The following story is told by my old high school English teacher who used to live in Vietnam:

“Ads in Vietnam puts items on sale for 88% of their original price.  The 8^th, 18^th, and 28^th of each month are lucky, and on those days, fake money is sold in the streets to be burned for luck.  People get married on those dates.  Some people even pay to have their phone numbers include the number 8 to gain respect from their customers.”

Analysis: These folklore practices in Vietnam are because they believe the number eight to be lucky in Vietnamese culture.  This idea stems from the Vietnamese language much like the superstition about the number four.  In Vietnamese, the word for the number eight is almost identical to the word for “develop.”  Since development is viewed positively in Vietnamese culture, the number eight is celebrated.  It is very interesting that although four is an unlucky number, 14 is not, whereas the number eight is a lucky number and so is 18 and 28.  My old teacher learned of this lucky omen through his interactions with local Vietnamese people during his time in Da Nang, Vietnam and observations of everyday life.

The following story is told by my old high school teacher regarding his life in Vietnam:

“My Buddhist friends will NEVER write the number 4 – not for any reason. Nothing is priced at 4 dollars, and nobody will accept 4 dollars for anything or give it in change. Some people don’t leave the house on the 4^th, although that does not seem to have spread to the 14^th or 24^th much”

Analysis: He collected these observations overtime by living in Da Nang, Vietnam and making friends with the locals.  He completely immersed himself in Vietnamese culture and started getting involved at a local orphanage where he interacted with and financially supported children in the orphanage.  This helped him connect to Vietnamese culture and helped him learn first-hand of many of Vietnam’s folklore practices such as their superstitions regarding numbers by hearing stories from locals and observing everyday activities.  This piece of folklore serves as a classic example of number superstition in Vietnamese culture.  However, it is important to note that the superstition is only about the number 4 by itself; numbers that include the number 4 are fine.  It is interesting because the Chinese have a similar superstition about the evil of number four.  In both Vietnamese and Chinese, the number 4 in their respective languages is very similar to the word death in those languages.  This trend is also observed in other East Asian languages including Korean, Japanese, and Cantonese.

This story is told by a high school teacher who observed the actions of several school janitors in Gary, Indiana.

“In Gary, Indiana where I taught in a mostly-Black high school, the cleaning staff was comprised of white Southern Europeans.  They were mainly Greek Orthodox, and they firmly believed that placing garlic chunks in rooms, drawers, behind stacks of books, on top of doorjambs, etc would keep evil spirits away.  One day I went in our book storage room and threw away all 40-plus pieces of garlic I found.  Within a couple days, it was all back.  Each year when teachers arrived to set up their rooms, there was always at least one piece of garlic in each desk.  Everybody just accepted it – remember this was in 2004 – because the whole Southern European culture in our community so strongly believed in the practice”

Analysis: His story reveals the prevalence of Southern European culture and folklore practices in Gary, Indiana in 2004.  The Orthodox Greek janitors believed that Placing garlic pieces in particular places in a building would keep the evil spirits away.  Although he did not directly speak with the janitors, the other teachers provided an oral history of the old tradition of the janitors placing garlic unusual places and replacing the cloves when needed.  My old high school teacher, Curtis, is an atheist so he was quite skeptical about these superstitious practices, yet there was nothing he could do to stop the overflow of garlic into the school.  The janitors’ will to rid the school of evil spirits was much greater than Curtis’ will to rid the school of garlic because the janitors were so frightened by the potential of evil spirits.

A rural area of India experienced a UFO sighting in 2002 my Grandfather remembers hearing about from his colleague who was living in India at the time.  In an interview with my grandpa he describes what his colleague remembers from the incident:

Interviewer: “How did your colleague hear about the UFO sighting?”

Informant: “He was was working in Mumbai at the time and so he didn’t see the UFO himself but most of the country heard about it.  They were all terrified that the Muhnochwa was going to come after them next.  He told me he heard it was spotted in Uttar Pradesh and that people there reported that it looked like a UFO but it was this thing they named a Muhnochwa that beamed red and green lights and swooped down from the sky trying to scratch people with its huge talons”

Interviewer: “Did he know anyone who saw the Muhnochwa?”

Informant: “He knew people who knew people who claimed they saw it and were scratched by the talons, and that’s where the chaos started.  People started panicking over something that only a handful of people claimed to see and there had been no other spottings since that incident.  People started taking preventative measures such as holding sermons to ward away evil and staying up all night to stand watch.  People stood around bonfires all night looking for the mysterious creature but it never showed again.”

Interviewer: “Why aren’t the people still worried about a potential attacks?”

Informant: “The police were able to convince the people that the attack was just a rumor, but I guess we’ll never know.”

Analysis: My Grandfather believes that life outside Earth is entirely possible which is why the story has an ominous tone because nobody is really sure what happened.  The only facts are that the country quickly turned to chaos when an unknown threat was detected and the community that was directly effected banded together to help solve their alien problem.  They turned to religion first to protect themselves, and then gathered weapons and fire to protect the community if another attack happened.  UFO sightings are not uncommon even today, but it’s the way in which communities respond to them which reveals most about that certain group.  I particularly like this piece of folklore because I too believe that life outside of Earth is possible and like to entertain the possibility.