Author Archives: Angela Lee

Pigs Bring Wealth

Pigs Bring Wealth

The Informant:

She was an elderly who came to the U.S. in the early 1990s. Although Christian, she says she still believes in this superstition a little bit.

 

돼지 꿈구면 행운이다.

돼지는 한국에서, 이 뭐냐, 돈이야. 옛잘에 모든 사업 아니면 일하는분들은 돼지머리를 잘라서 절을 하는거야. 절하다가 코에다가 돈 집어넣고, 입에도 넣고, 귀에다 넣고, 아므튼 늘수있는데에다 넣는거야. 

If you dream of a pig it’s good luck.

Long ago, a pig is a form of income. It is equal to money or wealth. People who ran businesses or stores would cut off a pig’s head, lay it on a table, and bow down to it. While bowing down, as a sign of worship, they would stick money in its nose, mouth, ears, anywhere on the head that they could. They did this so that they would succeed and become rich.

 

Haircuts and Rejections

The Informant:

My friend is someone I met two years ago when I first came to USC. She and I lived on the same floor and had similar classes. She was born in Japan and immigrated to the U.S. when she was less than four years old. She heard this reference when she was visiting her friend back in Japan in high school.

When a girl cuts her hair to make a drastic change, it means she was dumped by her boyfriend or rejected when confessing to someone. 

The Analysis:

The saying falls along the lines of a sort of remedy to channel the girl’s sadness or frustration at rejection. It represents the rejection but also a new beginning that comes after a type of failure. The cutting of one’s hair signifies that one has abandoned the faulty past and is working to move one to the future. The hair is significant because a maiden’s hair is a major form of attraction for men. Cutting off this form of attraction can mean that the boy had no attraction towards the girl so she might as well cut it off. The importance of hair in the Japanese culture accentuates the act of cutting it and this in turn accentuates the meaning behind it.

Ask A Question, Get Bit

D: 아빠 나 아빠한테 뭐 물어봐도되요?

F: 물으면 아프지.

D: 네?

F:물 면 아프다고. 

 

D: Father, can I ask you something?

F: If you do, it’ll hurt.

D: Huh?

F: If you ask me a question, it will hurt.

 

In korean, the word “ask” is the same spelling as “bite.” This is a play on words that I overheard a father and daughter converse while at church. The daughter asks the father if she can ask him a question, and he reinterprets the question as “can I bite you.”

Funeral Customs

Funeral Customs

Funeral:

Q: Why do Koreans wear white at funerals?

A: Because it’s clean. It shows that when they’re being sent off from this world to another, whatever world there is, they’re going off cleanly. It cleanses them of their life they led on earth and also paves the road in front of them to be smooth and clean.

Q: Why do people where black now?

A: Because it’s an American tradition. Normally Koreans, Asian cultures in general, wore white. Traditional clothes are also worn at funerals; it’s a sign of respect.

 

Mirrors

Mirror Ghost

If you sleep with your head/face toward the mirror then the ghost in the mirror will come out and chop off your head. I heard this from my parents when I was in elementary school and I got my first room. I asked them by the bedframe was facing away from the mirror and not toward it and they told me this story.

The Analysis:

This was a ghost story that his parents told him to spook my friend as a child. He mentioned, however, that many of his friends also shared similar stories that were told by their respective parents as a child. The ghost would not always come out from a mirror but maybe spring out from under the bed, from the closet, or a window. It appears that parents use ghosts and scary stories as a means of keeping their children tucked into bed throughout the night, and leaving them to stay still and not clamber around the room.