This is the same informant as in the restless leg syndrome entry. My informant was told this superstition by her parents, who are from Korea. My informant’s parents always stopped her from playing with rice as a child. She does not remember when she was first told this, because it is something that she has always kept with her. However, it made her not play with rice because her mother is the one that told her this, and taunted her with the fact that “she would die if she played with rice.” My analysis is that this, along with the shaking leg superstition, are all preventative measures and ways of stopping people from bad habits. By telling someone at a young age that something bad will happen if they do a certain thing, it prevents these bad habits from forming.