Tag Archives: Superstition

Threshold – Superstition

Nationality: African American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

Informant: I also refuse to step on the thresholds of houses, which is an Asian culture thing,, which is weird.

Person: Because it will break your mom’s back.

MG: No, that’s exactly what I was told. It’s a really weird thing because I am not Asian, but I was told that by one of my Asian friends when I was a kid. She was like “oh we can’t step on the threshold” and I was like okay. And then her grandmother, I asked her I was lke “why can’t we step on the threshold, like, grandma lady?” And she was like, “oh because it’s gonna break, like, Mrs. Woo’s back.” And I was like, “Sweet.” And to this day I still don’t do it, and my parents really don’t like it.

DH: They don’t like that you don’t do it?

MG: Well, they just, like, they just, they like—I avoid it to, like, a point where they’re like this is annoying. Like, we’ll all be walking into the house at the same time, and I like have to step over it, and sometimes it takes me longer, I like cause a bit of a jam, and they’re like, why.

Collector: Wait, how do you mean the threshold?

MG: You know when you like open a door, and there’s like, that, slightly higher piece of wood that keeps the door from like just like sliding in and out? That’s a threshold. So you can’t step on it because it’s like “don’t step on the crack, you’ll break your mom’s back.” The same type of thing, but with the threshold of your door.

 

Informant is a junior at the University of Southern California. She is studying communications here. She is from Boston, Massachusetts. She spent a while in the southern part of Spain, and speaks fluent Spanish. I spoke to her while we were eating lunch at my sorority house one day. We were sitting together with some of my other informants. Much of what she told me was learned from her own experiences.

 

This is interesting because it combines a proverb type of saying with a practice this informant learned from a Chinese friend of hers. It’s interesting to see how older traditions and superstitions travel around through ages and places to become a common saying that kids use. When I was a child, I knew the saying about breaking your mother’s back, but I was not aware that this applied to any type of threshold. This also almost has a connection to vampire myths and how they need to be invited in before crossing the threshold of a home. She takes longer to get into houses because of this limitation.

 

For an example of this, https://books.google.com/books?id=5mU5dN3mDeIC&pg=PA65&lpg=PA65&dq=chinese+stepping+over+threshold+to+a+house&source=bl&ots=YaQVvHlkSb&sig=nTaz_Omz-JYjPrbqe4KgxA4LGrA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjYm6iP27DMAhUilYMKHR7LAyAQ6AEIOTAG#v=onepage&q=chinese%20stepping%20over%20threshold%20to%20a%20house&f=false

This book has a section on etiquette and it says to never sit in the threshold, similar to the informant not stepping onto it.

The 13th Floor

Nationality: Asian
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Palm Springs, California
Performance Date: Monday, April 18th, 2016
Primary Language: English

“The superstition is that in a building if it has a 13th floor, it is bad luck to live on the 13th floor. Also I’ve heard that elevators will drop once it hits the 13th floor. That is why there is the Tower of Terror at California Adventures in Anaheim.”

 

When did you first hear about this?

“I first heard the superstition from my grandmother who is superstitious in very odd ways. Half of the superstitions she believes are bad luck and some of the bad luck superstitions are actually good luck. For this superstition, she owes a property and believes that the 13th floor is good luck. But when I investigated, most people think it is bad luck. I think it started when she was little and she had a black cat as a pet. There is a superstition that if a black cat crosses your path it is bad luck. But she had a blessed life and lived through WWII. And so she started believing that all bad luck superstitions may be good luck for her.”

 

Do you believe these superstitions?

“I don’t necessarily believe the black cat superstition or the 13th floor superstition as bad luck. If anything I believe my grandma that it may be good luck.”

 

What do you think this story means?

“I have a theory that the 13th floor superstition was created when skyscrapers were not popular and first being made and that if the building got too high it might fall over. Or it is not structurally stable enough.”

 

Analysis:

It seems as though luck plays a large role in Chinese culture and tradition. While this superstition is not originally Chinese, the informant’s grandmother played a large role in her interpretation of the story. The 13th floor and black cats are usually seen, especially in America, as omens of back luck and misfortune. However, the informant and her grandmother’s Chinese background influenced the way that they view these stories.

 

For more stories, information, and details about the 13th floor superstition and other number related stories, please visit:

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/02/skipping-the-13th-floor/385448/

Li, SHIRLEY. “Skipping the 13th Floor.” The Atlantic. Atlantic Media Company, n.d. Web. 28 Apr. 2016.

Never Sleeping With Hands Crossed

Nationality: Hispanic
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Chicago, Illinois
Performance Date: Tuesday, April 19th, 2016
Primary Language: Spanish
Language: English

“Never sleep with my hands crossed over my chest. She [informant’s mom] would think Death would think I was dead by accident and take you away. And I would die. My mom was an intense old lady.”

 

In what situation would you hear this story?

“Right before bed because it was the most comfortable way I would fall asleep.”

 

Was there a way to counteract having your hands crossed?

“My mom would just move my hands apart [when he was asleep]. Maybe her mom told me. My mom was pretty superstitious. She was really religious. She believed in an afterlife and karma and was afraid we would be mistaken for some reason or another. That’s about it. She was the only one to believe.”

 

Analysis:

I think this superstition represents the informant’s, and his family’s, beliefs in death. According to the informant, death has the ability to take life whenever it believes someone has passed, and potentially when the person is not actually dead. This story also represents the fear in mistakes.

Evil Eye Talisman

Nationality: American
Age: 66
Occupation: Attorney
Residence: San Jose, CA
Performance Date: April 2, 2016
Primary Language: English
Language: French

For as long as I can remember, my grandmother has kept an Evil Eye talisman hanging from the rear-view mirror of her car. During a celebration for my mother’s birthday, I pulled my grandmother aside and asked her the Evil Eye’s significance, following which she explained:

“Many years ago, two of my friends spent some time in Turkey. When they came home, they brought me an Evil Eye as a gift. All over Turkey, they put them outside of their door or inside of the car, and it is meant to ward off spirits by scaring them away. The superstition is that you cannot throw it away after someone gives it to you, that would be like inviting the evil spirits in. I have been in my car before and had people stop me and give me praise for keeping the Evil Eye visible, then show me where they keep theirs.”

I was somewhat familiar with the superstition surrounding the Evil Eye before talking with my grandmother, and knew that belief in the protection offered by one was prevalent in Greece. Hearing that her Evil Eye is from Turkey and that many other Americans have commented on the object (the informant, my grandmother, is from northern California), leads me to believe that this superstition is present in a great deal of cultures. Offering the object to someone as a gift encourages them to engage in the superstition surrounding it, because the object will remind the receiver of the giver while also supposedly serving as protection. Even if the owner of the Evil Eye does not necessarily have a deep-rooted belief in spirits, the object is significant in that it can offer a sense of comfort for the owner to suppress any worries that the spirits do exist, without the owner having to do anything more than keep the talisman somewhere close by. I myself am considering asking my grandmother for one to keep in my car, just in case.

Matching Ties for Jury Selection

Nationality: Attorney
Age: 66
Occupation: Attorney
Residence: San Jose, CA
Performance Date: April 17, 2016
Primary Language: English
Language: French

The informant, a 66-year-old American woman, has practiced law for over thirty years in the San Francisco Bay Area. I asked the informant if she would be able to hold a video call with me over FaceTime, and during our conversation I asked if she or her partners had any superstitions or rituals that they would engage in before entering court. She responded that while she herself did not have any particular good luck charms or pre-trial rituals,

“both of my partners insist on wearing the same tie on the first day of court. Not for the actual trial, but for jury selection, because that’s most important. I’ve seen other firms with similar traditions on the first day of trial, and while I don’t take part, Peter and Charles swear by it.”

Folklore in the workplace is always extremely interesting to hear about, especially when individuals who have been working together for a long period of time have engaged in the same traditions throughout their careers. Wearing the same tie on the day of jury selection seems to signify that the two partners are both on the same entering the trial for a particular case. This silent agreement between the two could very well help them to perform better during jury selection, by providing a bit of necessary reassurance from a close coworker. It is interesting that while other firms engage in the same superstition, that they do not always do so at the same point in the trial. This speaks to the difference in value that any particular firm places on a specific point in the trial. While some, like the informant’s partners, may view jury selection as most important, others see the first day in trial as the point at which good luck is most necessary. I asked the informant why her partners chose a tie and not any other sort of matching accessory, and she replied, “Matching ties are the least obtrusive. If a group of attorneys were to walk into court all wearing bright blue suits and dresses, nobody would take them seriously.” The professional atmosphere required by the courtroom, then, plays a role in the manifestation of this superstition. Perhaps for a group of soccer players, a similar superstition would result in a team wearing identical cleats instead of ties.