Category Archives: Folk Beliefs

Sealing Fate

Nationality: United States
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Performance Date: 04/24/2017
Primary Language: English

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.

Friends and Spicy Food

Nationality: Gabon
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Performance Date: 04/25/2017
Primary Language: English
Language: Mandinka

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.

Twins

Nationality: Gabon
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Performance Date: 04/25/2017
Primary Language: English
Language: Mandinka

Subject:

Folk Beliefs regarding twins

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:

“So twins, in my culture, are, like, considered very, very, like they have…  I don’t know like they’re really considered very sacred. You know? And just are seen as being very, like, bringing luck to the family. But, like, they are considered to be very powerful, so like, they bring luck and they have this… you know like they have this, they are gifted in some ways. And the person born after the twins, like after a set of twins is the most powerful. So like he has more gifts than, like, the twins. So like I told you, twins are like gifted, like they have like super powers, and like, they can sometimes feel things, which I guess is n every culture, or like see things. Let’s say, for example, they dream about something – it will usually happen, or if they say something, like they feel, like, together, it will usually like happen. But we were taught that the person born after twins, is more powerful than the twins, so we give that person more respect because it is said that that person is like, maybe a hundred times more powerful than the twins, so that’s that.”

Informant’s Background Knowledge and Relationship with this Piece:

Saran has cousins who are twins, and though she hasn’t had much interaction with them, knows that they are very respected by the family. She learned these things about twins from her mom.

Thoughts About the Piece:

Mandingo culture praises childrearing and fertility, and perhaps this plays into why two children would be considered special over a single child. I think it is interesting that the younger sibling of twins would be more powerful than the twins themselves: perhaps this simply plays into the same idea of fertility. Twins are also a rare and special phenomenon: two children, who look almost the same and would be raised in a similar environment, yet often display very different personalities. The intrigue of twins as a whole might be a factor contributing to this belief.

Sideways Shoes

Nationality: Brazilian
Age: 54
Occupation: Dancer/Filmmaker/Motion Graphic Designer
Residence: New York City, NY
Performance Date: April 20
Primary Language: English
Language: Portuguese

“I have a strong belief… that whenever someone take their shoes off and they leave the shoes sideways… ummmm… their mother is gonna die… somebody told me that when I was very young and it stick to my head… I don’t know how popular that belief is… but whenever I go on a place and see someone’s shoes sideways I have to go and fix it.”

This piece is from a person from Brazil. I don’t know many people from Brazil with the same belief. Yet I feel like this belief was from her socio economic background. She was raised in an upper class, proper family that was heavy on etiquette and I believe that this belief was from her culture trying to instill this etiquette within her.

Tenth Between First and A

Nationality: American
Age: 55
Occupation: Musician/Web Producer
Residence: New York City, NY
Performance Date: April 20
Primary Language: English

“We live in the East Village in New York City and there is one street I will never go down… that is tenth street between First Avenue and Avenue A. The reason I developed this superstition is because I ride my bike everywhere in the city and I… rarely would go down Tenth and first…between First and A… anyway and one time I parked my bike between tenth and first and A and my wheel was gone… somebody had stolen it. People had always warned me about that street… that a lot of people steal bikes on tenth between First and A… but later I parked my bike on Tenth between First and A again and my front wheel was stolen.”

This superstition seems to derive from some sort of fact that many people in New York have had the same experience within that same city block and the belief seemed sprout up that the block was either cursed or part of some sort of hangout for bicycle thieves. Either the belief lead to it actually being true—in the sense that bicycle thieves got the idea to steal bikes from that block from the belief, or the belief sprouted from some sort of truth.