Tag Archives: Folk Belief

Cheese Touch

Text

“When I was in like elementary school a lot of us would mess around with a game called the cheese touch like if you said cheese touch when you were tagging someone then they would have it. And the only way to prevent it would be to have your fingers crossed. And once you have it you have to give it to someone else or you’re stuck with it. So, I remember we would always have our fingers crossed because anytime was fair game. I remember getting frustrated because kids would lie and say their fingers were crossed when they got tagged. Me and my friends would team up in secret and promise we wouldn’t tag each other if we got the cheese touch. In my senior year of high school, we played senior assassin which gave me flashbacks to the cheesetouch because of the safe rules and the lies that would be created after someone got out. I was completely into both games because they brought out the inner kid in me and my competitive nature.”

Context

I first saw this game when I watched the Diart of a Wimpy Kid movie. I remember being at my friend’s house in his living room watching with my childhood friend group of 4 guys. When we saw the cheese touch scene with thought it was funny but also disgusting because the cheese was rotten. Other kids at our elementary watched the movie too and one of them copied the movie. Since we were immature kids who just wanted to have fun, the mention of the cheese touch got everyone riled up and the game began.

Analysis

The cheese touch game shows the diversity of forms that folklore can come in. It is a variation of another folk belief known as the “cooties” because they both involve infecting others with a negative thing. While it originated in a movie, kids around the US adapted the game into their own and transformed a silly game into a national form of folklore. Folklore is highly prominent in the younger generations because with social media and televesion, kids are prone to copy what they say without questioning its validity. Similar to Alan Dundes’s idea, folklore functions socially within groups that share similiarity giving mutual trust in this scenario. The secret alliances he formed with his friends show the strength of culture through folklore. Regardless of the rules of the game, their tight knit folk group shaped by friendship and a collective interest to not get the cheese touch led to them bending the rules and creating shared identity.

Picking up a Penny and Good Luck

Age: 19
Greenwich, CT
Location: N/A

Context:
This is a folk belief regarding good luck that I learned from my friend here at USC. She grew up in Connecticut and came to Los Angeles for college. She told me that she learned this belief from her friends from childhood, and not necessarily her family.

Content:
Interviewer: “You were telling me you have a certain belief around picking up pennies, can you elaborate on that?”

Interviewee: “Yeah, when you drop a penny on the ground, only pick it up if it landed on tails. If it landed on heads it’s a sign of good luck so you should leave it.

I think there is just like a common association with pennies being heads up being good luck. So you’re kind of leaving that luck for someone else to find but yeah, just when you drop a penny only pick it up if it’s tails.”

Interviewer: “Interesting! Where did you first hear about this?”

Interviewee: “It’s something I think I just learned from friends and not necessarily from family.”

Analysis:
This folk belief centered on good luck and everyday activities utilizes pennies as a symbolic object. It is a simple rule, but it makes something random feel like a decision. Instead of luck just happening, it feels like you’re kind of controlling it.

The idea of leaving a heads-up penny for someone else to benefit from creates a sense of community and communal luck instead of purely individual gain. Overall, it shows how small everyday actions help reinforce a sense of order, meaning, and community in otherwise random and unpredictable situations.

Seaweed Soup

Collection Date: 02/12/2026

Context:

During an in- class fieldwork session, my informant, “NJ” told me a saying and idea popular in Korean culture. He explains two scenarios in which seaweed soup should and should not be eaten, according to Korean folklore. He is Korean American and as far as I know, has lived his whole life here in America.

TEXT:

“Don’t eat seaweed soup before an exam”

Nathan explains that parents warn their kids not to eat food with seaweed such as seaweed soup before an exam. He explained that the slippery soup will cause the information to slip from their head. NJ explained how the idea of eating seaweed soup doesn’t just apply to parents and schoolchildren, but to other areas of life as well. For example, NJ explained that in Korean culture, pregnant women will eat seaweed soup as well. This is done because performers believe that it will help the women have a smoother, easier birth.

He said this is a popular Korean saying. His parents told him as a kid, passing on the saying.

Analysis:

It is an interesting belief that seaweed soup, a slippery dish, should be avoided before big moments. The idea is that it might cause students to slip up or forget what they studied during the exam. The same idea applies to pregnant women, but in this second case, the slippery quality is actually a good thing.

Logically, this belief makes no sense. But, something about it just sounds right. There’s some kind of pseudo logic or vernacular reasoning. If you eat something slippery, you’ll be slippery. The qualities of a food being slippery or sticky don’t actually have much, if any, effect on students’ exam scores or mothers giving birth. But somehow the saying still makes sense. I could imagine that it is especially helpful in moments that are really stressful (exams, pregnancy, etc). These are moments where we can feel anxiety and maybe powerless.

But, the simple saying acts as a illogical solution to get back that control. How do fix something which logic won’t help? Simple, make your own logic. I can imagine that the belief functions similarly to when athletes wear their favorite socks or shoes on game day. It offers a way for people to manage their anxiety and gain a sense of control in high-pressure situations. These superstitions allow performers to channel their anxiety into an easy action (or inaction) so they can feel better prepared for the task. It also lets them relax. In the test example, students who worry about forgetting what they studied can rest assured they won’t. They didn’t eat seaweed soup, so they probably won’t forget.

It’s also interesting that the same quality and food, slippery soup, can have a positive or negative connotation depending on the context. For exams, seaweed soup should be avoided, but for a pregnant woman, seaweed soup is a blessing. What would happen if a pregnant woman were taking an exam? I don’t think the answer matters much because the logic depends more on the context than any actual rules. The family that told their child, or the person who decided to eat soup that day, chooses the meaning. It doesn’t matter whether the rules are accurate or realistic, so long as they are believed in. Belief is what gives them power. For example, my informant NJ doesn’t encounter seaweed soup often here in LA, but he doesn’t avoid slippery foods. But perhaps if he wanted the qualities, then he would choose to believe in them. Or, if he were stressed about an exam, he might consider changing his diet.

Additionally, this is a fun superstition passed from parent to child. This sharing of beliefs and wisdom can bring families closer together. It sounds silly, but a nervous child might easily be calmed by the saying. That relief they feel will bring them closer to their family and make them appreciate the support. Instead of just saying “don’t worry about it, you’ll do great,” they offer a simple solution to make exams more manageable. This could help the children feel supported and cared for while parents support their achievements.

Garlic and Onions as Medicine

Age: 16

Text:

“One weird medicinal thing my parents would do is that even though they were doctors, they’re Romanian, so when we were younger, when we would get sick, they would always tell us to eat garlic and onions, which I think stemmed from the whole vampire Dracula thing, but somehow that was a way to avoid being sick.”

Context:

The informant describes a ritual from childhood in which their parents, both trained doctors, encouraged them to eat garlic and onions when they were sick. This advice was given as a part of everyday care, rather than in a formal medical context. The informant connects this to their Romanian cultural background referencing associations with garlic and onions as protection from things such as vampires.

Analysis:

This example of belief based folklore and foodways, specifically a home remedy that is passed down through cultural tradition. It reflects how folklore and coexist with formal systems of knowledge as the informants parents rely on both their medical training and inherited practices.

The use of garlic and onions as protective or healing substances connects in a widely known way to Vampires. However, this shows how stories and culture spread into each other and affect one another. This connects in a broader context to sympathetic logic where certain foods are believed to have magical qualities. While the information links this to vampires folklore it is also a cultural association around the world between food and health, showing how meanings can overlap across different traditions. Folklore is adapted and changed overtime, its performance and daily practice is what impacts the culture and identity around us.

This example also demonstrates how folklore functions as vernacular knowledge operates outside of institutional authority even when practiced by individuals within those systems. The fact their parents are doctors highlights that belief-based practices are not limited to a lack of scientific knowledge, but instead persist because they are culturally meaningful and familiar.

This example shows how folklore is transmitted within families and adapted into everyday life, shaping how people understand and respond to illness. Even if the reasoning is not fully explained or scientifically grounded, the practice continues because it is part of a shared cultural framework around healing.

Lake Monster

Age: 19

Interviewee:

This story was told by my father when both of us were swimming in a lake in my hometown, a town in China. My dad told me that there was a lake monster who dwelled in this lake. This lake monster will punish travelers who have done something evil recently, and the way that the monster acts out this, sort of, punishment, is that they will kill them in the water. According to my father, victims often described that something held on to their legs and pulled them down to the deep water. They were either killed or deeply injured.

Interviewer: Does this monster only haunt you if you have done something wrong? And if you are a morally good person, it will not haunt you?
Interviewee: According to the myth, yes.

Interviewer: Has this story been used to explain, or was it proved to be “real” in any real incidents?
Interviewee: Yes. A few years ago, a person in my hometown died in that lake, and his family explained this as him being killed by the water monster. That day, he went to swim in the lake near a reservoir. When they found the deceased person, folks in my hometown believed it was the lake monster who caused his death. While scientifically speaking, it’s seaweeds. He couldn’t really swim well, and it was wild water, so some seaweeds must have trapped him from the bottom.

Interviewer: When you’re swimming in the lake, are you scared of the monster?
Interviewee: No. Cuz I didn’t do anything bad (laughs).

Context:

In the words of the interviewee: “This story was shared by my father, a middle-aged man who grew up in a small town in China. He told it to me while we were actually swimming together in the very lake he was describing—it’s a lake in the wild, without much protection and very close to nature.”


Analysis:

  • Vernacular transmission: This story was told to the informant by his father when they were swimming in a local lake in his hometown. The monster is very specific to that lake. The way the informant’s father tells him of this monster legend makes it very vernacular—informal, local to their hometown, a small town in China.
  • Moral story and cautionary tale: This legend serves the purpose of “education” under Bascom’s functionalist framework. The informant’s father, by telling this legend, educates the informant to be a good person and live with integrity—when being asked if he was scared, the interviewee said he wasn’t scared “because he hasn’t done bad things.” This mirrors exactly what this legend is used for—to caution people not to do morally bad things, or they will get into trouble. Thus, certain moral ideologies are reinforced by telling a scary story. This makes this legend a mixture of a cautionary tale and a moral story.