inversely. In my life, I think “religious identity” is a part of “folk identity”. When I was a child, I heard the folk story from my grandfather. From that time, I knew Buddha at the first time. He is a god in Buddhism. Day after day, I knew lots of information about Buddha. He became a god in my heart. When I want to do one thing , but I have not the assuredness. I will utter a prayer to him, and hope for helping me can through this challenge.

Question: religious groups

Question: Do you consider your "religious identity" as part of your "folk identity"? Why or why not.

Some answers to the "ethnic" question

Last week I asked the question "Do you consider yourself a member of an ethnic group? Why or why not?" Here are some of the responses they have been edited and are anonymous)

• I am part of a Lebanese ethnic group. My grandfather's family traveled from Lebanon to Sydney in the early 1900's. We are a large, close family who participate in many Lebanese traditions and customs that have been passed down over the years. The Cedar's Club is a Lebanese organization which is used for several functions such as holding Lebanese church services and it is also where my family's Christmas celebrations take place. We eat traditional Lebanese dishes on a regular basis and also have learned traditional Lebanese dance. Through keeping our Lebanese traditions alive, we have remained a close knit group which will be continued throughout future generations.
• To be honest I have never really thought of it before. I guess in part it is because I do come from Cape Breton where in my high school there was little or no diversity of culture. I come from a long line of Scots which make up a big portion of our Island so thinking about being a part of an ethnic group was never on my mind. When I think of it now I would say that I am part of an ethnic group, everyone on this planet is. However, I think living in a small isolated place where ethnic diversity is not as accepted it is hard to really think of myself a part of an ethnic culture even though I know I am.
• When I first read this question I had to try and figure out what an ethnic group really is. I found that being apart of an ethnic group means being apart of a group of people who are the minority in a much larger society, this group of people usually share common language, religion and culture. So to answer the question, from what I can understand, to some extent I think that I may belong to an ethnic group. My background is composed of both Irish and Scottish roots, so with this I would be apart of a group of people in a larger society composed of various other backgrounds. Usually when I think of an ethnic group I would think of Chinese, Italian, Japanese, etc.
• Ethnicity is defined clearly through ancestry with a different nationality. Anyone whom is related to a family member who has a different background from the other family members; for an example of one member maybe being native from their family members background distance wise or perhaps better more the mother or the father could be of a different race, so down the road if the couple were to have a child there if a very good chance of the child being born a color in between the mother and the father. I am not considered to be part of an ethnic group. My mother is a French, white Canadian and my father is a white Anglo-Saxon Canadian. Therefore I am not part of an ethnic group but, I do have a background of both French and English.
• Culturally, firstly, the foodways of the Chinese, the main starch Chinese have in every meal, besides breakfast, is rice, and the utensils used to eat is chopsticks. Secondly, the language difference: my first languages are Cantonese and Mandarin, and then English. Thirdly, Chinese are more like collective people, unlike the North American who is an individualist, we do thing focusing on the group. Even which major we choose in college we will consider in light of if it’s good for our family, for our parents. We have our own traditional festivals which mostly follow the Chinese lunar calendar, like Chinese New Year, Chinese Valentines Day, Chrysanthemum Festival, Dragon Boat Festival, etc. Each traditional festival has some special event to celebrate it. Like the Chrysanthemum Festival, every family will climb up to top of the hill or mountain, which will protect them against the danger. We have extremely different beliefs, religion, and values from Canadian, because we born in different culture. I think is the culture defines the ethnic group.

A variety of responses, most of which hinge on the perception of self in relation to a perceived "normative" ethnic group of the community. It is a marker both of difference from a larger group (either in number or, just as easily, in influence) and of similarity to and thus solidarity with others with whom, save for this shared characteristic made meaningful largely only in the context of co-presence with the larger group, one might otherwise have little common cause.

And the discussions of the week largely built on this category of difference.

REPOST from FOLK 201: Fourth Class: Tale Types and Motifs, and Indices for same

Stith, thy name resounds throughout the ages.

Today was spent trying to familiarise people with The Types of the Folk Tale by Antii Aarne and Stith Thompson, which tries to present describe and annotate every folktale type (an abstraction gleaned from comparison of known versions through which can be used to locate and identify subsequently encountered versions and locate them in a larger context of a narrative repertoire), in part through reference to their motifs (for which Thompson also created an index, The Motif-Index of Folk Literature). Much sort of hands-on things today.