Author Archives: gbarbosa@usc.edu

Blonde Girl in the Bathroom

Nationality: Brazilian
Age: 22
Occupation: USC Student
Residence: Los Angeles, California; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Performance Date: 04/15/2018
Primary Language: Portuguese
Language: English

My ghost story is actually a very famous story in Brazil. I heard it for the first time when I was around 11 years old, I can’t remember exactly. My aunt told me when I was in my country house, close to Rio. She told me about the “blonde girl in the bathroom”, that’s what the ghost story is called. Essentially, the story is if (pause) you call “blonde girl of the bathroom” three times, while in a dark bathroom, a blonde ghost will appear. I had some friends and cousins who told me they actually called the blonde girl and it worked. They did that in all of the houses’ bathrooms and said that she was in all of them already. So the week we spent there I would barely enter the bathrooms because I was scared she would be there. That story was really impactful during my childhood because even though looking back today it seems like a silly story, I was really scared at the time.

This is a very famous ghost story in Brazil, in fact, I know Pedro since I was three years old and I heard his aunt talking about the blonde girl in the bathroom. His cousins used to believe it was real and even though I was scared in the beginning I never really took it seriously. When we are young we tend to believe in these stories with more frequency but as we grow older we stop believing in them. The only problem was that people said they had seen it before so that made it more authentic, which as a consequence, made all of us more frightened. Even though the story seems familiar to me, the version I heard with more frequency is that if we flush the toilet three times in a row while the bathroom lights are out, she would appear. I never really tried that because I was scared, but with time I just stopped believing in this ghost.

White Owl

Nationality: Brazilian
Age: 23
Occupation: Software Engineer
Residence: Los Angeles, California; Ceará, Brazil
Performance Date: 04/17/2018
Primary Language: Portuguese
Language: English

So this is kind of a ghost story or a superstition from where I lived almost all of my life, in the northeast of Brazil. It’s basically when a white owl flies over a group of people, everyone has to scream, “happy newly weds” otherwise somebody in your family will die in the next month. I heard this for the first time in when I was with my older cousin going to a family reunion party, to celebrate someone’s birthday. I don’t believe in this anymore but when I was a kid I used to believe in it, so I would shout, “happy newly weds” every time a white owl flew above me.

I am also from Brazil yet I had never heard about this folklore before. It is really interesting and the exact context and idea of how it came to be is unknown. Davi said that he heard it as a kid and he used to say it because he had fear that a family member would actually die but now he just thinks it is a silly superstition to have. I actually don’t think it is really common for a white owl to fly over your head but it probably happened to him a few times. I am not a big fan of these superstitions yet I find them interesting.

Headless Mule

Nationality: Brazilian
Age: 18
Occupation: USC Student
Residence: Los Angeles, California; São Paulo, Brazil
Performance Date: 04/20/2018
Primary Language: Portuguese
Language: English

In Brazil, there is a common myth, an urban myth, that on Thursday’s, a woman who has any physical relation with a member of the Catholic Church ends up becoming a headless mule, sort of like a donkey animal. And instead of having a head, she would have a big flame of fire. And she would run around and kill any animal of person on her path. She is attracted to nails and teeth, so if she were close to you, you had to hide your teeth and your nails. I was particularly afraid of it when I was little, I would always get cautious whenever it was a Thursday and I was at countryside and there were horses and donkeys running around. I was always thinking that maybe one of them would turn into one of the headless mules and just kill me.

This is the type of story that you only believe when you are young. As Pedro said, he used to take this ghost story seriously when he was younger but now he doesn’t. In my opinion, this is something rather impossible to happen and although there are people who do actually believe it can be true, I completely disagree. I had listened to this story before, at a young age, but I didn’t know the exact context of how the woman turned out to be a mule. Now I am more familiar with the folklore but in my opinion it’s an impossibility of the world.

Eyelash Wishes

Nationality: Brazilian/American
Age: 22
Occupation: USC Student
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Performance Date: 04/18/2018
Primary Language: English
Language: Portuguese

One habit that I have is when an eyelash falls on my cheek or in someone else’s cheek; I blow it or tell them to blow it and make a wish. The first time I did that I was in middle school and an eyelash had fallen on my cheek and I hadn’t noticed. A girl came up to me and took it off my cheek and put it on her finger and told me to blow it. She told me to make a wish. And that’s how I started. I liked that girl so I kept doing it. It is meaningful because (pause) I think it was a start of a beautiful friendship, and after that happened I really became close friends with that girl. It just kept me doing it, with different people. And coming from her I think it was nice because now I actually think that my wishes will come true.

I think Thomas was more concerned about the relationship he built with the girl than the consequence of making a wish and realizing it. I actually have this same superstition of making a wish after an eyelash falls in my cheek or in front of me but instead of blowing it I put it in my chest. That’s how my mom told me to do in order for the wish to become a reality. I am not very superstitious with these things but I do it because everyone does it too. Even though I perhaps have a positive feeling that sometimes it might become a reality, I don’t really have a lot of faith on these things. However, it became an automatic response to an eyelash falling.

Same Socks

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: USC Student
Residence: Los Angeles, California; NY
Performance Date: 04/19/2018
Primary Language: English

When I played football in high school, for our games I liked to wear the same socks every time. First of all they were comfortable, but I was also superstitious and it made me feel better and confident going into each game. It was just a tradition I had that, you know, I kept throughout middle school and high school. It wasn’t the same pair of socks throughout the whole time; it was basically one for every season. And it was just the consistency that made me feel confident going in each and every weekend in the games against the opponents. I think it’s really important to keep a superstition like that because it’s something psychological and I believe that there are studies that show that your performance does increase when you have something like that.

I believe that having a kind of superstition will actually increase your performance. As he said, there are studies that show that you do better when you have these kind of psychological motivations. I used to do something similar during my soccer games, listening to the same song during the warm-ups. It worked pretty well because I got into the game hyped up and thinking I would win. Of course that there is no direct impact on the way you play but rather an indirect consequence that will help your mind put yourself in the game. I highly recommend doing something similar to this.