Tag Archives: Superstition

The Haunted Forth Floor

Context:

The informant attended the same elementary school as me. We ended up going to different middle schools but somehow remained in contact. She is now studying Chinese literature at a highly selective university in China.

Text:

In the informant’s Chinese local college, there is a well-known student folklore about the “haunted fourth floor” of the Literature Building. Students say that after a certain hour in the evening, you should no longer step into the fourth floor, or else you will be cursed by a ghost who died in the building. There is also sayings that the literature building use to be a small factories, and a worker died from an accident yet their family was not compensate, thus he haunts the livings. Students sometimes would avoid staying there alone, especially during exam season.

The informant doesn’t believe in this ghost story. She thinks the fear is closely tied to the number four itself, which in Chinese pronunciation is similar to the word for “death” (死). Because of this association, the number is widely considered unlucky, and in some buildings it is either skipped or treated with discomfort. She considered this as superstition.

But when asked if she would go study there, she said no.

Analysis:

This folklore shows how superstition, memory, and academic pressure come together to shape student space and behavior. The “haunted fourth floor” draws on the cultural association between the number four and death, which gives the location an immediate symbolic unease even without belief in ghosts. At the same time, the story of a worker’s death adds a narrative of unresolved injustice, turning the building into a site of imagined haunting and moral tension. Even though the informant personally rejects the supernatural explanation, her reluctance to study there suggests that folklore can still influence behavior without belief.

Lucky and Unlucky

Age: 23

TEXT

Collector: What do you find lucky, what do you wish on?

Informant: I wish on birthday candles and I suppose if I ever saw a shooting star, however I haven’t. This works for me because I’ve always heard about it in stories and movies. Something lucky is a ladybug if I ever see one because my mom told me stories of ladybugs being lucky and making a wish on them as you let them fly away.

Collector: What about bad luck? What can you tell me about that?

Informant: Bad luck or superstitions like going under a ladder or seeing a black cat pass by? If I see a black cat on my path, I usually don’t feel unlucky because there is a black cat that always visits my house and I always give him food, and at one time, he was a strange black cat that crossed my path.

CONTEXT

This informant from Chicago provides me with their take on luck and bad luck, as well as how these superstitions formed. They cited ladybugs, shooting stars, and birthday candles as both symbols of good luck and something to wish upon. Whereas they spoke on superstitions they grew up being designated as bad luck, such as black cats and walking under ladders, but offer their disbelief in these rituals.

ANALYSIS

Talking to this informant was interesting because it revealed what makes something lucky/ unlucky to some individuals and how those superstitions form. This individual uses firsthand experience to dictate what superstitions they believe, and emotional attachments and stories passed on by family to determine luck. In this family, they have cultivated their own ritual of catching, releasing, and wishing on a ladybug as it flies away, symbolically releasing the wish into the world.

Good Luck Ritual in a Car

Age: 38
Hometown: Menlo Park, CA
Location: In a car

Context:
My mom has done this ritual for as long as I can remember. She does it whether she is the one driving or sitting in the passenger seat. She doesn’t remember exactly who taught her this but she remembers it was a popular thing to do when she was a kid in the 90s.

Content:
Interviewer: “Why do you always tap the dashboard when we’re in the car?”

Interviewee: “So when I was younger, my friend taught me to tap the dashboard twice then the top of the roof then the dash again whenever you see a [car driving by with] one headlight because it’s for good luck.

Interviewer: “Have you always done that? Where did you get that ritual from?”

Interviewee: “When we were kids we did it and I always have.”

Analysis:
This example is a representation of folk ritual which is rooted in superstition. The tapping sequence on the dashboard and roof shows how people rely on repetition and consistency to feel like they’re doing something right in order to get good luck. This habit seems to have started as something that people thought more about, but over time it becomes automatic. Overall, this example highlights a greater human tendency to search for good luck and fortune in places where it might not logically exist, such as a car.

Mystery Man on Tecate Ranch

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Age: 28

Text: Interviewer – “What kind of ghost stories have you been told, told yourself, or know? Where did you learn them?”

CB – “There is a one specific ghost story for my family. A long time ago they used to own a ranch in Tecate. Near the southern edge of property was an old graveyard. According to my mother local cartel would double stuff the graves there with people they are getting rid of and one of those victims stayed around. Sometimes late at night, you can see him standing out the side of the road like he was waiting for a ride, for the afterlife or to a job you’re supposed to go to nobody knows. My mother swears she saw him once when they were out hunting rabbits in the evening. Normally, they weren’t allowed in the area at night because of the cartel, but she could see the access road from the hilltop and swore there was a man there that her sister couldn’t see.”

Interviewer – “Have you shared this story with anyone else outside of your family?”

CB – “Nope. Not really.”

Interviewer – “Thank you for sharing it with me, then.”

Context: This ghost story was told to CB by their mother, detailing the events of their own upbringing and paranormal stories. This being one of the many stories that their mother shared, usually ending with multiple spines of cacti, though with this ending in a much more supernatural atmosphere, unsure of what she saw was actually there or not. The story itself, until me, was only circulated within the family’s own folk group of believers and nonbelievers, whether it be something spooky to be feared or silly to be laughed at.

Analysis: Stories of the paranormal run deep within areas of burial, death, or where spirits would be inclined to seek revenge. Given how the circumstances of the cartels pressence within CB’s mother’s story lines up, the tale aligns itself with others of its kind where the point of origin is a crossroad of death. Additionally, CB’s mother’s perspective aligns with an environment which would encourage one to become more naturally accepting of the paranormal, supernatural forces, or spirits/apparitions. Given the setting, an old graveyard with a trouble history of unrest at night all with only one other person, CB’s mother, regardless of whether she actually saw something, would be automatically more inclined to agree that she did due to the mood and environment. Furthermore, attaching stories to the deceased is a classic trope of ghost stories, imposing their own subtales onto the larger tale at large, whether it be a woman in white, lonely hitchhiker, or in the case of CB’s mother, a victim of the cartel waiting for a ride to work.

Theater Good Luck Ritual

Age: 21

Text:

Informant: “One that I learned growing up that when I’ve done it in other places, people are like, “What the hell are you doing?” It’s like before the show, you’re all standing there behind the curtain waiting to go up. Usually I only end up doing this if it’s a show that I start in the first number, not if I come on later. You know one of those shows where you’re in the ensemble and everybody is standing behind the curtain waiting there. One that I always did was this” (holds hand in fist and raises thumb and pinky finger.) “Like if you’re doing sign language and signing “you and I.” You go around to the other people in the cast and you link pinkies and bite your thumb and it’s just a little way of saying “break a leg, have a good show.” It’s just a little good luck thing. I always did that at the theater that I did shows with growing up and then I went to other places and they were like, “What the hell are you doing?” I was like, “Oh,” (laughs) “Nevermind.” Other than that, when people say “Good luck” to me it makes me really anxious. I’m like “No. That’s bad luck. You can’t say “good luck,” you have to say “Break a leg.””

Interviewer: “Do you remember being taught how to do that or was it just that you observed other people doing it so you just did it, too?”

Informant: “The hand thing, I think it was something that – I did children’s theater and it was just sort of something that was in the culture of that theater. I don’t even know if they do it anymore. When I was there, I think it was the second show I ever did was Mary Poppins and everybody who starts on stage for the ensemble are frozen in their spots so we’d be standing there behind the curtain and all of the older kids would come around and show us how to do it. From there, that was something that I did most every show I was in, and teaching the younger kids how to do it.”

Interviewer: “So was it mostly younger kids and teens or were the adults doing it, too?”

Informant: “It was a children’s theater so the oldest kids were seniors in high school. The group that I was part of was late middle school and high schoolers so we wouldn’t really interact with the younger younger kids, but it was definitely the seniors in high school teaching the youngest.”

Context:

The informant was part of a community theater growing up. They learned rituals specific to their theater from the older students. When the informant went on to join college theater, they learned that other people had never heard about that particular good luck ritual.

Analysis:

Theatre has many superstitions, likely because it has been around for over 2500 years. The superstitions are shared amongst theater members who participate in plays and musicals. Traditionally, these rituals are passed on by the adults or older teens to the young children. Many of them are widely known across theater’s everywhere, such as “Break a leg” for good luck. Naturally, certain theater members will create their own superstitions or rituals that get passed on and stay within that theater, and are foreign to people outside it. The goal is that it gets taught to the younger kids by the older kids to keep the tradition alive. It can be considered a functionalist approach because it’s meant to bring good luck for the performers to do well on stage.