“If you shake your leg, you’re going to lose your luck”

This specific folk belief is a superstition that Tim believed in while growing up. He now knows that he was told this because in the Korean culture, it is very disrespectful and not professional for someone to shake their legs continuously as a habit, so his parents did not want him to pick up the bad habit.

As a Korean, I have never personally heard of this superstition before. It is interesting in that despite our families being from the same country, we hear different stories from our families. Maybe it is because my parents and his parents are from different parts of Korea, but growing up, this was the first time hearing anything of this story. However, now that I have heard it from him, it makes me want to believe in this superstition because it is from my own culture.

Timothy Chong is a 22 year old, senior in college, studying psychology. He is a friend I met through a club on campus. When I asked him to share some type of folklore or story he had heard growing up in a Korean household, he told me several beliefs. These can also be called superstitions. The sayings that he shared with me were told to him mostly by his parents because they are first generation parents that immigrated to the United States from Korea.

Tim told me this piece during break at work. We work together and it was a casual setting when he told me all his stories from his Korean culture.