The informant is a 20 year old, Vietnamese American female. She is a junior at the University of Southern California, but was born in Boston, MA. Both her parents are Vietnamese and were born in Vietnam.
the informant described a particular folk belief in Vietnam where people think that if a person has long earlobes, then he or she will have a long life. I asked her where she thought this belief came from and while she wasn’t certain, she thought it might have to do with the Buddha, who is always depicted as having very long, stretched out earlobes and who is considered to be somewhat of an immortal or at least transcendental figure. This made sense to me because it was what I immediately thought of when I first heard this particular folk belief. The informant also made the point that this approach to the belief was indeed plausible because Buddhism is the main religion in Vietnam.