Tag Archives: luck

Hold your breath through a tunnel

Nationality: Chinese
Age: 26
Occupation: Research Assistant
Primary Language: Chinese
Language: English

The informant explained this game they often play on road trips: “Whenever I go driving with my  family, we all hold our breaths whenever we reach a tunnel. Though it often turns into a competition for them, it has become a tradition.”

Me: “When’s the first time you heard this game?”

Informant: “I don’t remember exactly… I just remember someone said, “There’s a tunnel, hold your breath!” and somehow we all started doing it. I think you were supposed to make a wish, but in the end we just saw who could last the longest! I remember my little brother would just puff out his cheeks so it looked like he was holding his breath when he was just breathing through his nose (laughs).”

Analysis: This game is common-practice, however it is hard to pinpoint the exact origin online. In the 1980s, it was thought that tunnel air would cure whopping cough, so mothers would bring their children to tunnels to cure them. In order to keep from contracting the respiratory disease, the people with the infected children would have to hold their breaths when accompanying them into the tunnel.

Another interpretation is that the air pressure may change when one goes through a tunnel at fast speeds, and holding your breath cures the pain in your ears. It’s is interesting that such a practice to prevent pain has developed into a superstition or game.

Annotation: This cure for whopping cough is mentioned in Arthur Beavan’s book “Tube, Tram, Train, Car” in the chapter about the London Railway.

“Tube, Tram, Train, and Car” by Arthur Beavan

 

Blow a dandelion, make a wish.

Nationality: USA, Israeli
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Residence: Huntington Beach, CA
Performance Date: 3/23/13
Primary Language: English

The informant told me that when she was younger (age 4-5), she would pluck a dandelion and blow on it to make a wish. She learned this practice from her friends in preschool. “It was a lot of fun! We would run around looking for dandelions to blow on and fight over them sometimes.

Me: Do you have to get all the dandelion seeds off in one blow?

Informant: I think so!

Me: Do you still play this game?

Informant: Hmm… I think it’s second nature to pick up a dandelion and blow now. You don’t really think about it.

Analysis: This is a common practice in the United States, where dandelions are abundant in the grass. It is similar to blowing out all the candles on a birthday cake. It most likely stems from the belief that if you blow out all the seeds, they carry your wishes and dreams and eventually blossom. It is unclear where the origin of this game came from, however there are variations, such as if you blow a dandelion and all the seeds come off, your lover loves only you. If some seeds remain, he is not loyal. This may have come from the daisy petal-plucking “He loves me, he loves me not”, game.

For the informant, this game or ritual has become so common-place that it is almost innate for her to want to pluck a dandelion and blow the seeds into the wind.

Jump, Shake Your Booty

Nationality: American
Age: 17
Occupation: Student
Residence: Norfolk, Virginia
Performance Date: 4/28/13
Primary Language: English

My informant has been a dancer since elementary school, and currently dances with her performing arts high school. She told me the following piece of folklore about a pre-performance tradition:

So, after everyone gets ready and is about to go onstage for opening night before a show, everyone like gets together in a big group, and usually we turn off the lights but not always depending on where we are, but we usually turn off the lights, and then we all like get in a circle and its quiet for a few seconds and then sort of spontaneously it starts, we all start like shouting JUMP SHAKE YOUR BOOTY, JUMP JUMP SHAKE YOUR BOOTY and we all jump up and down and shake our butts along with the chant, and I guess it’s for good luck on opening night, I’m not really sure, but, like, we all do it before opening night and I’ve done it at, like, pretty much every show I can remember.

My informant told me she and the other members of her cast would perform this tradition for good luck before a show. She does not know when or where it began, but said it has been around for as long as she can remember. Although my informant is a dancer, she said many of her other friends in other disciplines celebrate this tradition as well, and it appears to be a long standing theatrical tradition across all disciplines. It could be a way to get the cast excited before the show, and to loosen up through the motions in the chant, or simply a way to remind everyone to have fun and enforce comradeship in the cast.

Merde

Nationality: American
Age: 17
Occupation: Student
Residence: Norfolk, Virginia
Performance Date: 4/14/13
Primary Language: English

In the following, my informant recounts one of her pre-performance traditions:

So, in the last few days before we’re about to do a show, we have a tradition called “merde gifting,” where, everyone in the show buys everyone else a small present or treat, and like, it doesn’t have to , they don’t have to buy it, but, like, we make cookies, or little candies, or pencils, or even stuffed animals, it depends, but just something nice to give to the rest of the cast and show them you care about them. And then I guess the other part of it is, more than just giving gifts, you tell people merde before they go on stage, which is supposed to be like, good luck. It comes from french and I think it means “shit” and it means good luck on stage, don’t step in shit, because apparently cows would poop onstage in the olden times or something, I don’t know, but yeah, we tell each other merde and give each other presents before a show.

Although my informant does not know exactly where this tradition comes from, she believes it is derived from something more closely related to the meaning behind merde. However, by now it has simply come to mean “good luck,” and my informant and her fellow performers have expanded upon the word to include gifts, and other ways of showing support. Apparently it is part of a number of traditions designed to foster support among the cast before a show, and has been around for a long time.

Street of the Kiss

Nationality: Mexican-American
Age: 21
Occupation: USC Student
Performance Date: May 8, 2013
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

So, in Guanajuato, Mexico there’s a place called Calle de los Besos. Um, and it’s just translated to Street of the Kiss, where this couple lived on opposite ends of the sleep. The woman lived with her family, and the man was a traveler. And every night they would talk and then kiss good-night, and then one night the woman’s father came home from work late and saw that they kissed, and he was furious and he said :If you ever kiss him again, I’m gonna make sure he’s dead and he just freaked out, and so she promised to never kiss him again, And then some weeks passed and she didn’t keep her promise, and then again one night the dad came home late and saw that they had kissed and so he goes up to the guy’s room and kills him, and she freaks out, and she’s really depressed. And then she kills herself. And then now today whenever you cross that street, visitors or anybody, you kiss each other on the 7th step, because there’s like steps on the street. On the seventh step you kiss your significant other, otherwise it’s like 7 years of bad luck for you. But if you’re single nothing happens to you.

This legend tells the story of the town, and tells how the custom of kissing when crossing this certian street came to be. The story also tells us about the culture of the town. For instance, one might infer from the story that it comes from a culture where fathers have a lot of control over their daughter’s love lives, and the father’s extreme reaction, while drastically over the top, is considered within the realm of possibility. It also tells us that the town culture may identify as romantic and passionate.