Tag Archives: Folk Belief

White Chocolate Makes You Turn Purple

Nationality: American
Age: 22
Occupation: Student (Fine Arts Major)
Residence: Burbank, CA
Performance Date: April 22, 2013
Primary Language: English
Language: Chinese, Japanese, Spanish

“If you eat white chocolate, you’ll turn purple.”

 

The informant was made aware of this belief when she was about seven years old. This was one of several stories she was told by her cousins, who were eight and 12 at the time of the telling. They had passed this on to the informant because they were vouching for it’s validity, and because it had become popular in their school.

At her cousins’ school, there was a stigma against white chocolate because select students had deemed it “gross” and admonished people for eating it by saying that only “gross” people would eat it. This small group—and later, the general populace—believed that white chocolate was not “real” chocolate. This forced the informant to abstain from eating chocolate out of fear of being punished for eating it (by being made purple). She eventually lost her taste for white chocolate over the period of time that she was afraid to eat it. This represents a way for a powerful minority group to assimilate the beliefs of the larger majority. Fear of ridicule, a powerful emotion for grade-school children, served as the driver for pushing the beliefs of those that took charge.

This saying is powerful in its ability to alter behaviors. In the hands of a few, this functioned almost as propaganda getting the masses on board with a belief they may have rejected without fear. Even for those who do not believe the warning, the shaming that it fosters can remain effective.

 

For a similar story about shaming and color changing, (and specifically, the color purple) see:

http://www.snopes.com/science/poolpiss.asp

Night Marchers

Nationality: Hawaiian, American
Age: 25
Occupation: Volleyball
Residence: Oahu
Performance Date: April 21 2013
Primary Language: English

Night Marchers are ancient Hawaiian warrior ghosts. They generally march around sunset or just before sunrise, but can march any time day or night. They were associated with the sound of drumming and the carrying of torches. They are known to walk the mountains and the beaches on all the islands of Hawaii. On each island, there are certain trails that the Night Marchers are most likely to be seen on. If you ever see them, you are supposed to lie down and don’t look at them. The reason you don’t want the Night Marchers to see you is because they will kill you if they do. Lying down is supposed to make you harder to see, and not looking at them is supposed to make them likely to look over at you. Night Marchers, however, would not harm you if one of the Night Marchers is a relative of yours.
Riley’s father and grandpa would tell him and his siblings and cousins about the Night Marchers whenever they went camping. Riley says that he has never seen any or hear any night marchers, but his grandpa swears that he has both heard the drums of the night watchers and saw their torches.
Whether or not the Night Marchers exist, they seem to represent to me the Hawaiian respect for the indigenous islanders. The Hawaiian warriors who died on the islands were fighting to protect their land from foreigners. The legend says that Night Marchers would not harm someone who saw them if one of their relatives was in the Night Marcher ranks. This seems to me to show that the people indigenous to Hawaii were respected, and everyone else who had come to the islands and were foreigners were still not welcome because the Night Marchers would still want vengeance on them.

Chinese Folk Belief: Flat Noses Aren’t Pretty

Nationality: Chinese
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: San Marino, CA
Performance Date: April 20, 2013
Primary Language: English
Language: Cantonese

Contextual Data: I asked my friend if she knew of any Chinese folk beliefs that she had heard when she was younger.  She mentioned this one, and the following is a transcript of her response.

“My grandma told me that if I had a flat nose, I wouldn’t be pretty and I wouldn’t be able to find a husband, so she pinched my nose like this [pinches the bridge of her nose] every single day, and now my nose is tall and I’m pretty.”

– End Transcript – 

In talking to a couple of other Chinese friends, they all mentioned similar experiences — or at least, that they had all heard about that type of valorization of a “tall,” Roman nose at some point before. This does draw out the value that people place on physical appearance and indicate that beauty is something that people desire, which is one reason why they continue to perform this practice. My informant also mentioned that her grandmother would never do this to her brother and that it was something specifically reserved for girls. This idea that my informant was told she wouldn’t “find a husband” if she had a flat nose could speak to anxieties about being an unmarried woman — the idea that not being able to find a husband is something to worry about. If this practice is believed to help avoid that, it offers another explanation as to why people would continue to perform it.

“Don’t say ‘Macbeth’ in a theater.”

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: April 30, 2013
Primary Language: English

My informant described himself as a “theater kid” in high school. He told me about a folk belief that was held by the members of his school’s theater. According to him, it is bad luck to say the word “Macbeth” in any theater. He thinks that this folk belief is quite widespread in theaters around the world. This is his description:

 

“I actually have no idea where the Macbeth tradition came from. I think it might just be… I heard a rumor that the opening cast of Macbeth on Broadway—when it was first on Broadway—all got mono during the rehearsal process, so that might have been it. And I know that happened with the first cast at my high school when we did Macbeth a few years ago. Like, six of the twelve people in the cast all got mono. I think I heard of this superstition for the first time when I first said it in the theatre, because someone was like, ‘You can’t say that in the theatre!’ And I was like, ‘What?’ So I got in on this conversation about all this bad stuff that has happened. And at first I thought it was stupid, but then that night, there was a short circuit backstage and like, sparks flew out and ignited a piece of carpet. And we didn’t have wings my theater; we had garage doors on the sides of the stage because… well, Illinois state funding. And one of them just fell down in the middle of a set change and hit someone in the head. And a costume change didn’t work, and something ripped. And lots of bad stuff happened that night and I don’t know why, other than attributing it to the fact that ‘Macbeth’ was said in the theater that day. So now I’ve learned to call it ‘The Bard’s Thirteenth Play’ or something like that, or like, ‘The Play That Starts with M.’ So yeah, that’s where that came from, and I have like, weirdly believed in that ever since.”

 

Folk beliefs—or “superstitions”—like this one are very common in drama and theater environments. Performers are very aware that they are under a significant amount of pressure to make sure everything to goes right during the show. This can be quite stressful because there are so many things that are out of their control, from technical difficulties to illnesses that plague the cast. Perhaps by not saying a certain word, they are making an attempt to curb the things they cannot control. Furthermore, it gives them what they see as a rational explanation for why things do go badly sometimes. It provides them a scapegoat for the problematic issues that can arise during a performance. They shift the blame to an old curse on a forbidden word; this explanation is widely accepted in the theater community. My informant admits being quite skeptical of this at first, but the suspicions were confirmed for him when a string of disasters occurred after “Macbeth” was uttered in his theater. That was enough evidence for him; he does not want to be the reason for future problems by being the person to say “Macbeth.” It may simply be that he was expecting things to go badly, so when they did, he immediately linked them to the folk belief. Yet who is to say that this word does not have the power to curse a theater?

Ladybugs and food predict the weather

Nationality: German
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 4/18/13
Primary Language: English
Language: German

In Germany there is a saying that if you don’t eat up all the food on your plate then the weather will be bad the next day. And it was told to us kids, and since we were scared to have bad weather the next day we always ate up all the food. Um… unfortunately it didn’t’ always work…surprise. Another thing—a similar thing—um… is with ladybugs—if they land on your hand and they fly away from your hand then the weather will be good the next day. And I learned that when I was really young, but, unfortunately, that didn’t always work, so… it’s still just a tale, but I still believe in it.

 

Every culture seems to have superstitions that relate to the predictions of weather. Before sophisticated technology was available, people used to predict the weather by observing animals, the sky, and other aspects of nature. People used to think that higher clouds meant a long stretch of good weather. If a full moon were shining brightly on a perfectly clear night then frost would form, as people believed that the earth had no protection [by the clouds] from the chilling moon.

 

Some of the early folk beliefs that pertained to weather eventually were backed by scientific experimentation. Lucky guess, perhaps, by the early people?

 

What intrigues me most about Sophia’s superstition is that she continues to believe in it even though it is not true in any sense. No scientific evidence has been cultivated to support this claim. In addition, she even concedes that this superstition has essentially been invalidated by its success to failure ratio. She admits that,  “more often than not, these occurrences have nothing to do with the weather.”

 

From a young age it was impressed on her mind that this superstition rang with truth. For many years she accepted it without questioning its truth-value. Even now that she understands the truth with a rational clarity she still holds onto the belief. Perhaps it is out of sentimentality? Perhaps thinking of ladybugs as indicators of change gives her this twinge of nostalgia for the days of her childhood. I would postulate that it brings her back to a place of innocence and happiness, to when things were simple and when imagination was valued over the cool logic of reality.