Category Archives: Protection

Travelling Tradition of Eating Noodles and Dumplings

Text:

“Whenever you’re going after travel, even if it’s just one day or something, you have to eat dumplings before you go. And when you come back, you eat noodles. Like for the first meal. The meal right before you leave has to be dumplings, and the meal right after you come back has to be noodles. We have a saying that goes “When you get in the car, you eat dumplings. When you get off it, you eat noodles.” It might be a Beijing tradition, but my grandmom is from Shandong, and they still follows this tradition. The dumplings look like small pieces of gold. You have to eat an even number of dumplings. Even numbers are considered luckier than odd numbers. When you come back, you eat noodles, which symbolize that you are attached to your home, because the noodles look like ropes. They held you to your home. Noodles are also not tangled, which simplifies a smooth future and a smooth return home.”

Context:

The informant describes a travel-related food tradition practiced in her family. This tradition is possibly rooted in northern Chinese regions like Beijing and Shandong. Before leaving for a trip, even a short one, the family must eat dumplings, and upon returning, the first meal must be noodles. She learned this practice from her grandmother, who continues to follow it, showing how the tradition is passed down across generations. The informant also explains specific rules, such as eating an even number of dumplings because even numbers are considered lucky. This ritual remains important even when travelling becomes routine. For the informant, it functions as a meaningful way to frame movement away from and back to home.

Analysis:

This tradition shows that everyday practices create a symbolic order. The pairing of dumplings and noodles structures the uncertainty of travel into a predictable and meaningful sequence. Dumplings, shaped like gold, symbolize wealth and a good beginning, while noodles represent connection and continuity, emphasizing a safe return home. The rule of eating even numbers further reflects how ideas of luck and order are embedded in routine actions. These practices turn travel, a potentially uncertain experience, into something culturally organized and emotionally reassuring. Thus, this tradition reinforces values of safety, prosperity, and attachment to home.

Housewarming Ritual

Text:

“Before moving into a new house, you have to invite your friends to come and warm up the space. And then, on the same day that you spend your first night there, you have to cook for yourself. So it’s like a housewarming — a good omen to ensure safety.”

Context:

This text was collected from a Chinese international student from Beijing. The tradition she describes is a folk ritual practiced before settling into a new home: inviting friends over to “warm” the space, and cooking a meal on the same night as your first stay. She learned this practice through her family rather than any formal channel, and presented it as common knowledge — something simply done without much question. The phrase she used, “好兆头” (hǎo zhào tou), meaning “good omen,” suggests the ritual carries protective intent, ensuring the new living space is safe and welcoming before fully inhabiting it. While housewarming traditions exist across many cultures globally, the specific requirement to cook on the first night distinguishes this as a regionally and culturally particular variation. The informant currently lives away from her family in the United States, making this tradition part of practicing a piece of folk knowledge she carries from home into a diasporic context.

Analysis:

This piece is a folk ritual operating through the logic of sympathetic magic. More specifically, the ritual aligns with the contagious variety that Frazer describes, where the warmth, activity, and presence of friends physically and spiritually transform the new space, transferring positive energy into it before the owner fully settles. Cooking on the first night extends this logic: the act of preparing food activates the home, making it a lived-in, nourishing space rather than an empty one. Together, these acts perform what Van Gennep would define as reincorporation, as the ritual closes the liminal threshold between leaving one’s home and fully belonging to another. The new resident is neither fully displaced nor fully settled until the ritual is completed. The tradition also functions as a rite of passage that converts an unfamiliar space into a safe, socially sanctioned home through collective participation. The requirement that friends be present also connects to the idea that rituals derive their power from collective belief. The warmth brought by “housewarming” is not just metaphorical but socially produced.




Chinese New Year Tradition of Making “Dern”

Text:

“On the 15th of the Chinese New Year, my grandma would make something called “dern.” “Dern” is like a bun shaped in the form of our Chinese Zodiac. She would make the “dern” for all family members. She would make seven of them, and they are all in our corresponding Chinese zodiac. So, if I’m born in the zodiac of the chicken, then she would make a chicken. This is practiced on the last day of the Chinese New Year. All of our animal characters would be on the same big bun; there are usually three big buns in total. She would also make two fish on one of the big buns, corresponding to the proverb “May you have abundance/surplus year after year.” After I got a boyfriend, my grandmother started making his “dern” as well. It is referred to as “dern” in the Shandong dialect. To be honest, sometimes it is hard for me to recognize which animal is which after she made them. Another thing is that we have to eat it. We have to bring this gigantic bun back to our own house and place it on our table for a day, and then you eat it. I’m not sure why we put it on the table for a day, but if you eat your zodiac, that just means that you are safe and good, and you have to eat the parts with the pieces of gold as well, which means that you can earn a lot of money in the upcoming year.”

Context:

This text was collected from a Chinese international student from Beijing, China. She learned this tradition through direct participation in her grandmother’s annual practice and shared it with me in a casual conversation as she spoke from personal memory. Her grandmother was from Shandong province, and dern is also a word describing decorated buns in the Shandong dialect. The tradition takes place on the 15th day of the Chinese New Year (the Lantern Festival), which marks the final day of the celebration period. The grandmother serves as the sole maker of the buns, crafting zodiac-shaped figures for every family member. A significant detail is that after the informant began dating her boyfriend, the grandmother started making a bun for him as well, suggesting the practice functions as an informal way of welcoming new members into the family. She interprets eating one’s zodiac as ensuring personal safety and prosperity in the coming year.

Analysis:

This piece exemplifies material culture, more specifically when it functions as a family lore, which shows how a broader regional tradition becomes personalized at the household level. This reminds me of Carl von Sydow’s concept of oicotypes: in this case, the family’s specific variation — seven individual buns, three large bases, fish for prosperity, a one-day display — represents a local adaptation of a wider Shandong practice. The variation is shaped by this family’s particular values and composition. Moreover, the ritual also aligns with Frazer’s theory of homeopathic magic: eating one’s zodiac animal and the golden pieces embedded in the bun not only symbolize safety and wealth, it also enact them. Corresponding folk beliefs like those exemplified through the shape of the “dern” collapse the boundary between representation and outcome. The grandmother’s decision to include the boyfriend’s bun is especially interesting, as it functions as a vernacular act of admitting family membership, which comes before any official social recognition of the relationship.





Lunar New Year Superstition

Age: 23

JL: “My Mom texted me today, ‘Hello my daughter and son. It’s Chinese New Year so you don’t have to sweep or take out the trash.'”

Context: This is from one of my roommates, who is Chinese American. She celebrates the Chinese New Year with her family every year. This was a text from her mom to her family group chat, which includes her father and brother. It is a Chinese superstition that if you sweep on the Lunar New Year, you sweep away all your good luck. If you take out the trash, you are throwing away prosperity as you enter the New Year.

Analysis: This superstition is a Chinese folk belief, combined with a calendar ritual relating to Lunar New Year. Like many other cultures folklore, this one relates the idea of good and bad luck with specific rituals. Functionally, not participating in these chores reinforces cultural identity, and also reinforces Chinese social values of prosperity and luck. I also think that the fact this was shared over text demonstrates how folklore adapts over time. Many years ago, this may have been an in person face to face conversation, but in the year 2026, people have found other ways to communicate and connect with one another in order to spread knowledge and information. Overall, this tradition helps create a sense of certainty when the future may be uncertain, especially at the start of a new year.

Musical Theater Ritual

M: “So basically, when I was in high school, I did a lot of like musical theater and stuff, and we had a ritual before every show where like after warm-ups and rehearsals and stuff, we would, everyone would stand in a circle, crew, cast, directors, and then hold hands and close their eyes. 
And we did this thing. It was called, like, ‘pass the squeeze’, where you basically, one person starts, and they squeeze their person next to them’s hand, and it goes around the circle, but everyone has to keep their eyes closed. Um, and it was basically just a way to, like, calm everyone down and take their focus off of it and just focus on like one particular thing. 
And then it was also like, I think the explanation that our director gave was also to, like, connect everyone in a way before the show. We did 4 shows every year, so we would do it every time for those. But, yeah.”


interviewer: “I was gonna ask, is it usually, like, um, everyone who’s within the show? When do you learn this? And, like, who teaches?”

M: “Yeah, so we would do it, like, literally on the day. 
So, you know, by like the 2nd year of doing the shows in high school, I knew it. But the 1st year, it would be show day or technically our 1st show was like a dress rehearsal for the community. But, um, it would be that day, which was usually like a Monday. You would get in a circle, the director would be like, okay, everyone circle up, hold hands, and then she would just explain it in that moment. 
And usually on the 1st day, it took, like, 2 or 3 tries for everyone to kind of get it, but then once everyone got it, by the next couple of days, it was just, like, instinctual because it wasn’t, like, crazy hard or anything, you know? So she would just explain it in the moment.”

context: Maggie is a CS games major at USC who went to High school in New York City. She grew up in the area and was heavily involved in her school’s theatre group.

Analysis: This pre performance ritual is a rite of passage. It functions as an initiation from an “out” group to an “in” group (esoteric and exoteric). Freshman being taught this ritual are now part of this folk group once they perform at their first show, signifying their entry into the theatre community. I would argue that this is also a type of contagious magic ritual that prevents anxiety before a show. Its a transfer of energy from one person to the next through physical touch. It reinforces group identity as well.