Tag Archives: university lore

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.

Purdue University Bell Tower Superstition

Text

At Purdue University, there is a long-standing superstition that if you walk under the Bell Tower, where the university seal is, you will not graduate within four years.

Context

My informant is a 20 year old sophomore at Purdue University studying mechanical engineering. I was interested in learning about folklores surrounding other universities, and asked him if he could recall any fun ones he heard at Purdue. He shared that he learned about this superstition during his official freshman orientation, and that while he isn’t superstitious, he actively goes out of his way to walk around the tower just in case.

Analysis

What I found most interesting about this superstition is that compared to other university superstitions, which are often vernacular and informally transmitted throughout students, this legend was told to the students during their official freshman orientation. It may be possible that this legend started vernacular but became so famous that the university incorporated it as a “fun fact” at official meetings, which mirrors some of our lecture concepts of how folklore can often become commercialized, like Native American cultures often being popular costumes.

Another interesting component of this superstition is its function; at its surface, it functions as a warning with serious consequences, yet also creates a strong sense of school culture implicitly. To start, this superstition is transmitted to the new members of the Purdue students folk group, showing that it is an important element that only insiders can relate to. In addition, since the reason walking under this tower bringing bad luck is because it forces students to step on the university seal, it indirectly sends a message for the students to take pride and respect their university, as stepping on the official logo could symbolically be seen as a sign of disrespect.

Finally, such superstitions of not walking under a certain building or a touching a certain statue exists in various universities. Beyond the multiplicity of this genre of folklore, the fact that such superstitions continue to exist and influence the actions of students like my informant shows the power of long-standing folklore, regardless of the levels of belief. All in all, I find this tradition to have great cultural value in terms of school pride for students, but also a great exemplification of the key elements of folklore like multiplicity and the sense of belonging they create.

UC Davis “Undie Run”

Nationality: American
Age: 24
Occupation: Actuary
Residence: San Diego, CA
Performance Date: 4/27/20
Primary Language: English

Background: The informant is an American UC Davis 2018 alumni who currently works as an actuary in San Diego, CA. He learned the tradition while attending university in Davis, CA, but never partook in it himself. 

Context: The following piece was collected in a brief, casual over-the-phone interview.

Piece: 

Informant: “So around finals, usually like the Wednesday of finals week every semester there was an ‘undie run.’ So everyone uh, if you were going to donate your clothes would just strip off whatever clothes you were going to donate, leave them there, and then just run around the campus in your underwear.” 

Collector: “Wait so there’s like a clothing drive?”

Informant: “Uh, there was at some portions er like at some of them like as I was going there it seemed like it was becoming less and less popular.”

Collector: “But people still took off their clothes and ran around in their underwear?”

Informant: “Yeah in like a big group, a big mob. They’d run through all the dorms, all the like cafeterias so you’d be like out getting cookies and there’d be a bunch of people just acting like drunk idiots.”

Collector: “Would they be drunk?”

Informant: “I’m sure some people were drunk but not most of them.”

Collector: “Was it during the day or at night?”

Informant “Mostly at night. Anyone who wants to go can it’s like a Facebook event.” 

Analysis: I have heard of a similar tradition at USC in which seniors run across campus half-naked and swim in each of the fountains before graduation. This tradition differs in that it is open to all UC Davis students and occurs more than once in an academic year. Finals week is a transitory period in which the results from a semester’s worth of classes is still largely undetermined. It is usually a very stressful time for students, so the undie run provides a brief liberation from traditional social expectations. It’s important that it happens in a group so that the act becomes more publicly acceptable. If it were just one individual, it is possible that they would get arrested for public nudity, whereas a larger group performance assures the unlikelihood that law enforcement would be able to punish every individual. It would be interesting to examine more colleges across the country to see how many have an underwear run tradition.