Tag Archives: luck

Wear red during your zodiac year

Nationality: Chinese
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 30, 2013
Primary Language: English
Language: Chinese

“In China, there’s this thing called your ben ming nian, which is pretty much the year–for example, I am the year of the ram. So when it is year of the ram, so every twelve years–so when I’m twelve, twenty four, thirty six…every day of that year, you should wear red. For example, my mom’s ben ming nian was last year. She wore red underwear every single day. Red is not a normal color in her normal wardrobe, but she was just like, ‘I have to wear red every day somehow,’ so she went to Victoria’s Secret and bought seven pairs of red underwear. Red is just a good luck color in China, and especially when it’s your zodiac year.”

 

The zodiac is a powerful belief in Chinese culture; many Chinese people believe that the year of your birth strongly influences your personality. As told by my informant, wearing the lucky color red during your zodiac year, or ben ming nian, makes the luck stronger and gives you a good year. The belief is so strong that her mother, who normally never wears the color red, went out and bought enough underwear so she could wear the lucky color year-round.

Don’t split pears

Nationality: Chinese
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 30, 2013
Primary Language: English
Language: Chinese

“In this family, there’s a mother, a father, a grandma, and an older brother, and a daughter. And they’re eating pears. And what you’re supposed to do, like you can never split a pear. You can only eat a full pear. And I actually remember, fairly recently, I asked my mom if she wanted to split a pear, and she wouldn’t. The story started off with the littlest child gets the smallest pear. It’s about filial piety. The elders get the best pears. And you also can’t split pears. Because that splits your relationships with people. Keeping the pear together keeps the family together.”

 

There are two different stories going on here: a tale about a family who gets differently sized pears depending on age, and a folk belief that it is bad luck to split a pear. My informant told them so that they were interconnected. The story of the family eating pears is related to filial piety – the head of the house gets the biggest pear because he deserves the most respect, and the size of the fruit diminishes until the youngest child has the smallest pear.

When viewed in this light, the belief that splitting pears with someone is bad luck makes perfect sense. If a pear represents filial piety and the relationships between family members, splitting it would be terrible for the family.

Don’t shake your leg

Nationality: Korean
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 30, 2013
Primary Language: English
Language: Korean

“If you shake your leg when you’re sitting, you shake off all your good luck.”

 

My informant comes from a Korean family. She had no idea why she was taught this as a child, but recalled her mother being adamant about the dangers of shaking one’s leg (she demonstrated – the saying seems to apply to when one is sitting with one leg crossed over the other, jiggling the foot of the leg on top). There could be some sort of superstition involved in this belief; however, I think it’s likely that people simply wanted their children to stop fidgeting and made up a reason for them to refrain.

Break a leg

Nationality: American
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: March 9, 2013
Primary Language: English

“You can never say ‘good luck,’ you have to say ‘break a leg.’”

 

My informant grew up in the theater. This is perhaps the most common superstition among stage performers. Although my informant wasn’t sure exactly where the tradition comes from, it is likely that performers don’t want to jinx their show by talking about luck or anticipating a good show. Instead, “break a leg” does just the opposite – it wishes harm on the performer so that the opposite will happen.

Summer Lei Luck Ritual

Nationality: American
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Residence: Laguna Beach
Performance Date: April 12 2013
Primary Language: English

Every summer, Braeden and his family go to the Hawaiian island of Kawaii. On the first Saturday that everyone in his family is together, they gather around the dinner table, and his grandma grabs a bunch of leis. Everyone at the table closes their eyes while the grandma walks around and places a lei on each person. One by one, each person guesses the color of their lei, either pink or white or yellow, and then opens his or her eyes to see if they guessed correctly. If you guess correctly, then you will have good luck for the rest of the time they are in Hawaii. That good luck can entail you being more likely to get the best wave of the day, being more likely to see a dolphin or whale or turtle, or even having a less chance of getting a mosquito bite. There is no consequence if someone at the table does not guess correctly, it just means that they won’t be extra lucky. Additionally, if by chance everyone at the table guesses correctly, then it means the whole family will have luck for the rest of the year. Unfortunately, Braeden says that everyone at the table all guessed correctly. On the other hand, if nobody at the table correctly guesses the color of his or her lei than the whole family will have bad luck for the rest of the year. Luckily, Braeden says that has also never happened.