Author Archives: Matthew Giles

Friends and Spicy Food

Subject:

Social custom regarding spicy food

Informant:

Saran Kaba grew up in Gabon. Her family is mostly from Gabon and Guinea, and strongly identify with Mandingo culture which is prevalent throughout the region. Saran immigrated to the United States in 2014, where she now lives and studies at the University of Southern California.

Original Script:

“We are not allowed to pass, like, directly pepper, to like somebody, because that means that you want to, like you will be in conflict. So like if you like a person, you don’t give pepper at first. You know, like, pepper, like something spicy, because it will lead to some sort of conflict or miscommunication.”

Informant’s Background Knowledge and Relationship with this Piece:

Saran doesn’t know where she learned this, or the reasoning behind it, only that it is a widespread custom not to give somebody any kind of very spicy food.

Thoughts About the Piece:

Very spicy food can be painful. Perhaps this custom arose from the concern that feeding people food that is more spicy than they can handle might upset them, and hurt the relationship. Spicy food also causes your nose to run and tongue to hurt, which might make it difficult for them to have a conversation or maintain a graceful countenance, which may cause awkward social situations.

Sealing Fate

Subject:

Korean superstition

Informant:

Eumin Lee was born and raised in the United States, although both of her parents spent much of their lives in Korea. As a result, Eumin grew up surrounded by Korean culture and superstitions. She now studies at the University of Southern California.

Original Script:

“She’s also taught me to never ever write my name in red ink, because apparently that’s, if you do, it’ll kind of… seal your fate for… like something bad will happen to you, or worst case scenario you’ll die, or something.”

Informant’s Background Knowledge and Relationship with this Piece:

Eumin claims to have just been raised with this policy, and although she does not really prescribe to many of the other superstitions her mom taught her, she still will not write her name in red ink, just because she feels that it is easy to avoid, and that there would be no point in tempting fate.

Thoughts About the Piece:

Red is a strong color, which for the purposes of this superstition I would imagine to represent blood. Following this logic, I would guess that signing your name in this color would be akin to sealing your fate in blood.

Cold Drinks and Greasy Food

Subject:

Korean folk practice for digesting greasy food

Informant:

Eumin Lee was born and raised in the United States, although both of her parents spent much of their lives in Korea. As a result, Eumin grew up surrounded by Korean culture and superstitions. She now studies at the University of Southern California.

Original Script:

“Um, she always tells me to never ever drink iced water after I eat something, after I eat any type of greasy food, because she thinks that, um, if I drink cold water while I’m eating this greasy food, that the grease will just, like, bubble up in my blood, or something, and just, like, be a detriment to my health. She always tells me to drink hot water or hot tea while I’m eating greasy foods.”

Informant’s Background Knowledge and Relationship with this Piece:

Eumin says that she does not really prescribe to this superstition, but it was advice that her mom strongly believed in and recommended to her.

Thoughts About the Piece:

In America, no one would look twice at somebody eating a greasy burger and plate of fries with an ice-cold soda next to them. If anything, it would be expected. However, after living in the US for several years, Eumin’s mom still believes that this combination of greasy food and cold drink is bad for a person’s health.

Cold Feet

Subject:

Korean superstition regarding fertility.

Informant:

Eumin Lee was born and raised in the United States, although both of her parents spent much of their lives in Korea. As a result, Eumin grew up surrounded by Korean culture and superstitions. She now studies at the University of Southern California.

Original Script:

“There’s one where, um, if I’m walking around the house without my socks on, I think I’ve mentioned this one but my mom will yell at me to go and put on socks, or warm up my feet. Because she thinks that if I have cold feet, that I won’t be able to get pregnant in the future, and that it’ll render me sterile, or something like that. “

Informant’s Background Knowledge and Relationship with this Piece:

Eumin says that she does not really prescribe to this superstition, but just knows about it because her mom strictly enforced it at home.

Thoughts About the Piece:

I’ve heard this same superstition from a girl who grew up in Gabon. In addition to keeping her feet warm, she said that her mother wouldn’t let her shower after sunset, otherwise she might get cold when she came out, and that could cause infertility. I think it’s interesting that there seems to be some perceived relationship between staying warm and fertility and that this perception is held in both Eastern Asia and Western Africa, as well as potentially other regions.

Deepest Darkest

Subject:

Schoolyard superstition.

Informant:

Conor Hayes has lived in Southern California with his family for all his life. His mom is from Alabama, and his dad, while born and raised in the US, claims some Irish Heritage from his grandfather (COnor’s Great Grandfather). Conor is currently a student at the University of Southern California.

Original Script:

“Okay, so, I switched schools in fifth grade, and came to this new school called Carden Hall which looks exactly as it sounds: I foirst showed up and I thought I showed up to, like, a Victorian Jail. So I show up there, and to integrate a little better I go to summer school there. And Summer school was, like, well there was this sports camp involved and sports camp was mainly based on this huge grass field that was the centerpiece of the, like, free space of the school. SO you know whenever you’d have recess you’d just, like, roll around on the grass or whatever. Uhh, and the school was at the edge of this huge tract of empty land, and to this day I don’t really know why that land was empty it was like a prime parsel of land in Newport Beach and it extended al the way down to like the beach, but I dunno it was like heavily overgrown and very strange, in retrospect. So that, like, bordered the western edge of this enormous grassy area, and there was a fence, and lots of trees growing, like, along and through that fence. SO you were, like, not really supposed to be over by the fence. Like they’d kind of… the two coaches that were looking after you whenever there was recess or whenever there was PE, they kind of like, pushed you away from the fence whenever you went over there, but um, there was this one spot in the corner that nobody really went to, because everyone was sort of creeped out by it. There was like three trees all clustered arund each other, and the fence was all gnarly and rusted. And the kids would talk about ‘oh there’s a coyote that lives there’ or some kind of like, bad animal, but generally there was just kind of bad stories about it. Um, and, I don’t know who came up with the name, but the name for it was deepest darkest. And so there was like this wild patch in the corner of our school playground that nobody really went to. And it got to the point where it was incorporated so much into the school that, you know, the coaches would tell you ‘to warm up for PE, kids, you got to… run to the corner of deepest darkest and back.’ And like you’d run, and touch the wall like 20 feet away from it because nobody really wanted to go too near it. One of the stories was coyotes, one of the stories was, like, people were creeped out that there was, like, a person that could sneak in there and get you, that there was like a bad guy. And it was just kind of like this, this schoolwide thing, and people just knew not to go into deepest darkest.”

Informant’s Background Knowledge and Relationship with this Piece:

Deepest Darkest, as Conor calls it, is a place or a thing from his childhood and represents what was clearly a mystery and a concern to the students of his school. He said that many students made plans to venture into Deepest Darkest and explore it before they graduate, though apparently few go through with it.

Thoughts About the Piece:

Conor was in fifth grade when he learned about Deepest Darkest, and it seems to me like all the fuss and concern was just spread from student to student, without any of them really knowing what they were scared about.