Tag Archives: money

Funny Bones

Nationality: American
Age: 22
Occupation: Academic Coach
Residence: Long Beach, CA
Performance Date: 4/25/2012
Primary Language: English

My informant was told this by a friend when she hit her funny bone and held it close to her side.

“If you touch your elbow after you hit your funny bone, you will lose money”

Her friend was from Mexico and said she learned this from her mother.  My informant was a bit confused by this advice.

This belief might be because holding your elbow after you hit it could be counterproductive, like it bunches up the muscles which make it take longer to stop hurting.  Also the threat of losing money reveals that wealth is very important to the community that the friend came from and can be used to prevent certain things.

Door Placement

Nationality: half Thai half Malaysian
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: April 20, 2012
Primary Language: English

The informant learned this piece of folklore from her mother about how to build a house in China.

“You shouldn’t buy a house with a front door and the back door directly across from each other, because um, they say all the money is going to come in and go straight out.”

I remember hearing something about this being a concept of Feng Shui. I do not know if this custom is directly related but they are certainly correlative.

One For the Money…

Nationality: White
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Ageles
Performance Date: April 23, 2012
Primary Language: English
The informant is recounting a rhyme/chant her and her cousins would recite when they were younger:
One for the money, two for the show, three to get ready, and four to go!
Uh, I learned it from my cousins, It’s what we’d say right before jumping into this lake we went to every summer. Basically, it made it harder for people to chicken out when we had this whole chant thing going. What it means, I don’t really know, but that’s the context i’ve used it in.
The informant chanted this before doing something frightening and it’s purpose was to bring her group of cousins closer together.
This shows the power of folklore that, by sharing this chant, they are capable of assuaging their fears since they are all experiencing it together.

Annotation:

Part of this phrase was used as the title of the popular Janet Evanovitch novel One For the Money. This use plays on the audience’s familiarity with the phrase. It is used there as a play on words though since it is actually about doing one bounty hunter job literally for the money.

Irish Purse Superstition

Nationality: Irish-American
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 2007
Primary Language: English

My informant’s Irish ancestry has a belief about women’s purses. It is seen as bad luck for a woman to leave her purse on the ground, even for a second. Many believe that setting one’s purse on the ground will cause all the money in that purse to “run away”, leaving the owner with nothing. According to my informant, taking care of one’s money is very important to the Irish people, and to set it down, leaving it out of one’s attention and control, is seen as practically throwing money away for the very reason that without a hold on one’s purse, it could easily get lost, or worse be stolen by someone taking advantage of one’s neglectfulness. It seems like putting one’s purse down is about as much bad luck as being ignorant is.

Red Packets (红包 or 利市)

Nationality: Singaporean Chinese
Occupation: Journalist
Residence: Singapore
Performance Date: February 2007
Primary Language: Chinese
Language: English

During Chinese New Year, children are given red packets filled with money. In the past, the red packets were placed under the pillow for good luck in the New Year and to ward off evil spirits from invading the dreams. The money inside of the packets is always an even number like 8, 10, and 20 because good luck comes in pairs. The packets are red because red is a lucky number.  Only unmarried people can receive these and only married people can distribute it, regardless of age.

                  My informant has been receiving these packets since birth and was required to pass these out in Singapore since the 1960s. Most people in Chinese communities all over the world practice this particular custom. Most Chinese kids see it as a way to get money during the New Year season.  To get one of these red packets, kids need to greet their elders with auspicious phrases and wishing them good luck.

                  This is not just limited to the Chinese, but there are many other countries that have variations of this custom as well. The Malays also give money after Ramadan, during Hari Raya, but in green packet with odd numbers. The Vietnamese giver something similar to these red packets and the Japanese have white packets with the names of the receiver written on the outside. It’s interesting how customs like this are spread all throughout Asia because it is an example of diffusion and adopting customs.