The Main Piece
Look at your hand, making it as flat as possible with your fingers firmly touching one another. Do you see any holes or spaces between your fingers? Well, one can only hope not. According to my friend, Demie, any holes between the cracks of your fingers represent a great loss of money and income. For many Chinese people it is believed that money will fall through the slits of your hand, leaving you unable to catch it. She even remembers seeing portraits of men and women trying to catch their money, but it continuously falling back towards the ground. It served as a reminder to keep your hands tight and shut, especially when holding money. “My father always told me when I had cash in my hands to hold onto it tight, or it’ll fall through. But I think he also just didn’t want me to drop any of it on the ground.” This superstition reveals the Chinese belief in having one’s fate semi-predetermined.
Background Information
My informant is Demie Cuo, a current undergraduate student at USC and friend of my close friend, Elizabeth Kim. She has yet to meet someone that has holes between their fingers but has always figured “there has to be some people out there with them… what’s the point of making a belief that affects no one.” Demie recalls having her elementary school friends tell her this belief. “We were really into superstitions and beliefs like that. Especially one’s where we could figure out what our lives would be like in the future.”
Context
As we were studying together and she was procrastinating on her homework in the study lounge, she started staring at her hand and brought up this folk belief that she was told by her friends.
Personal Thoughts
I found this interesting to hear about having one’s wealth predetermined for them. It is easy to state that “the world’s against you,” but it is another thing to believe that it is because of body shapes, birthmarks, etc. that one’s life turned out the way that it did. The story was unique and interesting, I had heard of beliefs having to do with the markings on the palm of one’s hand, but never the cracks of their fingers.