<p>JHS–Did Tang used to be monthly? By the time I got to Yale, there was a Tang weekened in the spring and that was it. Every college fielded both a men’s and a women’s team. It was disgusting, but the total lack of a gag reflex that some competitors had was impressive.</p>
<p>Tang is a bit disgusting, but it would be fun to watch!</p>
<p>What about Yale ghosts stories? I’m a sucker for those.</p>
<p>Is Tang run by DKE? I think i knew some people who did a drinking competition affiliated w. DKE, and now that i think of it i’m pretty sure it was called Tang. Residential colleges fielded teams, but also student groups were welcome to form their own teams (particularly athletic teams/frats…)</p>
<p>OK, in my day Tang happened whenever you could get two or three teams together for a meet (and could rustle up enough money to buy the beer). So, maybe two or three times a semester per team, and probably an equal number of practices/intramural challenge matches. DKE was just being revived then. There was probably a decent overlap between committed Tangthletes and DKE, and also very notably between the Silliman Tang team and the men’s varsity crew. My beloved Saybrook Tang team had all sorts – our #1 guy was a summa cum laude MB&B major who generally didn’t party at all, our team captain was a pre-med, but it also included the two biggest drug dealers in the college, a football captain, and at times two future Supreme Court clerks, none of whom had anything to do with DKE. </p>
<p>Women certainly participated in the practices (LOTS of people participated in the practices), and did one-on-one’s against each other, but I never saw a whole women’s team in action, much less two of them going head-to-head.</p>
<p>In brief, here’s how Tang worked: There are ten people on a team. They kneel in a line along one side of a long table (and if it was a head-to-head match, the opposing team is on the other side of the table). Each team member has two 8-oz glasses full to the brim with beer in front of him. (In deference to historical accuracy, I will use the male pronoun.) When the judges say go, the first guy drinks his first beer and slams down the empty glass. The second guy starts when the first glass comes down, and on down the line. The guy at the end – the “corner” – drinks his two glasses in a row, and then it continues back the opposite direction, with the #1 drinker drinking the last glass. Judges award penalties for starting too soon, “wets” (leaving beer in the glass, or spilling it on yourself), and “gross wets” (generally getting beer on others, especially after it has been in your mouth). Simple, elegant, exciting.</p>
<p>To give you an idea of how it went: A good team time had to be under 30 seconds, clean, for the whole round trip. The fastest I ever saw was 26.something. The best, cleanest drinkers tended to be in the ##1-2 slots, and they could always get an 8-oz. glass of beer down in .9 seconds or less. Corners, like catchers in baseball, were a breed unto themselves, and tended to take 2.5-3 seconds for their two glasses. The ##8-9 slots were especially difficult because of the limited recovery time between the first and second glasses. On good teams, pretty much everyone could do a single glass in 1 second or less, at least some of the time.</p>
<p>Matches were sometimes against the clock, sometimes head-to-head. Three-team round robins were especially grueling. In general, figuring out how to warm up and then peak in the actual match was a big part of the battle. One’s first drink was never one’s best, but performance would definitely degrade as the evening went on.</p>
<p>So, how do you become a member of a secret society? Do you have to know somebody who is a member of one, do you fill out an application, or do you have to be a member of the “power elite”?</p>
<p>Also, has anyone heard of the Yale Society for the Exploration of Campus Secrets? Sounds pretty cool!</p>
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<p>[Yale</a> Daily News - Semi-secret society seeks campus secrets](<a href=“http://www.yaledailynews.com/articles/view/11280]Yale”>http://www.yaledailynews.com/articles/view/11280)</p>
<p>can someone elaborate on the “reading period?”</p>
<p>With a warning that this information may be seriously out of date:</p>
<p>The various senior societies – most of them weren’t “secret” at all – had/have somewhat different personalities, which probably mutate subtly over time. Some were almost entirely social, others had a tendency to take themselves very seriously. Their social prestige, connections, and endowments varied considerably, too. Some had predominantly (though not exclusively) gay members, others might have lots of preppies. All of them were trying to assemble a fun, compatible, interesting class who would enjoy spending time together and would carry on the society’s traditions.</p>
<p>The high-prestige ones – mainly Bones, Scroll & Key, and Wolf’s Head – were populated mainly by prominent campus leaders: sports captains, Daily News editors, student government heads, Wiffenpoofs, top actors, general all-around leaders. The achievement standards seemed to be relaxed some for legacies, but in general they were surprisingly egalitarian: achievement and general campus standing were the main things.</p>
<p>Some people just flowed naturally in. By the time you became captain of the football team, star soloist of the Wiffs, or editor-in-chief of the Daily News, you knew a number of people in many societies, and they knew you. You would get sounded out about your interest. No one wanted to embarass anyone. </p>
<p>Other people would campaign subtly (or not so subtly). One friend – a completely unconnected suburban Catholic school kid – made it his goal to get tapped by Bones early in our freshman year. Bones was by far the most public of the societies – anyone with any interest could find out who that year’s class was. Obviously, they knew who was sucking up to them and why, but if the sucking up was done with skill it could be perfectly effective. This friend’s calling card was elaborate, imaginative pranks (stealing the Harvard flag, holding a surprise birthday party for a friend at the top of Harkness Tower) and a very wide social network. He was helped to a large extent by the fact that – thanks to one of his pranks going very badly wrong – he wound up in the class behind the class he started with, so that the people ultimately picking his Bones class included a number of good friends.</p>
<p>Another friend was tapped into a less-prominent society by her then-boyfriend, who was a member the year before her. Both of them were “achievement” types: He, the drum major/president of the marching band, she the president of the Glee Club. This particular society was not very secret at all. She spent a lot of time there, and knew that she was going to be tapped. She suggested various other friends (after inquiring discreetly whether they might be interested) – and later she tapped a subsequent boyfriend who was in the class behind her. She thought about tapping my future spouse, who was interesting and did a whole bunch of things around campus, but after talking to me about it decided that she probably wouldn’t be interested (she wasn’t).</p>
<p>Another friend, a very unrich, unconnected kid from New Jersey, wound up in a different society because it turned out that several of his friends from the class ahead of him were in it. He was not particularly prominent in terms of achievement, he was just a great guy that lots of people liked, with broad interests and involvement in a variety of extracurriculars.</p>
<p>^ Thanks for clearing up some of the mystery behind the “secret” societies!</p>
<p>Yeah, Tang is definitely still around. I think it may have been hosted by DKE this year. </p>
<p>Another fun yale quirk: nobody seems to think it’s strange to refer to one professor as ‘master.’</p>
<p>^ Do you refer to all professors as ‘Master’ or just a certain one?</p>
<p>Masters are like the social chairs of the residential colleges. They live in the college with their spouses/children. There’s just one per college. They’re also professors, either in the college or one of the graduate/professional schools.</p>
<p>^ I see. I knew about the colleges’ chairs, but I didn’t know they were referred to as that.</p>
<p>Thanks! Any more quirks?</p>
<p>Each residential college has its own fun traditions. Pierson does jello wrestling once in a while… and competes to see which class can drink a keg fastest. Berkeley’s mascot is the thundercock, Davenport’s is the gnome. JE '11 screams every thursday at 11:00. Calhoun hosts trolley night, and Berkeley hosts a black light party. Morse and Stiles do a casino party. Saybrook students take of their clothes in the third quarter of football games. Berkeley students can paint murals on the tunnel that connects the two sides of the college. Residential college traditions are kind of infinite…</p>
<p>Any cool Trumbull traditions? I noticed you didn’t mention any on your first go-over…</p>
<p>^ Go to Wikipedia and search Trumbull College! While all the residential colleges are full of quirks, Trumbull (in my opinion) takes the lead.</p>
<p>Trumbull’s cheer is ‘moo-rah.’ I find that entertaining. Also, one of their courtyards is called ‘potty court,’ named for a gargoyle in the courtyard who appears to be relieving himself.</p>