Tag Archives: numbers

Haunted house at the end of the street

Nationality: Mexican
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 4, 2023
Primary Language: English

[A]: I grew up in like an 8 house horizontal neighborhood, you know like 8 houses and they were gated off, and when I turned 5 or 6 the last house at the end, the people left and the house was just there sitting for like 3 years between the period that the family was living there and the next one. So me and my friends that lived in the other houses always used to say that that house was haunted and that’s why they had left. So when Halloween would come around we would walk over to the house, ‘cause there was also like…it was at the end and it was blocked off with big hedges so you couldn’t totally see it like the rest of the neighborhood. So we used to go in there and grab little stones from the pavement and toss them at the windows to see if a spirit would appear or something. So for that whole time we used to say that the house was haunted.

[Me]: Did you guys just decide one day that the house was haunted or was there something specifically that happened?

[A]: I think we always used to just say it…I don’t think there was anything specifically but we used to say a bunch of stuff about why it was haunted. It was the last house, number 8, and we used to say that 8 was a haunted number and that we had seen the number in the night and that the house would spin in circles and the lights would flicker on and off…allegedly…we were probably just little kids making up stuff

[Me]: Did you ever go on to the property?

[A]: I don’t think we ever broke into the house but we definitely went into the yard and on to the patio and the driveway and we used to again throw rocks at the windows then one of us would scream that we saw something then we would run away or whatever

A is 21 years old and grew up in a small town in Mexico. He told me this story after I had asked him if he remembered any scary or ghost stories from when he was younger, but as he recounted it like more of a happy memory than one that still scared him—as most scary stories from youth seem in adulthood. Afterwards I prompted him to tell me a bit more about the role the number 8 played in the story, but the details were unfortunately lost to time. Regardless, reflecting on our class discussion about the “luckiness” of numbers in certain cultures, it got me thinking about how the number 8 is perceived in popular American culture; typically it’s considered a lucky or at least auspicious number (i.e. magic 8 ball), so I’d be interested to dive deeper into whether this was just an instance of kids being kids or if there’s some deeper significance in Mexican culture.

A’s story contains many motifs common to the general concept of a haunted house: blocked off from the rest of the community, a mysterious backstory, etc. I found it interesting that both of the haunted house stories I collected for this portion weren’t necessarily well-known in the community but were instead primarily known and/or created by a group of young kids.

Number Games and Familial Ties

“A game that my family has given meaning is we play a number guessing game, especially on road trips and it started out as a joke by my dad because my sister and I would always ask for things to do or things to play.  But it’s evolved into something that we unironically choose to do because we’ve given it such meaning. To me, it, it, it symbolizes … it’s hard to describe, it symbolizes, like, the nature of friendly competition and always loving to challenge each other to silly little things. It’s really a simple and rather stupid game.  You give them a range and you give them a certain number of tries to guess the number, and you tell them ‘higher or lower’ to see if they can guess the number.  and while it may seem like it’s sort of just luck, we’ve gotten to the point where we can make more informed guesses based on who came up with the number because we know each other so well. and then that way it also just symbolizes our connection…”

Background: The informant is a 19 year-old college student who went on road trips often with his family growing up.  The game shared with me was created by his father when he was 9 and has become a staple part of their traveling as a family in the years since.

Context: I was told about this game in USC’s Annenberg Hall during a quick interview.

It’s interesting how simple games can become a symbol of a family’s close connections to each other.  Shared activities like the number game can become a small group of people’s defining characteristic, and the informant was enthusiastic about how they could guess the patterns that each player used in the game as an indicator of how well they knew each other.

Unlucky Number Four

Nationality: Chinese-Taiwanese American
Age: 22
Occupation: Production Assistant
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 10th, 2019
Primary Language: English
Language: Chinese (Mandarin)

Informant:

E, a 22-year-old Chinese-Taiwanese female who was born and raised in Los Angeles. She is currently a senior at the University of Southern California.

Background info:

E’s first language was English, but because her parents were immigrants, she quickly learned Mandarin as well. Her parents are proud of their culture, and thus they often participated in many Taiwan and Chinese traditions, and believed many of the superstitions, as well. This is one of the superstitions Eileen’s mother believed.

Context:

Late at night, a lot of weird conversations happen. Because E is on a project with me, we were working together at around 2:00am when we started discussing superstitions. When she knocked on wood, it brought this conversation up. The following is a transcript of the conversation I had with E. (I will be represented with a J)

Main piece:

J: “Are there any other superstitions that you experienced growing up? With your family or friends? School, even?

E: “Uhh… Well, because my dad was Chinese, he would always warn us about the number 4. In Chinese, the number four sounds the same as the word death, so we would avoid it like the plague. Even today, if I have to travel, I ask to be moved to a new hotel room if I am placed on the fourth floor. In china, most of the hotels don’t even have a fourth floor. It just goes from the third to the fifth floor.… Freshman year, I had to stay on the fourth floor of the dorms, and it was one of the wort years of my life.”

J: “Why was it so bad?”

E: “Well, I was constantly getting sick, and I really seemed to struggle in my classes. As soon as I moved out of those dorms, my grades improved a lot, too! So you know, that kind of solidified it for me, I guess.”

J: “What are your thoughts on the number 7? A lot of people believe that it is almost the opposite of that. That the number 7 represents fortune or good luck. Are there any like that in Chinese folklore that you know of?”

E: “Yeah, here in the United States, 7 is big. 7 for good luck, and 13 for bad luck. Even our gambling has a game specifically for rolling dice to get 7. And of course, Friday the thirteenth. In terms of lucky Chinese numbers, the number 8 is considered to be pretty lucky. It sounds similar to a word that means ‘making fortune’ or ‘to make a fortune’.”

Thoughts:

This superstition seems to be a common theme across cultures. There seems to be an unlucky number that cultures try to avoid. For example, I’ve also seen hotels in the United States that do not have a thirteenth floor. A lot of buildings stop at the twelfth floor, too. There also tends to be a lucky number in each culture. We have the overarching 7 being lucky, but then people in the United States also have “lucky numbers” that they look for. It could be the person’s birthday, or just a number that they experienced something positive with growing up.

47: The New 13

Nationality: American
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 3/27/18
Primary Language: English

Alright so we’re flying out to Hawaii, myself and three other friends who also believe the power of 47 and, by the way, our groupchat name is 47. So, we get to the airport and we see that it, not only our gate number’s 47, but the time that were flying out? 3:47.

‘ get on the plane, take off, fly for 30 minutes over the water, the pilot says, “This is your captain speaking. There’s been a malfunction with the plane and the- the s- uh-uh-uh the technology to fly over water is not working right now. We need to turn around.”

So we fly another 30 minutes back to LAX, so we’ve been in the air for about an hour and we have fuel for five hours ‘cuz we’re supposed to go to Hawaii, so were full of- full of gas – a lot heavier – we turn around, we land at LAX with the firefighters and paramedics there just in case.

‘ everything’s fine, we get off, we go t- we go to Ono Hawaiian Barbecue that night ‘cuz we wanted Hawaiian food – we’re supposed to go to Hawaii – so like of course- L&L. It was L&L Hawaiian Barbecue closes at 11, so we run to it (gesturing sprinting by swinging his arms at his sides with fists clenched). My receipt number’s number order 47. It was too much, too much.
So, then, in Hawaii, we ate uhh then in Hawaii after the very. 1st. day. we get there, we go snorkeling. I get stung by a box jellyfish, my arm swells up like crazy and burns, hurts so bad. The 47 ruined everything after that. The next day we drink at my friends’ house. My friend got way too drunk and threw up in his bed, slept right in the puke, woke up the next day super sick. Everything was bad bad. That’s all from the trip. 47.

The Informant had zero hesitation when I asked him if he had a lucky or unlucky number. He said, “Oh dude 47. 47 for sure.” I feel like he could talk for hours about spooky coincidences that seem to always revolve around the presence of the number 47.

The first and one of the only recorded instances of a distinctive focus on the number 47 began at Pomona College. A student tried to determine if the number occurred more often than any other random number. This turned into a widespread hunt throughout the campus for 47 and has turned into a traditional celebration on campus ever April 7th. The Pomona inside joke has popped up throughout many Hollywood films and TV shows, but there is never any indication of good or bad things associated with its presence. It seems as though the number 47 exists in the mediums for the sake of existing; not good luck and not bad luck.

This collection was funny, especially because the Informant had a seemingly endless list of examples to share with me. I couldn’t get him to shut up about it. Because of this, I was shocked that there hasn’t been recorded examples of the unluckiness of the fateful number 47.

Pair of Chinese Number Riddles

Nationality: Taiwanese-American
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA, USA
Performance Date: April 22, 2017
Primary Language: English
Language: Chinese

“A riddle… This one, this one’s uhh, a good riddle, because it also translates to English. So it’s umm, there’s a fisherman, oh, umm…

So you know how there’s Chinese New Year, right? And fifteen days after Chinese New Year, because Chinese New Year is a two-week celebration, fifteen day celebration, and the last day is the lantern festival. And at a traditional lantern festival, you uhh, you have a parade with a bunch of lanterns, you eat, like, a specific food, which is called like… Literal translation is, like, ‘soup balls,’ but it’s like, uhh, kinda like mochi kinda thing, it’s rice, rice balls, and like, sugar water… and then, umm, you also do riddles, that’s like also part of the festival.

So I learned this riddle when I was participating in that holiday, we had like… something… umm… and the riddle is:

‘A fisherman went out one day, and, umm… so first he caught… 6 fish without the head, then 9 fish without the tail, then 8 fish except these fish were only half a fish each. How many fish did he catch in total?’ ”

Like… whole fish?

“It’s a riddle! [laughs]

Okay, the answer is zero. And you’re like, ‘What the, what the heck?’ Because umm, if you take the number 6, and write it in Arabic numerals, and you take off the top half, it becomes 0. Same with the 9, if you take the bottom half it becomes 0. If you take 8 and you cut it in half, then it’s 0. So you have 0+0+0! [laughs]

It’s some trickery! Yeah!”

Why Arabic numerals?

“Umm, well, this isn’t, this isn’t like a really old one, but like, I just learned this one in the context of this Chinese event. And like, Chinese people like numbers, too, you know? [laughs]

It’s part of it, So like, I dunno if this part is a trick. There’s a version where… Is there a version? No, I don’t remember any other specific riddles, but I know there were a lot that had to deal with, like, what the actual Chinese numbers were written as in Chinese. I don’t remember any of those riddles. But I remember there was like a series of them…

Oh! There’s one… umm… it’s uhh… what is… you take half of six and round down, what is it. And you need to know how six is written in Chinese. It’s written like… dot on top, straight line, and then two dashes that are like kinda sloped into each other on the bottom. And you take half of six and round down, the actual meaning of the riddle is: You look at the bottom half of six, and that’s what eight is written as.

So then the question would be like half of six, round down. And all the little kids would be like ‘three!’ And you’d be like ‘no!!! It’s eight!’ And then they circle it on the board, and you go ‘wooooooow!’ [laughs]

Yeah, so that was like, basic level riddles.