Being pooped on by a bird gives you good luck.
My informant was first told this by his parents after a passing seagull had relieved itself on his person. At the time it had cheered him up as he claims he was very distraught at the time. Looking back however, he is pretty sure his mom was just trying to make him feel better rather than conveying something that she actually believes.
Informant: Brittney Bang
Nationality: Korean
Primary Language: English; Other Language: Korean
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Residence: Westwood, Los Angeles
“Never say no when asked to hold a baby.”
My friend, Brittney, has a boyfriend who is El Salvadorean. She first heard this saying from her boyfriend’s mother, who told her that it is terribly bad luck to say no when asked to hold a baby because the baby will get sick. She had always believed in this saying, ever since someone refused to hold her son, and he was hospitalized for a week afterward due to a serious illness.
Superstitions are common in Hispanic cultures, and the mom seems to be a firm believer in the idea that certain actions can influence luck. Family is also considered extremely important in Hispanic culture, so it makes sense that refusing to hold someone as innocent as a baby can be said to bring bad luck.
“Don’t step on the threshold when entering a room.”
This is a popular Chinese superstition. Many Chinese people say that stepping on a threshold when entering a room will result in a death in the family. To the Chinese, thresholds represent life, and stepping on thresholds can cut lives short.
Mérde
Folk saying/Superstition
When wishing my informant good luck for her ballet performance, she corrected me and told me to tell ballet dancers “Mérde“ instead. The following is a transcript of our interview:
“Informant: In show business, if you want to tell someone good luck before a show, the common phrase is to say “break a leg”. If you’re a musician, or an actor, you’re main instrument for performance isn’t necessarily your legs. You could still play piano with a broken leg, but for dancers legs are vital. As much as this is something that inspires luck, this made dancers feel uneasy because it is exactly what they want never to happen. Instead, dancers say “mérde” before a show. This is the French word for “shit.”
While I don’t know the formal reason for why this particular word is picked, I though one of the Senior members of my company explained it well when he said that “when you’re performing live on a stage in front of an audience, shit happens. So, we say ‘Mérde.’
My informant said, “ I am very paranoid about injuries personally, and before a show people push themselves really hard so to have an injury right before a performance is the worst imaginable situation, so I get very uncomfortable when people say break a leg. It makes me much more nervous. But I’ve always like ‘Mérde’ because it has a bit of humor to it and more of a sense of ‘this is how things are going to be, and it will be okay because it is just going to happen.’ “
Saying “Mérde“ serves several purposes. It plays a role as a superstition, a way of avoiding the homeopathic magic of “break a leg.” On the other hand, since this folk saying is reserved for ballet dancers, it reinforces one’s identity in the group. Furthermore, the word, French based, connects to ballet in general – according to my informant ballet vocabulary is all in French. Thus, this produces an air of authenticity to performances, linking ballet dances everywhere to ballets home, France. Also, reflects a lesson necessary for dancers: stage performances rarely run perfectly, so it is vital that, if problems occur, the show continues. On another note, running around and swearing, breaking societal rules, excites those saying it, assuaging pre-performance nervousness.
The informant is currently a student at the University of Southern California and has resided in the United States all her life, though she has gown up with Asian culture due to her parents. She knows many Chinese, Japanese and Thai proverbs due to the fact that her mother is Thai and because she studied abroad in Japan when she was in high school. She first heard this saying when her mother told about it when she was a young child as New Year’s was approaching.The folk belief about good and bad luck is a prominent theme in Chinese culture and the community has several different things that indicate good and bad luck in their society. In Chinese folklore, the informant says that a lot of beliefs are mimicked by the actions of a person. For example, the luck is washed away because a person washes their hair. The act of washing one’s hair simultaneously causes the luck to “wash” away as well. She says that there are several pieces of folk beliefs in China and East Asia that pertain to these types of actions.
I agree that Chinese folklore does have a lot of superstitions about good and bad luck. The analysis of the meaning behind the saying also makes a logical progression, which is easy to follow. The saying is very phonetic, like many of the sayings and proverbs in Asian culture. However, the informant couldn’t tell me why exactly the saying was the day before Chinese New Year’s. I believe it is because Chinese New Year’s is a day full of celebration and beginning anew for the year, and to wash one’s hair the night before would be washing away all the luck that one would have begun with for the year. It is also possible that because the night before New Year’s is a liminal phase between the end of one year and the beginning of a new year, the creation and participation in this ritual is is important.