Text: “Many Chinese people, especially the older generations, won’t celebrate 10, 20, 30, etc because of the way the numbers are pronounced. [Ten] also sounds like the word ‘dead” and, in Chinese, twenty is ‘two-ten,’’ thirty is “three-ten,” and so on”
Context: My informant is Chinese and has grown up close to her relatives, especially as they aged. These are traditions that she remembered seeing in her childhood.
Analysis: This practice seems to be an age-related birthday ritual. As my informant described, “ten” in Chinese sounds like their word for “death.” Thus, it seems that to celebrate a “ten” birthday would be like inviting death. Chinese culture as a whole has many superstitions related to longevity. There seems to be a cultural fixation on living a long life, much more so than in American culture. I believe this is because, in Chinese culture, elders matter much more. For instance, in China, it is legally and culturally required for children to care for their aging parents to show respect and make up for the time their parents spent raising them. In America, it is much more common to see seniors taken care of by paid professionals in care facilities or living on their own. America, conversely, seems to place much more emphasis on youth. Proverbs like “Live fast, die young” and the idea of “peaking” early in life make old age not something to be revered, but tolerated in hopes of living vicariously through your kin. So, while the Chinese have many superstitions about avoiding death in old age, as is evidenced by my informant’s declaration that mostly old people subscribe to this superstition, Americans do not.