“We may do this just because we’re loud, but every time we go through a tunnel we go AHHHHHHHHHH!  And we scream until we come out on the other side.”

Q: “Why do you scream?”

A: “We do that just to make sure we get out the other end… for some reason.  But if you don’t scream, you can’t be sure that you’ll make it out the other end.  But I know some people hold their breath while they’re going through a tunnel.”

Q: “Who told you that you need to scream while going through a tunnel?”

A: “My family.  When I was a kid, we’d go through tunnels, and my family would all be screaming.  Then they’d look at me and be like, “Cree, why aren’t you screaming?”  And then I was like, “Oh.  AHHHHHHHHH!”  “Trying to make sure we get out the other end!’”

Q: “So, like, every time you go through a tunnel you do this?  Even now?”

A: “Yeah, every time.  I even still do it now.  Like, when we went on our road trip to Vegas we went through a few tunnels, and I started screaming, and everyone was, like, looking at me like, “Cree, you okay?”  And I was like, “Oh, I’m sorry, I’m okay!  AHHHHHHH!”  So every time I go through a tunnel I be screaming.”

Q: “Do you think that if you don’t scream, you won’t make it out?”

A: “Not really.  I just do it out of habit.  It’s kind of a tradition now in my family.  Like, I’m pretty sure if we don’t scream we’ll still make it out okay, but do it anyway.”

My informant is from Compton, California and an adamant participant in this folk belief.  She practices it, but she does not truly believe that it will help her make it through the tunnel safely.  But according to the rest of her family, they really do think that everyone in the car needs to scream in order to bring them luck and get them through the tunnel.  To my informant, this belief serves as a reminder of family because it is something that they all participate in together.

It is strange that screaming and safe passage through a tunnel are in any way relevant, but perhaps it could be interpreted as a means of attracting attention.  Screaming loudly means that someone is bound to take note that there is a car full of screaming people; and should anything happen to the car of screaming people, or if the screaming should somehow cease, then it is more likely that someone will notice—unfortunately, most people will have their windows rolled up and will not be able to actually hear the screaming, but the concept is certainly there.  I think the belief represents fears of death, the dark, and getting lost in general while also showing their dependence on one another.  They want to be certain that they make it out all right, so they rely on everyone in the group to scream together.

“You know those red Chinese envelopes?  Like, my mom would, like, hang them upside-down, like when we moved into the house, we, like, put money inside and put it in all the rooms, like, to, like, I don’t know, so the spirits will just, like, take the money and just not haunt the house.  And then my dad would be like, “Someone left money!”  And took it all down, and my mom was like, “Fucking asshole!”  And she put it all back up.”

With parents from different parts of the world—her father from Puerto Rico and her mother from China—my informant has been raised with a mix of customs.  This one in particular is a Chinese custom meant to cast out any bad spirits in a new house.  She tells me that this is done as soon as you move in so the spirits do not dwell where you live.  The hanging of the red, money-filled envelopes serves as an offering to the spirits—a bargain, if you will—that pays the spirits to leave the home alone.  The envelopes are red because red is the color of good luck in Chinese culture, and the reason the envelopes are hung upside-down is because it is acting in part of the tradition of hanging the Chinese character 福 (fu) which mean “luck” or “fortune” upside-down as a play on words.  To say, 福到了(fu dao le) means that the good luck or good fortune has arrived.  But 倒 (dao) means to “fall down,” and since it is a pun on the word for “arrive” (到), the Chinese play on the word so that the character 福 hung upside-down is symbolically saying that the luck has already arrived.  So everything about the casting out spirits from the house has to do with luck in one form or the other, implying that the family hopes that by living in this house, good luck will come to them.

I also find the side note my informant had tacked on the end—the part concerning her Puerto Rican father taking down the red envelopes because he saw money inside.  I think the distinction between cultures and what different cultures presume to be “lucky” is made very obvious in this example.  Since my informant’s parents are not from the same cultural backgrounds, there is a culture barrier of sorts.  Though my informant’s father was focusing on the money, my informant’s mother got worked up enough to scold him for disturbing the ritual she was trying to do to bring good luck to the house.  It is clear that my informant’s father did not practice the same custom, so it meant little to him; but the completion of the ritual was important enough to my informant’s mother that she stuffed the red envelopes again and hung them back up.

“You can’t have a mirror in front of your bed because if you wake up and you see your reflection, the mirror will steal your soul.”

My informant heard this from her Chinese mother when trying to orient the furniture in her room.  Though my informant does not really believe that you will lose your soul to the mirror—as if in some Twilight Zone death-trap—she thinks even just waking up to your own reflection first thing in the morning is scary enough.  She did not know the reason that this is believed to happen in Chinese culture, but my own personal suspicion is that when a person first wakes up—often drowsy and not fully awake—he or she is drifting between states of consciousness and unconsciousness.  This is the liminal space around which the folk belief is based.  Should someone wake up and not be fully conscious, the mirror, which will have a duplicate image of a person, a seeming entrance way into a parallel universe, will have the ability to steal your soul during this period of a person’s vulnerable moments where the soul is between dream-state and real world-state.