Tag Archives: lucky

Taiwanese superstition: The Colour Red

Nationality: Taiwanese
Primary Language: Taiwanese, Mandarin
Age: 46
Occupation: Branch Manager
Residence: Taipei, Taiwan
Performance Date: 19 April 2024

Tags: asia, superstition, red, colour, lucky

Text:

Red is considered a very lucky colour in Asian countries, being a sign of good fortune and luck. People wear red clothes on Lunar New Year and give red envelopes full of money to the younger ones. The colour red was said to scare off the fearsome beast Nian, who’s story is the legendary backdrop for Lunar New Year in general. Lots of people wear red underpants when they gamble.

Context:

C was born and raised in Taiwan, and has traveled the world various times due to her work and studies. She regularly participates in Taiwanese and Asian festivities with friends and family, and is said to be quite lucky whenever she wears her red dress.

Analysis:

Like with Lunar New Year, I write Taiwan in the title, but the superstition covers a large portion of Asia as well. Red can be contrasted with thoughts in the West, as red can be seen as a sign of aggression or anger, while green is the colour of luck and good fortune due to being the colour of money. This goes to show how a similar concept (colour) can twist and change within various cultures based on their pasts and histories.

Chants for Good Luck

Context:

H is a spring admin freshman at USC, studying Music Industry. H grew up in Taiwan, but moved when she was 8 to San Jose. 

Text:

H: “Whenever I encounter something bad, I basically chant like something from Buddhism. It goes like ‘大慈大悲, 救苦救难, 管旭音菩萨’ (Pinying: da ci da bei, jiu ku jiu nan, guan yin pu sa; Translation: great mercy and great compassion, save the suffering, guan xu yin bodhisattva). It’s basically what I chant so they can give me power, something like that. I think it’s just telling them I’m in trouble, it’s not asking them to come to me, but I feel like they’re going to do something about it and that’s why I do it.”

Analysis:

H’s chant is something along the lines of a conversion, a superstitious charm that negates or balances out an event. In H’s case, the chant is religious, referring to a god in Buddhism, but meant to offset something bad in her life using her god’s power. Her chanting is ritualistic, in the sense that H will do it on the principle or possibility that her god may be listening, while not knowing if anything will change. Just the act of chanting, the practice of a charm that’s believed to give good fortune, makes her believe that good will come, which is a faith nearly more powerful than the tangible confirmation that there really is a god up there, in my opinion. H creates a sense of order for herself in the midst of a crisis or hardship through this learned chant, and always repeating it to herself, she maintains faith that her chant comes true. Essentially, her ritual chant is believed to bring good luck for her, therefore it does bring good luck.  

A Mouthful of Sugar


Main Piece:

Informant: So whenever like there’s like an exam or like something big that we have to do. You take a like, a teaspoon or a spoon of sugar. Put it in your-right hand? Yeah, right hand and then you… Sorry. And then you just you take it like you….

Me: You ingest the sugar straight? 

Informant: Yeah, just sugar straight up. It just supposed to be for good luck. You do it every single time I’ve done it. Ever since I was in like high school. And my mom was just like, hey, do this. And it’s like, good luck for like to be prosperous. That’s all you learn. Like I think Hindus do it a lot. My mom again taught to me and I think it’s like something big.

Context: 

My informant is a 21-year-old Indian American gerontology major at USC, this folklore was told to both me and his girlfriend (my roommate) in my living room. 

Background: 

My informant learned this from his mother and he still does it before every test or interview for good luck. 

Analysis. 

When he was telling me this, I kept thinking of the saying “a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down”. I think sugar because for such a long time it was so hard to get, it becomes something that is saved for special occasions, so using it for important exams it a way to use some of that luck. I know in kitchen magic you’re supposed to add sugar to sweeten the spell, so it’s cool to see how sugar represents luck and good in multiple cultures. 

4 Will Bring Death

Nationality: Chinese
Age: 20
Occupation: student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 3/31/19
Primary Language: Chinese
Language: English

The informant shares how the number four is a connotation for bad luck in Chinese culture. She shared this in a group environment, where another member of the group, ‘Support,’ provided additional information to what the Informant was sharing:

 

Informant: We also don’t like the number 4

Me: What’s the number 4?

Informant: Like the number, four. We don’t like it. It means death. It’s associated with death

Support: Because when you say four in mandarin it sounds like the same word as death in mandarin.

Informant: So literally in my building there is no fourth floor, it’s the fifth floor.

Support: It’s kinda like how sometimes in America in buildings there’s no 13thfloor. It’s the same way… they just skip the number 4 when doing floors.

Informant: Yeah theres no 14th, 24th, they just skp the number.

Support: Oh really?!  I remember seeing the 4thskipped,but I don’t remember seeing 14th.

Informant: Like in my building there’s nothing floor.

 

Support: yeah because you don’t wanna live on the death floor… its kind of a pun.

 

Informant: But then lucky numbers are six or eight for a similar reason. Eight is associated with wealth, like you’re getting more money.

 

Context:

I was talking with a group of friends while we were working on a class project and some of the group members wanted to share pieces of their traditions with me. It was a very casual setting and the performance took place in front of three other individuals.

Background:

The informant is from Hong Kong, China, but attends school at USC. She has experienced the stigma of the number four first hand, because there is no floor containing ‘4’ in her apartment building in Hong Kong.

Analysis:

I love learning about how different cultures have similar superstitions to the United States, but while similar there is a different reasoning. While the US may view 13 as unlucky, it is not that way in China.

Lucky Number

Nationality: American
Age: 52
Occupation: Stay at home mom
Residence: Calabasas, CA
Performance Date: 3/30/18
Primary Language: English

My conversation with Suzie went as follows:

Me: “I don’t get when people say they have items or things that are lucky. I don’t feel like I have anything like that.”

Suzie: “What do you mean…you don’t have a lucky number or outfit or anything?”

Me: “Haha…no. I don’t think so….Do you?”

Suzie: “One HUNDRED percent. My number is 10:28. Every time I look at the clock it is 10:28 whether it’s am or pm. And I always notice because it’s the same number as my birthday…October 28th. So it’s my lucky number.”

Me: “When did you first start to notice that?”

Suzie: “I actually think I started noticing it when I met my husband because we’d always call each other or text each other at 10:28. He’d call and be like ‘Hi Suzie, its 10:28 so I thought of you…what are you up too?’ right when we started dating.”

 

Background: Suzie is a fifty-two year old mom currently living in Calabasas, CA. She has been married to her husband for 25 years and they have three kids together.

Context: I had this conversation with Suzie after a dinner at her house.

Analysis: The idea of something being “lucky” is so interesting to analyze because it is so unique to each individual. I don’t have anything in my life that sticks out as being “lucky” and neither do any of my immediate family members; we learn so many tendencies from our parents and siblings, so I think this has a lot to do with it. The only thing I could think of in this conversation with Suzie was that my favorite number as a kid was “2” and that was only because my brother’s jersey number was always 2 in the different sports he played. This furthers demonstrates the ideal in Suzie’s story that “lucky” or “favorite” things result from important moments or relationships in your life.