Tag Archives: good luck

Cash gifts ending in 1 or 5

Ritual:

A cash gift in India will end with the number 1 or 5. So, if giving money as a gift, the amount will be 11, or 21, or 31 and so on. Even higher amounts like 51, 101 – the extra rupee or dollar is for good luck.

Context:

JG is 59 years old and my mother. She grew up in India with a very religious Hindu family, before immigrating to the USA. Her parents were spiritual and superstitious. As a child, she participated in lots of rituals that were believed to provide good luck.

Analysis:

First of all, now I know why whenever a family member gives me money for my birthday, it’s always $51 rather than $50, for example. I have always wondered that but felt awkward asking.

Second, I relate to the practice of having lucky numbers. Personally, mine is 13 because of Taylor Swift. I have done something similar myself. When I was donating to a GoFundMe set up by a fellow Swiftie, I added an extra 13 cents to my donation (because they would understand). The 13’s are more for fun than anything else, but from my understanding, the 1’s and 5’s are said to ward off evil spirits.

There’s no logical link between numbers and good luck, but sometimes we like to think there is one. Whether that is for fun, or to relieve our anxiety about a situation, lucky numbers definitely play a huge role in a lot of cultures.

Eating yogurt before leaving the house

Ritual:

If you eat a spoonful of plain yogurt before leaving home for something important, it brings good luck – including job interviews, tests, long vacations, etc.

Context:

JG is 59 years old and my mother. She grew up in India with a very religious Hindu family, before immigrating to the USA. Her parents were spiritual and superstitious. As a child, she participated in lots of rituals that were believed to provide good luck.

Analysis:

I vaguely remember my mom doing this ritual with me when I was in elementary school. I had always assumed it was for nutritious purposes – because I know we give milk to kids to help them grow taller, and yogurt is processed milk. However, I was surprised to learn it’s part of a superstition. Lots of people incorporate small rituals into their routines, especially on important days.

Upon further research, I learned that another variation of this superstition is eating yogurt mixed with sugar. This one has a somewhat more logical explanation that is based in Ayurvedic tradition. In this way, it is a folk medicine practice. The yogurt is a coolant for the body and the sugar gives you instant energy.

There is no logical connection between eating yogurt and having a successful job interview, for instance (even if there’s a correlation, that does not always equal causation). But, we like to think there is one in order to relieve our anxiety. It makes us feel like we have control over the results in more ways than we actually do. Our decisions about what to do, especially on important days for us, aren’t always rooted in logic that can be proven.

Wearing the same shirt to all tests in nursing school

Ritual:

When AH was in nursing school, she would always wear a specific Brett Eldredge shirt to tests. She believed that it brought her good luck.

Context:

I met the informant, AH, through friends when we saw Kelsea Ballerini together. She likes many other country artists as well, including Brett Eldredge. He is her favorite singer and he feels like a good luck charm to her. Plus, wearing his merch gives her a sense of comfort as she walks into stressful situations like nursing school tests. AH started doing this on her own early in her nursing school years.

Analysis:

I related to what AH said, as I have done the same with Taylor Swift shirts during big tests for school. The superstitious belief that certain things we wear, especially if we associate them with people we love, can bring us good luck is very common. Realistically, there is no direct link between what we wear and how well we do on our tests – there might be a correlation, but that doesn’t always equal causation. But, we like to think there is one in order to relieve our anxiety. It makes us feel like we have control over the results in more ways than we actually do. Of course, this is done after hours of studying, but when you value academic performance as much as AH and I do, you’re under the mindset that every little thing helps. Neither of us are very religious, but this ritual does reflect our belief in luck and superstition, to an extent. Our decisions about what to do, especially on important days like test days, aren’t always rooted in logic that can be proven.

Coins on the Ground

Context:                                                    

O is a Pre-med biology major at USC, currently a freshman. O is a Vietnamese American who grew up in Vancouver, Washington — a short drive from Portland, Oregon. 

Text:

Me: Do you have anything you collect or do for good luck?

O: Yeah, actually I collect coins. Not just pennies, but like all kinds of coins.

Me: Really? How do you find them?

O: It’s really ridiculous, I just pick them up from the ground and keep them in my pocket, because I think they will bring me good luck.

Me: From the ground?

O: Yeah, they would be lying on the ground while I’m walking and I’ll pick them up, put them in my pockets.

Me: Do you keep the pennies forever?

O: No. I take them out and put them back on the ground once I think I don’t need the luck anymore. Like, the luck can go to someone else. 

Analysis:

O demonstrates some form of sympathetic magic. He connects receiving luck to picking up coins from the ground, both how lucky he is to find the coin and the luck the coin itself gives him. The luck O has that initially gives him the coin is somehow transferred into the coin, where there is some exchange between him and the coin that gives him luck with the penny as a conduit, collecting and releasing luck for anyone to pick up. The idea of quantifying luck or magic seems like contagious/contact magic, where magic or superstition can transfer from one person to the next with the penny is added as a middle man. Keeping the coin is somehow magic that ensures the luck will be sustained in him while giving it away is also magic, ensuring that luck will be passed on to the next person. If luck was the contagion of magic, the coin would be patient zero.

Chants for Good Luck

Context:

H is a spring admin freshman at USC, studying Music Industry. H grew up in Taiwan, but moved when she was 8 to San Jose. 

Text:

H: “Whenever I encounter something bad, I basically chant like something from Buddhism. It goes like ‘大慈大悲, 救苦救难, 管旭音菩萨’ (Pinying: da ci da bei, jiu ku jiu nan, guan yin pu sa; Translation: great mercy and great compassion, save the suffering, guan xu yin bodhisattva). It’s basically what I chant so they can give me power, something like that. I think it’s just telling them I’m in trouble, it’s not asking them to come to me, but I feel like they’re going to do something about it and that’s why I do it.”

Analysis:

H’s chant is something along the lines of a conversion, a superstitious charm that negates or balances out an event. In H’s case, the chant is religious, referring to a god in Buddhism, but meant to offset something bad in her life using her god’s power. Her chanting is ritualistic, in the sense that H will do it on the principle or possibility that her god may be listening, while not knowing if anything will change. Just the act of chanting, the practice of a charm that’s believed to give good fortune, makes her believe that good will come, which is a faith nearly more powerful than the tangible confirmation that there really is a god up there, in my opinion. H creates a sense of order for herself in the midst of a crisis or hardship through this learned chant, and always repeating it to herself, she maintains faith that her chant comes true. Essentially, her ritual chant is believed to bring good luck for her, therefore it does bring good luck.