Lunar Eclipse and a Red Towel

Nationality: Mexican
Age: 26
Performance Date: April 1, 2017
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

“During a lunar Eclipse, You’re supposed to put a red towel on your belly to protect the baby”

My informant learned this piece of folklore from his parents who were practitioners of this. My informant himself never tried it on his child and never knew why his parents did it. He shared this with me when the topic of pregnancy superstitions came up. This piece of folklore was very interesting to me and made sense because of all the connections that a lunar eclipse has to women, pregnancy and fertility that we learned in class. I also thought it was weird that the superstition says particularly a red towel. This reminded me of Vaz de Silva’s argument that the color red usually symbolizes women and fertility in folklore.

Two by Two

Nationality: Mexican, White
Age: late 30s
Performance Date: April 1, 2017
Primary Language: English

“My Grandmother always used to say, the things you do two by two will come back to you one by one”

This proverb was told to me by a friend of a relative of mine at a party. My informant learned this saying from her grandmother. My informant does not know the meaning of this proverb. I think this saying means that the things or decisions we make influenced by our friends and peers may come back to haunt us in the end. This saying reminds me of the Hindu concept of Karma and the saying,” What goes around, Comes back around.”

Cheers

Nationality: Mexican
Age: 25
Performance Date: April 16, 2017
Primary Language: English

“When You cheers you have to make eye contact or you’ll have bad sex for seven years.”

My informant does not remember where she heard this superstition, but he does however practice this whenever he gives someone a “cheers” with a drink. She told me this superstition at a very casual party/dinner setting. This piece of folklore is humorous  and was probably told to make people look you in the eye for a “cheers” as a sign of respect. I do not think this superstition is true.

McDonald’s Happy Meal Toys

Nationality: Mexican American
Age: 21
Occupation: Production Assistant
Residence: Santa Fe Springs
Performance Date: April 16, 2017
Primary Language: English

So we used to play with McDonald’s toys…HAMBURGLAR FOR YOUR LUIGI! And we used to like categorize them like, animals and… everyone got their own group and we would trade them. It was like picking teams for kickball but with like 70 fucking Mcdonald’s toys.

My informant used to play this childhood game with the toys she would get from the McDonald’s happy meals. She and her cousins would categorize them and trade them similar to pokemon cars, beanie babies etc. This game seemed to be quite important to my informant, talking about this particular game seemed to remind her of her childhood and the fond memories she had back then. I enjoyed listening and participating in this folk game.

The UCLA toilet

Age: late 30s
Occupation: teacher
Performance Date: April 1, 2017
Primary Language: English

Okay so it’s outside the psychology department, there’s a fountain but it’s a reverse fountain so instead of the water shooting up, the water drains down so it like spins and it goes down. If you stand in a certain area it’s right behind a tall building that has a bridge so if you look at it and the hole that goes down towards the back and so once it was built people realized that it looks like a toilet flushing.And they said that they found out the designer was a trojan.

My informant learned this piece of folklore through a sorority at UCLA. She experienced looking at this fountain and saw that it ended looked like a toilet. She told me this as we were discussing college traditions and rivalries. I found this piece of information funny. As a student at UCLA’s rival school it was nice to know that this rivalry goes way back and that the legacy of both schools live on. We also got to share a bond, even though we are from rival schools.