Cultural Nuggets

When I was an undergraduate student I took an amazing history methodology course with Professor Steinberg. Our class was discussing the current reading - Ginzburg’s The Cheese and the Worms - when the professor made a comment that really stuck with me. It was something about the thrill of that serendipitous moment when a historian (or anthropologist) stumbles upon a piece of evidence which sheds insight into the broader beliefs/values/practices of a culture group. If you are lucky, it can become the foundation for a much bigger piece of research (a dissertation, a book) and maybe even change the way people think about a particular historical period or people. To make these discoveries requires one part luck and one part skill - that is, keeping your eyes open for clues that would seem insignificant to most. I yearned to make that kind of discovery and vowed to keep my eyes - and my mind - open in the hopes that I wouldn’t miss these clues should the opportunity presented itself...no matter how small or seemingly unimportant the clue might be.

Well, its that last condition which obliges me to write this today. I think I may have encountered my own little “cultural nugget” while working the Ikata -Town Elementary School circuit. Granted, it won’t allow me to reconstruct an entire peasant cosmology like Ginzburg. Nor will it revolutionize the way historians approach the discipline. But it is most certainly an unexpected, consistently repeated (and if I may make a value judgement - slightly disturbing) pattern of behavior.

I present to you the evidence, let’s call it Cultural Artifact A. It’s a small, grey, basically non-descript plush animal. I use during class for warm-up and pass-me games. It’s one of three toys that I use (the others being a small plush goldfish and a small plush penguin).

Cultural Artifact A

I teach approximately 15 elementary school lessons per month. The students range from 1st to 6th grade.

The unexpected, unsolicited response from many students when I pull the stuffed animal out of my bag:

“Ah! Oishiisou!!!”
Translation: “That looks delicious!!!”

Now I’m fairly confident I wouldn’t get this response at home.

My conclusion? Undecided. I'll leave you to interpret as you will...