Category Archives: Customs

Customs, conventions, and traditions of a group

Chinese Naming Superstitions

Nationality: Singaporean Chinese
Occupation: Retiree
Residence: Singapore
Performance Date: March 2007
Primary Language: Chinese
Language: Hokkien, Hinghwa, English

The older Chinese tended to nickname their children after animals and give their boys, a girl’s name or a girl a boy’s name.

My informant knew about this custom because his older sister was given a boy’s name to ensure that the next child would be a son. His sister was born in the 1940s, and he learned about it in the 1950s when he was very young.

There are many reasons for this. In the past, people used to name their children after animals to avoid the demons from taking their children away because they would get confused when the parents would call them animals in hopes that the spirits would take the animals instead. Another reason is that the spirits would think that there was something wrong with the children if they’re called names for the other gender. Often though, Chinese families would call their older girls (especially families with no boys) by boy names in the hopes the next child would be a boy.

This is because, boys are very important for more traditional Chinese families. In the past, the daughters would become part of the family they marry, but the son would remain, carry on the family name and take charge of the farm and parents.

Taaveej (Taaveez)

Nationality: Pakistani
Occupation: Student
Residence: Lahore, Pakistan
Performance Date: April 2007
Primary Language: English
Language: Urdu, Arabic

This is, in Pakistan, one of the worst forms of black magic that a person could wreak on another. It involves writing a spell or something on a piece of paper, then putting it in a leather pouch, before hiding it somewhere until it’s found. The spell would persist on the person until the pouch is recovered and opened, dispelling the curse.  One of the “blackest” or darkest forms of this curse is when the pouch is hidden in the mouth of a dead person because it is nearly impossible to be found by anyone else.  Manifestations of this spell or curse include but are not limited to (in order of seriousness from least to worse):  strange aches and pains, waking up with cuts all over their body, burns appearing spontaneously , blood spots appearing all over their abode, never able to get married or insanity.

My informant says that these spells are relatively common knowledge in Pakistan, but most people try to stay away from these sorts of things. Pakistan is an Islamic country and according to my informant, she states that Islam frowns on all things that involve black magic and that it is “hiram” or impure.  Generally, these items are viewed very seriously by most, if not all Muslims and going against or defying the Qur’an would be going against Allah, which is one of the most heinous crimes in their religion.

Additionally, she informed me of an instance that she had heard about first hand that was related to this phenomenon, when one woman was complaining that she was suffering a stroke of really bad luck and couldn’t figure out what was happening. This woman helped to purify and cleanse the death for burial, and this was a sacred task so, theoretically, she should have been blessed instead of cursed. However, after much deliberation, she revealed that she had collected money for hiding Taaveej in the mouths of the different corpses so they would not be found. This was a big revelation for my informant and all those that were listening to her. Largely because to do so was taboo and explained much of what was happening to her.

While I’m sure that these do exist and work, it can be also seen as an example of how older cultures explained phenomena that they could not explained by normal means. As it can be seen, this might reflect the superstitious nature of most agricultural based societies because, most rural folk are usually uneducated and more superstitious than most. However, regardless of this, these beliefs usually seep through all classes, no matter their wealth, educational status or religious beliefs. Additionally, this is an example of binary opposition in culture as well, because of the religious nature of most Pakistanis. For to have something good and holy, there needs to be something evil to balance things out and the Taaveej is just one of these exam

Funeral traditions

Nationality: Chinese
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: 614 Hellman Wa,y Pardee Tower, 90007, Los Angeles, California
Performance Date: Nov. 8th, 2011
Primary Language: Chinese
Language: English

 

This is a belief prevailing among small towns and villages throughout China. I heard this belief from my friend Sue, who finished her high school in Hangzhou City and went back to her hometown village in Huzhou several times a year to visit her grandparents and old relatives there. Sue’s village has a 100-year history. Villagers there believe there are ghosts existing in the world, and they have special understanding of ancestor ghost and have special rituals to hold funerals. This is what Sue told me:

“From what my father told me, every time an aged villager died, after his or her funeral, there was a tradition that offsprings of the dead had to participate into a race in his hometown. This tradition passed down from the generation my grandpa lived in.

The process of Chinese funerals has changed a lot in past years. In my father’s generation, the dead body would be put into the coffin and covered by his or her off springs’ quilts. Every son or daughter of the dead should provide one quilt at least. Then, friends and relatives who were holding the funeral came to pray and bow to the dead, for showing their respects to the dead before people buried the coffin.

After everybody bowed to the dead, offsprings would take quilts out of the coffin and bury the coffin respectively and solemnly. Then descendants of the dead would carry their own quilts and start to run while competing with each other. The first person who reached his home was regarded as the one who would be blessed most by his dead ancestor in the future, because they believed that they carried their dead ancestor home first. Good fortune would come to that family.”

Sue is from a town in Huzhou where is in the eastern part of China. I think this tradition not only dominates in Huzhou, but also in my father’s hometown, Zhuji. Although the ritual of the funeral varies a bit, the main belief is the same. The belief is that the spirit of the dead ancestor will never go away even his body is cremated. The ancestor’s spirit will keep watching, blessing, protecting and bringing good fortune to his offspring. After my grandfather passed away, every time the Tomb Sweeping Festival comes, my father will take the whole family go back to his hometown and visit my grandfather’s grave and pay respect to him. My father always murmurs in front of the grave to ask the spirit of my grandpa to take care of us.

Ritual – Chinese

Nationality: Chinese-American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 20, 2007
Primary Language: Chinese
Language: English

Notes:

Every birthday the subject eats either a meal of noodles or one single noodle. The noodle symbolizes good luck for the upcoming year. The subject’s mother also practices this ritual on her own birthday as well as the subject’s grandmother. The subject say’s that she learned the ritual from her mother and that the ritual stems from a “Chinese tradition rooted in one [their] staple foods.”

The ritual of eating noodles is very important to the subject in that she has repeated the ritual every year since the age of three. To prove this point, during my conversation with the subject she remembered that she had forgotten to eat a noodle on her birthday (just two days prior). She immediately prepared Ramen noodles and ate them.

When asked if she actually believed that something bad would happen to her if she did not eat a noodle/noodles on her birthday she said no but she has not gone through a birthday before without eating noodles and would “rather not risk it.”

It is also important to note that the variety of noodle does not matter (i.e. egg noodles, spaghetti, rice noodles, glass noodles, etc.) According to the subject, it is the act of eating anything “noodle like” on one’s birthday that is important. Upon further research the length of the noodles can also be a factor in whether the person will live a long life.

Ritual

Nationality: German, Russian, Irish
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Culver City, CA
Performance Date: April 14, 2007
Primary Language: English

Notes:

During a high school health class, the subject’s health teacher explained that she was in the kitchen with a friend. The friend was cooking a pot roast and before putting the pot roast in a pot she cut off both ends. The health teacher asked her friend why she cut off the ends and the friend responded “that’s just how my mom always did it” but the health teacher’s friend said that she would ask her mother.

A few days later the health teacher’s friend came back and told her mother cut off both ends because her mother (the friends grandmother) cut them off. The health teacher’s friend was able to ask her grandmother why she cut off the ends of the pot roast and the grandmother replied “because it wouldn’t fit in the pot!”

The health teacher explained to the subject and her class that the underlying meaning to the story was that sometimes there is no underlying story and the and that the reasons why people perform what may seem to be a ritual is completely logical.