Category Archives: Folk Beliefs

New Years Kiss

Main Text:
New Year’s Kiss

Background on Informant:
My informant is my younger brother, who graduated from UC Davis. While in college, he was part of a fraternity and regularly attended social gatherings and parties. I asked him about any traditions he could think of, and he brought up the New Year’s kiss at midnight. He explained that it is something he first experienced and learned about during his time at UC Davis but he truly believed in it.

Text:

Interviewer: Do you have any traditions you follow on New Year’s Eve?

informant: Yeah, the New Year’s kiss at midnight.

Interviewer: What is that exactly?

informant: When the clock hits midnight, you’re supposed to kiss someone.

Interviewer: Where did you learn that?

informant: The first time I really learned about it was at Davis. Everyone was talking about who’s going to be your New Year’s kiss, and I was like, “what?” Then my friend told me you got to kiss a girl at midnight to start the new year right or you’ll have bad luck with girls next year, like a serious dry spell.

Interviewer: Did you get a kiss that night?

informant: Of course, and let me tell you my freshmen year was outstanding! After that I always made sure to set up my new years kiss.

Interviewer: have you ever not had a new years kiss?

informant: yes, sometimes it just doesn’t work out, and those years I definitely notice a difference.

Interviewer: I wonder how much of that is maybe manifestation from belief?

informant: Hmm, that’s a fair point. I don’t know but I notice a difference for sure.

Analysis:

This is customary folklore due to a certain behavior that seems to repeat during a specific event, New Year’s Eve. It is believed to bring good luck, especially in relationships, which shows symbolic thinking. The tradition is learned through horizontal transmission, since the informant picked it up from friends in a college. He believes in it because of the experiences he has had, such as the difference he noticed in years when he wasn’t able to follow it. It also functions as a way of stimulating social interaction and increasing the bonding between individuals on New Years through shared beliefs.

Splitting the Pole

Text: The excerpt below is a folk performance describing superstitions over splitting the pole.

Interviewer: Do you have any folk beliefs of what brings good or bad luck?

Interviewee: Ok, yes. So one of them is, if you split the pole, so if you’re walking with someone, but you split a pole, or like, as long as it’s above your waist, it counts for me. That means that you, in the future, will split apart of that person and never see them again, so like, for me, like, I feel like it brings bad luck to relationships. So either I’ll walk along the other side of the pole, or if you split it, you go back and hit it, it’s fine. So that brings bad luck, but there is like a way to undo it, I guess, as well.

Context:

This excerpt is from a conversation with a fellow Forms of Folklore student. The conversation started by specifically talking about their Romanian heritage, and the folklore that came with that identity. After talking for a while about that topic, the conversation shifted to general superstitious beliefs, as recorded above. The interviewee engages with this folk belief whenever they are walking with someone, and separated by a pole.

Analysis:

This belief is an example of sympathetic magic, as the physical separation by the pole reflects the separation of a relationship. This belief likely exists because when walking and splitting from someone for a short time, that feeling of separation is felt by a person, and that feeling, through this folk belief, is enlarged to the feeling of separating from a whole relationship. There is a way to remove the bad luck through conversion magic, by hitting the pole, allowing people to feel at ease, even after committing this offense.

Eye Twitches

Text: The excerpt below is a folk performance describing a student’s superstitious beliefs about eye twitches.

Interviewer: Do you have any folk beliefs of what brings good or bad luck?

Interviewee: This isn’t good or bad luck, but like, if your eye’s twitching it means that someone is thinking about you, so my mom would always come in my room and be like: “ok, name everyone that you think would be thinking about you, and when it stops, that’s the person that is thinking about you.”

Context:

This conversation came from a discussion with a Forms of Folklore USC student. I inquired about different folk traditions that were related to her Romanian heritage, and she responded with the above excerpt. Her Mom is fully Romanian, and she associated the tradition with Romanian folk beliefs. She engaged with the folk belief when young, with her mother initiating a folk ritual, to use the eye twitches to see who was thinking about the ritual participant.

Analysis:

There exists the folk belief about eye twitches, and also the folk ritual performed by the interviewee and her mother. The sign exists as it gives a sense of control over the insecurity of who is thinking about you. This ritual with the interviewee and her Mother allows the folk participant to gain some control over their insecurity, by being able to see if others think of them. It is interesting how muted the knowledge granted from the ritual is. The behavior gives minimal information, only telling if others are thinking about them, not more useful details, like what that person thinks about the folk participant. This outcome is likely because if the folk belief was believed to portray more details, then someone could verify more accurately whether the sign was true. The ritual has to strike a balance between calming the folk participant, and not being too much more detailed, where it might be proven false.

Black Milk Tea

Text: Below is a performance describing the consumption of black milk tea family ritual.

The Interviewee was asked to recount any folklore or superstitions he remembered.

Interviewee: Another, I guess, family tradition or superstition we have, you can also call it a superstition, like, uh, my Grandpa on my Dad’s side of the family always, he would always make black milk tea, brew, almost boil, these black tea leaves, concentrate it super, super hard, and then, like, add evaporated milk to it, and would alway add two cubes of sugar to it. That was just like his tradition.

Interviewer: And what was that supposed to bring, or, what is the purpose of that?

Interviewee: So, actually, like my Grandpa, and especially, like, my Dad’s side of the family, like, they, uh, suffered a lot during the Cultural Revolution in China. I’m not going to go through that, but there’s, like, a whole thing you can look at it. Um, it was also even hard to get black tea leaves during the Cultural Revolution during that time, so like for them, those black tea leaves that they had was, like, almost like sacred to them. Even though now it’s like fifty years later, and, like, that chaotic time is now passed, even I still, like, brew black tea leaves the way my Grandpa used. So, it’s like, I guess it’s like a tradition that, like, I’ve held on to even though he’s passed it on.

Context:

This excerpt is from a conversation with a grad student studying Biology after a MMA (mixed-martial arts) practice. The student was raised in Walnut, California, and has parents that are Chinese immigrants. Currently, the ritual consumption of black milk tea is performed by his father and grandfather whenever they want to bring about good luck, but historically, during the Cultural Revolution in China, it was performed rarely, only every once in a while, when they could find black tea leaves, living in extreme poverty.

Analysis:

This example illustrates how tradition can endure as context and place change. The original habit of consuming black milk tea was informed by extreme poverty, where the consumption of the tea’s ingredients could only happen rarely due to the circumstances of famine. Now, the tradition endures as a ritual consumption of the black milk teas, to recall that time in the past, and signify the surviving that took place. The original creation of this black milk tea could only happen when interviewee’s father and grandfather were lucky enough to find the ingredients, so now, even though the ingredients now take no luck to find, the tradition has held on to that feeling, as it now conveys good luck and fortune.

Even VS Odd Flowers

Text: The excerpt below is a performance describing the even vs odd flowers Romanian superstition.

Interviewer: Do you have any folk beliefs of what brings good or bad luck?

Interviewee: And, so like, I brought this up in class on Tuesday, but it’s the, uh, when you bring someone flowers, if it’s an even number, that’s bad luck, because you only bring even numbers to funerals, when you are mourning someone, in Romanian culture, so you’ll always bring odd flowers [when going to an event that is happy].

Interviewer: Do you know where you heard of these beliefs?

Interviewee: Yeah, they’re from my parents, it’s part of the culture, it’s like a very superstitious culture.

Context:

This excerpt is from a conversation during a discussion class of Forms of Folklore. The person interviewed is of Romanian heritage, and grew up in America. They always bring an even number of flowers to funerals, and an odd number to joyous events.

Analysis:

This belief likely is held because the believer likes to feel greater influence over events that they do not affect. The superstition also points to the multiple, competing symbolic meanings of flowers, how flowers are given joyfully to someone you love, but also, they are used to mourn for those who die. These competing use cases resulted in this belief forming, where which circumstance of flowers had to be made clear. It is also interesting how odd is considered lucky, while even is considered unlucky. This folkloric belief, in its focus on odd and even, is extremely similar to and possibly connected to the pulling petals folk activity, where depending on if the number of petals pulled is odd or even, someone does or does not love the ritual performer. Also, the fact that odd in particular is joyful, while even is somber, could have arose from the fact that giving one flower is common, and it would be strange from that to be classified as unlucky, so from there, all odds were made happy, and evens were made unlucky.