Author Archives: Andrew Kassab

Indian home rituals and customs related to luck

“The head of the bed should not face the north and neither should the front door. When you buy a house, you have to make sure neither face north: it’s bad luck. Also, if you see a grasshopper in your house, [it means that] you’ll probably be rich.”

My informant is an Indian-American immigrant who has lived in America for almost his whole life. These customs come from his parents, so he doesn’t know exactly where these beliefs come from. 

Analysis: These rituals and customs have to do with the ways in which Indians have brought superstitions related to luck into their homes. For the grasshopper superstition, it seems to be a simple superstition about a rare event signifying good luck. In the West, a comparable superstition would be that finding a four leaf clover will bring good luck. It’s a superstition that seems like it does not really impact daily life too much. However, the superstition regarding North-facing doors and beds has a much larger bearing on the ways in which my informant and his family live. As my informant alluded to, this superstition greatly impacts the ways in which his parents buy and arrange their houses. In America, a country where this superstition is not prevalent, they have to search for houses that do abide by this belief. I assume that this complicates the home search process greatly, adding another set of requirements in an already competitive market. While a super small detail my informant offhandedly mentioned as a dated belief from his parents, it represents a significant concern for his immigrant parents who have more direct ties to India. Something as small as the way the door faces has highlighted the generational divide between immigrant parent and American son. 

Home Run Celebration

Text: “Every time I hit a home run, everyone at the plate [the base runners and the man on deck] waits and taps helmets when I arrive. We then run back to the dugout together where the rest of the team then celebrates as well.”

Context: My informant is a high school baseball player. He is a junior and hopes to play in college and beyond. This is his celebration every time he hits a home run. 

Analysis: Sports players very often have elaborate rituals associated with certain parts of their game. Sometimes, rituals help players feel calm and collected in important moments. In many cases, such as this one, rituals are meant to celebrate big moments in a game, such as scoring or making a big stop on defense. These rituals are often very performative and exaggerated in order to evoke excitement and energy in both the athlete’s teammates and the crowd. However, my informant’s ritual is rather understated. It is a subtle acknowledgement of his teammates before slightly rowdier celebrations begin back in the dugout. While he didn’t mention this during the interview, it is important to note that my informant is being scouted by colleges and professional organizations to play baseball at a higher level. So, while he is on the field and potentially on camera, he composes himself. Once he is out of sight in the dugout, he might get a little more boastful and excited with his teammates. While a seemingly insignificant part of sports, rituals like these are a way in which athletes present themselves to the outside world. Players can be labeled as “cocky” if their rituals are audacious, for better or for worse. On the other hand, many players, especially those who still are being recruited, may have to act out certain rituals that fit the standards of recruiters, even if it’s not how they truly wish to express themselves on the field. 

Colored Ribbons on Every Tree

Text: “Whenever someone dies, the whole town goes out and wraps specific colored ribbons around the trees. We have like 4 blue and pink ribbons on the trees in front of our house for [local mom and dad that died recently]. We do it to show support for surviving family members.” 

Context: My informant is a highschool student from the small town of Hinsdale, Illinois. There was a recent passing of a fellow classmate’s parents, so there are specific references to this one performance of the ritual.  

Analysis: This tradition comes from my informant’s home town, a smaller town where the community is very tight-knit. Everybody knows everybody and the happenings of their lives. So, when tragedy strikes and someone passes, it is a big event that the town collectively mourns. The specific rite mentioned here is a simple one: tie ribbons of remembrance around the trees lining the streets. As my informant alluded to, the ribbons are meant to let the deceased’s family know that the whole town stands beside them in mourning. The colors are often symbolic, representing something about those who have passed. In the case of a recent tragedy, there are paired blue and pink ribbons for the mother and father that both passed. Also, I think that the ritual helps the town process the death too. Since the community is so tightly knit, tragic deaths ripple throughout the entire community. In this case, the two that passed had multiple kids in the local school system and sports teams. Since they were so integrated into the community, the tragedy of their passing affected almost everybody. So, the townspeople banded together to put up ribbons not only as a sign of solidarity for their surviving family members but also as a way to process their own collective grief. 

Annual Eastern Orthodox Church Festival

Text: “[At the festival], they have a “Middle Eastern” dance in a circle and everyone throws money into the middle to raise money for the church. Women cook ahead of time and men work the pots and pans during the ceremony. They sell baklava and hummus to raise money for the church. My dad and I [used to] work the games of chance.” 


Context: my informant is a Syrian-American and was a practicing Eastern Orthodox Christian as a child. He grew up in New Jersey, but went to a majority Middle Eastern Eastern Orthodox church where they would hold this festival. 

Analysis: As was described above, this was an annual festival held by my informant’s church when he was a kid. While he described it as simply an “Eastern Orthodox” church, it is important to note that he and the other people at his church were all of Middle Eastern descent. This is why he specifically mentioned hummus and “Middle Eastern” dancing: he was trying to communicate the idea that this festival relied on common Arabian heritage in a way that would make sense to my Western perspective. Heritage aside, this seems like a festival centered on fundraising. Every aspect mentioned above relates in some way to raising money for the church. The dance was meant to attract donations, the cooked goods were made to be sold, and the games of chance were meant to win money from gamblers. However, to my informant, he was simply recalling good memories of his childhood. He also never mentioned it being tied to any specific holiday, perhaps identifying the festival as something specific to that church. The festival, from an outsider’s perspective, seems to be a way for the church to raise money to stay afloat while also fostering the sense of community that truly keeps a church alive. 

Celebrate 9’s but don’t celebrate 10’s

Text: “Many Chinese people, especially the older generations, won’t celebrate 10, 20, 30, etc because of the way the numbers are pronounced. [Ten] also sounds like the word ‘dead” and, in Chinese, twenty is ‘two-ten,’’ thirty is “three-ten,” and so on”

Context: My informant is Chinese and has grown up close to her relatives, especially as they aged. These are traditions that she remembered seeing in her childhood.

Analysis: This practice seems to be an age-related birthday ritual. As my informant described, “ten” in Chinese sounds like their word for “death.” Thus, it seems that to celebrate a “ten” birthday would be like inviting death. Chinese culture as a whole has many superstitions related to longevity. There seems to be a cultural fixation on living a long life, much more so than in American culture. I believe this is because, in Chinese culture, elders matter much more. For instance, in China, it is legally and culturally required for children to care for their aging parents to show respect and make up for the time their parents spent raising them. In America, it is much more common to see seniors taken care of by paid professionals in care facilities or living on their own. America, conversely, seems to place much more emphasis on youth. Proverbs like “Live fast, die young” and the idea of “peaking” early in life make old age not something to be revered, but tolerated in hopes of living vicariously through your kin. So, while the Chinese have many superstitions about avoiding death in old age, as is evidenced by my informant’s declaration that mostly old people subscribe to this superstition, Americans do not.