Tag Archives: money

Japanese New Years Day

Nationality: japanese-american
Age: 23
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Performance Date: 4/27/16
Primary Language: Japanese
Language: English

Information about the Informant: The informant is a 23 year old USC student named Eddie Roche. Eddie is a business major and is half Japanese half American. His father is from Chicago while his mother is from Japan. Growing up, Eddie lived in both Japan and China so he was immersed to numerous holiday traditions that both countries practiced. He has lots of family in Japan so he spent all of his holidays with family and learned about his culture.

Informant: “After the oosoji on New Year’s Eve where everyone in Japan cleans everything, the day of New Years is equally as important. This day is all about giving and sharing good fortune. Pretty much everyone just gives everyone money throughout the whole day. Lots of the young kids receive money from the parents, relatives, and friends as a sign of good fortune for the rest of the year. In order to receive money you have to be under 22 years old. The tradition is called Otoshidama and the closer you are to 22 years old the more money you receive. Typically really going kids don’t get much money but its more about the idea of giving money to the kids as opposed to the exact amount they get. Another tradition on New Year’s Day is that most people, religious or not, travel to the temples in order to give money to the temples and receive good fortune. At the temple we walk around through these pillars and then throw money into a basket. Also, there is a tradition where you shake a brown box with a small hole on it and a bunch of sticks in it. You shake the box until a stick comes out and once the stick comes out you make the number on the stick to a corresponding piece of paper. Whatever the paper says determines your fortune for the new year. It can range from saying you will have really good luck to having very bad luck for the whole year.”

Analysis: Although he is Japanese, my informant wasn’t necessarily the most fond of these traditions. He enjoys them but he doesn’t really believe what they say. This is mostly because he is not full Japanese and did these traditions with his family more just because he had to than anything else. Japanese culture is very fond of fortune telling and it makes sense that these traditions are so heavily practiced on New Years Day, a day that is seen as a blank slate from what happened in the previous year.

Don’t Whistle Away Your Money

Nationality: American
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: April 29, 2015
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

My informant, KM, explained that Russians believe it is bad luck to whistle under a roof because you are whistling your money away.  This is a very strong belief in Russia.  KM learned this superstition from her Russian American friend and roommate.  Thus, no whistling occurs in KM’s home.

KM saw this superstition in the motherland when traveling in Russia in the summer of 2012.  KM was was on a USC trip with eighteen American students.  KM and her travel companions were walking outside on a street that was under construction.  The sidewalk on which they were walking had overhead scaffolding–basically a roof outdoors.  One of KM’s friends began to whistle when walking beneath the scaffolding and immediately received dirty looks from the Russian passersby.  KM later realized that her friend was receiving stares from the Russians because he was whistling under a roof.  My informant then told her friend and the whole group that whistling under a roof is bad luck.

This belief demonstrates that money is important to Russians and not to be whistled away.  It suggests that Russians do not have a care-free attitude towards their money.  It also demonstrates that Russians have a strong belief in their superstitions.

A Penny Saved is a Penny Earned

Nationality: American
Age: 50s
Occupation: Banker
Residence: Shorewood, Minnesota
Performance Date: 4/26/2015
Primary Language: English
Language: None

Informant: “One thing that I remember my grandfather [S] saying to me multiple times, it was ‘[Informant’s name], a penny saved is a penny earned!’ And, so he grew up in the great depression, and that was some really tough times in America, and he saw all the hard things his parents had to do, and he as a kid had to do, and that caused people in his generation to feel like, if you find a way to save money, you know, not spend money you don’t need to spend, then that’s as good as earning extra money because that meant that you had that much money still available to you. I remember when I was little, we would go to California to visit him, and everyday they would be looking in the newspaper, cutting out coupons, looking for what the deal was, looking at the ads… basically figuring out everything for everything they were going to buy, where they were going to buy it from. If they were going to go out to dinner, they would make their dinner decision based off of who had a special, who had a coupon, who had a discount, those sorts of things, with the mindset of if they were going to spend money, but there’s a way to figure out how to spend less, then that’s just as good as making more money at your jobs. I find that I tend to think in the same way, where if I can figure out a way to spend less money, then it’s just like I just made more money from my job.”

Informant is a middle aged banker who frequently travels internationally on business, and is a father of three. He identifies as ‘American’, although his mother is of Czech heritage. He grew up in Oregon and Washington and currently lives in the Midwestern United States.

Collector Analysis: This particular proverb serves to provide financial advice, in this case the importance of spending money wisely. It is interesting how nowadays this particular proverb has almost a different meaning to it based on the fact that a penny today is considered to be nearly valueless, whereas in the time period where my informant first heard this proverb, pennies were not an insignificant amount of money. In this regard, the proverb may not have aged particularly well, but it is still a valuable piece of advice regardless.

Don’t Take Any Wooden Nickels

Nationality: American
Age: 50s
Occupation: Banker
Residence: Shorewood, Minnesota
Performance Date: 4/26/2015
Primary Language: English
Language: None

Informant: “One saying that my Grandparents use to always tell me was…’Don’t take any wooden nickels’. This was this weird thing where I didn’t even know what that meant, I didn’t even know what a wooden nickel was. I think this goes back to tougher times in the U.S. where there were places that as part of your change or what have you, they would give you a wooden nickel, not a real nickel. It was some sort of promotion or thing like that where instead of giving you the real change which would be a few cents, they would instead give you a wooden nickel, and you could take that wooden nickel and go back to that place of business and use the wooden nickel as if it was five cents. Except… a real copper penny and a real nickel, you could use anywhere, and if you or I had a real copper penny or a real nickel from back in the 20’s or the 30’s today, not only would it be worth at least its face value, but it would be worth a lot more than that! The wooden nickel, unless there’s some collector out there, the wooden nickel is worthless. So the idea was as you’re buying things from people, as you’re entering into business arrangements, don’t get duped, don’t sell for anything less than being paid real money, because you don’t want to be cheated or gypped, and that wooden nickel might turn out to be worthless, so it would be foolish to take it… I think my grandfather was really just trying to pass down his ideals on how you needed to be smart with your money to [me], careful with your money, and not get duped. Because it’s hard to make money, and if you lose the money you have, especially when he grew up and lived through [the Great Depression] it was really bad if you lost your money. There was no safety net, your whole family might be having problems, and so you had to be careful. What’s really interesting was he always told me to never take any wooden nickels, and later in life he gave me some of his coins from his coin collection, and included in the coin collection he gave me was a wooden nickel.

Informant is a middle aged banker who frequently travels internationally on business, and is a father of three. He identifies as ‘American’, although his mother is of Czech heritage. He grew up in Oregon and Washington and currently lives in the Midwestern United States.

Collector Analysis: The first significant thing to consider is the fact that this is a proverb about money, told by an individual who works in the finance field, which is probably a bit telling in and of itself. This collector thought that the informant’s explanation of and analysis of this proverb was interesting. Previously, this proverb has been interpreted as if the person taking the wooden nickel did not know that it was a wooden nickel, and thus the meaning of this proverb we be “don’t let yourself get tricked”. However, the knowledge that this proverb originated in a context where the person taking the wooden nickel knew that it was a wooden nickel changes the meaning somewhat. Specifically, the meaning then becomes something more along the lines of “never take a promise of payment when you could instead take the actual payment”.

For another usage of this proverb, see cited work below:
M.S. Clark “Don’t Take Any Wooden Nickels”, Thorndike Press, 2003.

Dung Dreams

Nationality: Korean
Age: 50
Occupation: Housewife
Residence: Cupertino, CA
Performance Date: 3/17/2014
Primary Language: Korean

Dung Dreams

똥싸는거는, 옛잘에 소가 똥을싸잖아, 소가 길에있는것들 다 막 먹고 똥을싸. 사람들은 지나가다가 길에 많이 이것저것 잃어버리잖아. 그래서 그것들을 소가 먹고 똥을싸. 소 똥에 엽전 (coin)이 나오는거야. 소 똥을 뒤집으면 밑에 엽전있을수있는거지. 똥이 좋다는 얘기는 소 똥이야 사람 똥이 아니고. 오직 소 똥.

 Long time ago, everyone had cows, everyone who farmed. The cows would walk along side the road, the same road as humans did. When humans traveled, they naturally dropped things here and there. The cows would eat this up, whatever it was. And so when it pooped, there was a chance that yeobjeon, coins (the form of money back then) could turn up. That’s why dreams with cow dung are a sign of good luck – not human poop but only cow dung.