Tag Archives: luck

Spider Cooked Egg

Nationality: American
Age: 25
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: April 13th, 2013
Primary Language: English
Language: Mandarin

Informant Background: The informant was born in rural parts of China called Hainan. She lived there with her grandparents where she attended elementary school. She moved to the United States when she was thirteen. She speaks both Chinese and English. She lives in Los Angeles with her mother but travels back to visit her relatives in Beijing and Hainan every year. She and her mother still practice a lot of Chinese traditions and celebrate Chinese holidays through special meals

 

in the days my grandparents told me that to get a governmental position you need to pass certain exams. The exams happened in one day and it is really hard. You can’t get a job unless you pass this test. So to get good luck for that exam day the night before your mother would have to catch a spider in your house, put the spider in the egg, and cook it. You can put the spider in by cracking open the top a little bit and then put the spider in. Then you can still boil the egg. Then you have to eat it before you take the test. This will help you pass the test.  

This is a folk-belief about how to create good luck.  The story was told to the informant by her grandparents who live in an area called Hainan. According to her this was what her great-grandmother did for her grandfather before he went to take his test.

 

I think this folk-belief is very strange. The informant herself also stated how she finds this method very strange as well. Regardless of peculiarity, this shows the family’s involvement in one individual event; that different members of the family are linked together through different objects and methods. In this case it is the mother who has to cook the egg because it is common in a Chinese household that the mother is the cook in the family. This reflects how the mother has to support her child and bring him luck even though the method seems strange. The spider also has to be found in the house. This also shows a different living arrangement situation depending on culture. In Western Culture after the child reaches a certain age he/she would leave the family house and live separately. In this case it is evident that Chinese family tends to maintain as one household.

This belief is a method of how to deal with one of life transitional period. People associate themselves through different identity, one of them is occupation. In this case, the exam is important as an official way to achieve that particular job identity and how the family helps the individual.

It also shows how the egg is eaten to enhance the individual’s belief in his own luck. This shows it is important to believe in good luck is whether or not the spider-egg has magical power or not. Similar to the placebo effect, believing is a big part into feeling lucky.

Biker Bell

Nationality: Mexican, Scandinavian, French Canadian
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Beaumont, California
Performance Date: March 28, 2013
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

Informant: “Among bikers that is just something you don’t do and also it is popular to get a little iron bell. They’re like these tiny little bells that you just attach to the front of your bike and normally other people buy them for you and you just put them on there before you ride otherwise its not as safe I guess. Its just weird little things in the biker culture I guess.”

 

The informant is from Beaumont, California and lives in a family where motorcycles are very common, “everybody in my family, especially my dad and my grandfather, are bikers.” Moreover, the informant said, “I like grew up in a garage pretty much. That’s what my dad does and my dads dad. My dad, he’s a welder, and he builds and rides his own bikes and he has a lot. I don’t know how many he has. He does old ones though, like the ones from the 30s and 40s and then my grandpa was the leader of the Vagos when biker gangs were huge.”

The informant said that she first learned about this lore when she was a young girl because putting a bell on a motorbike is family tradition, “whenever my dad would get a new bike he would get a bell for it.” However, the informant said that you need to get a bell as a gift; you cannot go buy one on your own. The bell should be low to the ground and is usually attached with leather, though people use different things like zip ties etc. When put on a motorcycle, the folk belief states that the bell will ensure a safe ride. As someone who comes from a family of bikers, she is aware that many things can happen to bikers if they are going to go on a ride for an extended period of time. Thus, there is an incentive to have the loved one return safely, so you give them a bell. Furthermore, the informant and her family do believe in the paranormal so she figures putting a bell on the bike can’t hurt.

After doing some research online, I found these bells can be called, Ride Bells, Karma Bells, Gremlin Bells, and Guardian (Angel) bells, among others. The most popular names were the Karma and Gremlin Bell.

The practice of putting a bell on a motorcycle comes from an old legend regarding road gremlins or evil road spirits. The bell will scare away these creatures, and it prevents them from causing harm to you and your bike. The gremlin’s are said to cause many different problems such as mechanical problems like causing turn signals to malfunction, the battery to die etc, as well as small items in the road and problems caused by other motorcyclists.

Apparently, some people who do not believe in the tradition still give bells as a gesture of good will, and others find the bell represents that “someone cares about you.” Thus, it seems that the tradition has moved from just chasing away road spirits to a gesture of concern and kindness for a loved one.

Lastly, there are actually a few companies based around the sale of Gremlin bells, so the practice seems to be quite common.

Below are some images of Biker Bells

           

Concert Interactions for Luck

Nationality: Chinese American
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/11/2013
Primary Language: English

Click here for video.
“So as a pianist, whenever I have a recital or competition, or when I’m about to perform, I guess it’s a habit or something I always do, I have to talk to someone. So, if it’s a stranger, I don’t really care, I just go up to someone like, ‘hey.’ you know, just talk about something, I don’t know about what. It just helps me calm down and gives me that strength and that luck to play well.”

My informant has established a ritual to cope with pre-performance stress. Perhaps the interaction with another human being relaxes him and allows him to think about other things rather than worry about how he’ll perform. Often times, a person’s nerves may prevent him or her from performing their best. Focusing too much on one part of the song may cause him to tense up or forget a different part of the song. Therefore, maintaining a calm state for him before going on stage may prove beneficial. The ritual is relatively easy to achieve as there are people everywhere in a concert hall. Through this ritual he is able to quickly able to calm his nerves and boost his confidence with some luck from his ritual.

The Flag and Luck

Nationality: Chinese American
Age: 23
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/13/2013
Primary Language: English

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“When I was younger, at my school we would have flag duty, which meant that every morning before the start of classes we would have to go take the American flag and put it on the flagpole and hoist it up and apparently its bad luck if it ever touches the ground. So we had to make sure it never touched the ground.”

The American flag is one of the symbols of our country and should be respected. There exists a formal United States Flag Code in Chapter 1 of the United States Code that outlines how the flag of the United States should be treated. According to this document, the flag should not ever touch the ground or anything beneath it, as it is considered disrespectful to allow that to happen. This might be where this piece of folklore stems from. It certainly does seem like disrespecting something as symbolic and important as the US flag would invite bad luck. Perhaps the teachers at the school felt it may be difficult for young students to comprehend treating the flag with such respect, and described the consequences as “bad luck” as a more universal reason not to accidentally disrespect the flag. Furthermore, this piece of folklore might help to ensure that young flag guards take extra care when handling the flag.

A related urban legend states that the US flag must be burned if it ever touches the ground. This is actually just a combination of the two United States Flag Codes. The other flag code is about how a worn out flag must be destroyed respectfully, most often in fire. The urban legend sounds plausible as a flag dirtied by the ground might be considered ruined and fire is often thought to be a purifying force.

Lucky Laundry

Nationality: Chinese American
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/11/2013
Primary Language: English

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“So one of the homebrew legends that my mom told me, it was quite a while ago, like when I was a kid. She told me, it was one day at night, and she asked me to fold clothes. So I was like, ‘uh I don’t want to, I’d rather play games or something’. She’s like, ‘well you know, back when I was a kid, my mom told me, ‘If you don’t fold your clothes, it’s really bad luck.’ So I was like, ‘What no! I don’t want bad luck,’ so I started folding all the clothes . But anyway, the point is like, now I fold all my laundry after I do it cause I just don’t want bad luck. So whatever clothes I don’t fold, I don’t want that day to be a bad day.”

My informant told me that he asked his grandmother whether or not she had taught his mother that folding clothes was good luck. His grandmother denied ever saying anything like it. So, it seems like his mother made up a belief in order to get her son to fold his clothes. To give the belief credibility, she told him that his grandmother had taught her that, giving the belief an artificial heritage and more weight to it. This is interesting because it is like the “friend of a friend” that is featured in many legends. Invoking someone else’s credibility can effectively remove suspicions of self-interest from claims that people make.