Category Archives: Folk Beliefs

Folk belief about changing teeth.

Text:

“When Children lose their teeth, they should throw the teeth up if they lose their lower teeth, and throw the teeth downward if they lose their upper teeth. This helps the child grow their teeth quicker.”

context:

Mr. B is my friend in China. This is a part of his personal experience. His grandparents told him this piece of folk belief.

analysis:

This is a folk belief of magic that exemplifies the wish for the fast growth of children’s teeth. There is a lot of similar folk belief that involves such movement in a direction correlated with one’s growth. One example is that if a kid jumps a lot, he would grow very tall. Also, the physical movements of objects seem to have a lot of symbolic meaning in folk beliefs.

In regard to Frazer’s principles of sympathetic magic, this teeth-throwing magic fits in the categorization of both contagious and homeopathic magic. It is contagious that the teeth are a part of the body of the action. Although the new teeth have nothing to do with the old teeth, throwing the old teeth higher seems to have a magic force that will help the new teeth grow faster. On the other hand, it is homeopathic because throwing downward or upward is similar to growing teeth downward or upward. The differences are that one is by nature, the other by force, and one is new and one is old.

tattoo as taboolistic Sign: dragon on shoulder

Text:

“You should not tattoo a dragon on your shoulder because you cannot burden its weight. Eventually it will kill you.”

“The way to eliminate the effect of the dragon on he should is to tattoo a Nezha, or 哪吒 on you. Because Nezha can defeat the dragon, so that will keep you safe.”

Context:

My informant is a student at USC. Here is his intepretation of this piece.
“How I take this(tattoo) is like, you are putting a figure onto your body, then it really is on your body. And if you tattoo a dragon on your shoulder, there is a real dragon on your shoulder and you cannot possibly bear it.”

Analysis:

To provide some background, Nezha, or 哪吒 is a mythic figure in Chinese mythology. Nezha is a child that had a pregnancy of 3 years. He had the power to fight the dragon prince in the east sea of China. Eventually, he killed one of the dragon princes. Thus, in the case of the tattoo, putting Nezha as one of the tattoos by the dragon on the shoulder would serve as a suppressor of the dragon.

A tattoo is a sign. A dragon tattoo is a sign that one cannot bear on one’s shoulder. Fortunately, there is a remedy for those who had tattooed dragons on their shoulder without knowing the consequence. This remedy is the conversion of superstitious belief. However, this conversion is no less superstitious.

My informants’ analysis of the piece shows an interesting connection to the folk belief in magic. This tattoo is both contagious and homeopathic under his analysis. It is contagious because tattoo happens on one’s body. It is homeopathic that the tattoo dragon actually becomes a real dragon that kills people, and Nezha actually becomes real and kills the dragon. It’s fascinating isn’t it?

Chinese promise gesture and accompaning phrase

Nationality: China
Age: 20
Occupation: student/rapper
Performance Date: 2/21
Primary Language: Chinese
Language: English

Text:


“Here is a gesture that might be interesting. The gesture is for making a promise. I think the U.S.’ is very similar. You hook your pinky finger with your friend and touch your friend’s thumb.”


“But what’s different in China is that at the same time, you need to say ‘la gou shang diao yi bai nian bu xu bian.'”


“The two thumb touching is what we say like putting a stamp on the promise.”


Context:


FG is a student studying history and economics at USC. He is currently in a program in Ireland. He performed this folk gesture and folk speech to me through a zoom call. This piece of folklore is something that is performed many times by the informant when he was young.


Analysis:


This is a combination of folk speech and folk gesture. The folk speech has to go in combination with the gesture to make any sense. As a matter of fact, because this folk speech has been around for too long, part of the content doesn’t make sense anymore. “La gou shang diao yi bai nian bu xu bian,” or “拉勾上吊一百年不许变,” translate directly to “hook, hang, a hundred years no change. ” The “hang” part doesn’t make sense because as this piece of folklore spread in China, the original word for “shang diao”， or “上吊”， or hang, actually is a transformation from the homophone “上调，” which also is “shang diao,” but the meaning is very different. “上调” means the thumbs pull up and meet to put a red stamp on the things we want to promise.


On the other hand, another explanation is formed for the transformed version of “shang diao,” or “上吊.” People start to say that it means we keep our promises til we die. Because “上吊” specifically means a method of suicide: hanging on a rope. Folklore rationalizes itself with different transformations. It intrigues me when I think of the transformation and the rationalization of this particular piece.

Chen as Taboo in Qing dynasty’s Navy

Nationality: China
Age: 20
Occupation: Student/rapper
Performance Date: 2.22
Primary Language: Chinese
Language: English

Text:


“It is said that navies in the Qing dynasty in China don’t recruit personnel whose names include Chen. The entire Qing dynasty’s navy doesn’t have a single person whose name includes Chen.”


Context:


FG is a USC student and a good friend of mine who is currently studying in a transfer program in Ireland. He learned about this tabooistic vocabulary when he was eating fish with a friend. Free is very into history. He is always the one with the most jokes and strange stories on any occasion. And he is always eager to share them with his friends.


Analysis:


The very popular Chinese name Chen（陈） is a homophone for the Chinese character Chen （沉）， which means sink in Chinese. Qing （清） dynasty is very superstitious. Homophones can actually decide the faith of people. The beginning of all these tradition is the “literary prison,” or 文字狱, in Qing Dynasty. The dynasty before Qing Dynasty is called Ming（明） Dynasty. And because Qing Dynasty overthrew the Ming dynasty, many people at the time thought Ming was the legitimate dynasty and Qing is the rebels. Of course, Qing emperor thinks it’s the other way around. It had become so sensitive that the emperor of Qing had killed thousands of people who had published content that creates a positive connotation of the word Ming（明）. This signifies how superstitious Chinese people were at the time of the Qing Dynasty. There are many more examples like Chen in the navy. One is that when a fisherman in China eats fish, and they want to turn the fish to the other side, they can’t say fan （翻）， which means turn the fish, but hua（滑）， which means slide. Because fan also means capsize in Chinese

The Unlucky Loteria Tab

Informant: CS ; Interviewer’s best friend

“So when you play loteria, early on you start to pick your favorite tabla.”

Interviewer asks: “why do you think that is?”

“Oohh I’m not entirely sure. Like if I like had to take a guess, I think it’s because of um… repetition. Like you form a routine on one single playing card, so you begin to associate it with like good vibes.”

Interviewer asks: “can you elaborate?”

“Yeah so, there are certain like superstitions that go with playing loteria. The main one is that if you switch your playing card after losing, you’ll never win while you play that round. It’s only until you like, form a relationship with one of the 10 playing cards that you’ll win.”

Interviewer asks: “So what’s your lucky tab?”

“It’s 3.”

Interviewer asks: “Do you believe in that superstition?”

“I do! The saying we have in Spanish is ‘te salaste’. Loosely translated, it means ‘you salted yourself’. As in like, you cursed yourself for that round. Almost like you jinxed your own winning. It like gets serious when you’re like playing with older folk and they start betting on the game, like gambling almost. And like the unspoken rules are taken really seriously.”

interviewer asks: “do you think the unspoken rules are meant to be taken seriously?”

“I do. I think that when you switch your playing card to another, you’ll start pulling cards that match the one you switched out. Almost like the game is taunting you.”

my interpretation: This superstition runs deep. I remember the elders in my family yelling at me everything I even hinted at switching my playing card. They would often say that I would jinx myself. In hindsight, I think that the idea of having to stick with the same card could be a metaphor for monogamy. In theory, you build a relationship with this card and you start almost bonding and memorizing the playing card. If you “cheat” on the playing tab/card or toss that tab out, the cards that are pulled in the next round will almost always be matching your old playing tab. Almost as if the game reminds you of how good you could’ve had it if you stayed put.