My feet were sticking to the floor.
They came away from the cheap linoleum unwillingly, the beer-slick which had
formed in the last three hours taking on the consistency of adhesive glue. As I
peeled myself towards one of the main rooms a boy twice my size tipped half a
red plastic cup of warm beer over my head. The thumping base drowned out my
expletive, and I stumbled, coming to rest against a pool table, where four more
boys armed with ping-pong balls looked at me in surprise. It was exactly like
the films. Only so much grimier.
A week in to my first term at
Berkeley, and directly in the middle of the Fall ‘Rush’, the roomie and I had
decided we should attend at least one of the famous frat parties. There are
over a hundred fraternities and sororities on the UCB campus, operating from
impressive-looking houses with large Greek letters superimposed over the
thresholds. The ‘Rush’ is the intense initiation period, where new students
slug it out for a place in one of the many institutions. Once into the
sorority, you become a ‘brother’ or ‘sister’ for life. It’s a hard thing to back
out of: one girl, who voluntarily quit her sorority after deciding she wasn’t
getting much from the experience, found herself completely ostracized by the
rest of her sisterhood.
Somehow, chess club down the
community hall doesn’t seem to cut it.
My first Frat party was an
interesting experience. I spent most of it cowering by one of the pool tables,
staring at freshmen girls teetering in shoes that defied all physical rationality.
For most of the new students access to alcohol had been scarce, and many of the
girls were being physically held up by the Frat boys. Those guarding the door
are ruthless about the gender-balance: once the pickings for girls grow too
slim the bouncers begin to refuse boys entry. The sexual politics are not known
for their subtlety. At one point I found myself pursued across three floors of
the house by a towering boy with the shoulders of an American-football player, who
only abandoned his quest when a screaming girl fell- literally- into his arms
and incoherently accused him of trying to steal her phone. Having escaped him I
returned to the pool table, joining the team of two boys, one of whom smilingly
introduced himself as a ‘Blaxican’. Apparently that was all fine and dandy. Shortly
afterwards I discovered that I am, in fact, a Beer Pong Wizard.
American Beer Pong:
The most popular American drinking
game, Beer Pong is very simple in concept. Six cups are arranged at opposite
ends of a table and half-filled with cheap beer (the most popular frat brand
appears to be Bud Lite) and two teams take it in turns to throw ping-pong balls
into the cups. If you successfully ‘sink’ a cup, then a person on the opposing
team must drink. The first team to finish all the cups of beer loses.
 |
| [Fig 1. Beer Pong Diagram] |
After sinking my first three cups
in a row, I was asked if I was a professional basketball player. The remainder
of the game was so intense I’m still recovering five days later, but it’s good
to know that in some small capacity I have a definite talent out here.
All in all, I’m uncertain about
what I think of the frat and sorority (broadly termed as the ‘Greek’) system. While
it seems like an excellent way to socialise and meet people, the initiation
processes seem very intense, particularly among the frats. One fraternity boy explained
how he and the other ‘pledges’ (those freshmen competing for a place in the
organisation) were walked into a dining hall, ordered to strip, and then pelted
with food. “It’s a tough initiation,” he said, a slightly shell-shocked look in
one eye, “I mean, you have to really want
to get in.” Which apparently, a lot of USA freshmen do.
Some frats have been struck off the
university system completely. These ‘unrecognised’ institutions have been
struck off the UC Berkeley register for bad behaviour- normally involving the
illegal consumption of alcohol or dope. Walking up the road in the late
afternoon, I was sidetracked by a chorus of howls emanating from the balcony of
one of these unrecognised frats, where five or six boys hung over the railings
hooting at the girls below them on the pavement. Once they realised they’d
caught my attention, I was ‘invited’ up to join them, and climbed through a
window a few minutes later to find them building a brick barbeque, drinking a
bottle of industrial sized vodka and smoking the largest joint I’ve ever seen.
“We just party
all the time,” one of the boys said, dilated pupils struggling to focus on my
face. “We go on and on and on. Hey, are you related to Kate Winslet?”
As the first weeks of term really
begin, the fraternity and sorority atmosphere will begin to lessen, at least
for those who opted out of the Rush process. Chosen pledges will spend the
first term working their way towards becoming fully acknowledged members of
their new brotherhoods or sisterhoods. The graveyard of crushed red plastic
cups will dwindle away, and the sun will dawn once more over Berkeley. I’m not
sure the ‘Greek’ system is something I want to commit myself to, but I look
forward to observing its place on the campus with great interest.
