Tag Archives: Vietnamese

Clapping to Reverse Bad Luck: Eye Twitch

Text:

Informant: “So, like my mom is very superstitious. She’s, um, Vietnamese, and she has a Buddhist background.

So, like, she heard from her parents that if your eye twitches, your right eye twitches, it means something bad’s gonna happen, or, like, more bad luck for the day. So, to reverse the bad luck, you have to clap twice until the twitching stops.

And then the thing is, like, if the left eye twitches, it’s good luck. Something good is going to happen.

I don’t know where she learned that from, or how that happens, but she told me that.

Whenever my eye twitches, I perform the clapping. Which is all the time.”

Context: The informant is a Chinese-Vietnamese-American USC student whose mother has a Buddhist background and is very superstitious. She learned this belief from her mother, who heard it from earlier generations. Even though she grew up in the U.S., she still follows the practice when it happens.

Analysis:
This is an example of folk belief and a protective ritual. The idea that an eye twitch signals good or bad luck functions as a sign, where the body is seen as predicting future events. The act of clapping twice to stop bad luck is a simple, repeated behavior meant to reverse or control that outcome. Even if she doesn’t fully understand where it comes from, she still does it, showing how superstitions are passed down and continue through habit and family influence.

Bad Luck Funeral Superstitions

Context:

My informant is a 56-year-old woman of Vietnamese descent. She was raised Buddhist, but when she married her Filipino Catholic husband, she adopted some Filipino practices and stories.

Text:

“For funeral services, like after attending the service or the cemetery the family would go somewhere else before heading home, like the market or a coffee shop. That’s in the Philippines traditions, to leave the bad energy somewhere else. But in the Vietnamese tradition, we would place a bowl of water by the door and walk over it to divert the bad spirits or the bad luck from the home.”

Analysis:

In both of these cultures, I see this ritual as a way of cleansing the body before entering the sanctuary of their homes. In Filipino culture, it seems that they focus more on the places with significance. So leaving the bad energy, means literally leaving it in one location before returning home. In Vietnamese culture, they seem to connect with water, an element of life. Stepping over the bowl of water might represent that the connection to Mother Nature and Earth is enough to cleanse themselves from the presence of death they were just in.

Vietnamese & Buddhist Healing Ritual/Belief

Text

S: “So, my mom, she’s very into like, I guess like folk medicine. She’s Vietnamese and Buddhist. So like whenever we’re feeling sick, like even if it’s not like a cold, like if we’re just like, have a headache or something. Do you guys know, like the suction cup? “

C: “Oh, I’ve heard it.”

S: “Yeah. There’s one that’s called where they like heat up the cup and then do that on your back. But this one, it’s kind of like pressure. So you kind of put the cup on your back and then like there’s like a little pump and then you put the cups all over your back. And then she [S’s mom] says like, oh, the redder your back is like the more sick you are, even though that’s like pretty sure that’s not true. So like as the days go on, like she keeps doing it and like if the redness going on, she’s like, oh, you’re feeling better or something, but she’s like, oh, like helps get the blood flowing and helps all that stuff.”

Context

Whenever anyone in S’s family doesn’t feel well – whether it be an illness like a cold or just a headache – S’s mom will take cups – or coins if there are no cups – and apply a specific amount of pressure. She believes that the redder the back becomes, the sicker one is, and that the combination of the pressure and release helps purge or cure the body of the illness/unwell feeling.

Analysis

This healing ritual seems to have a two part purpose: (1) to determine how ill one is – the redness of the back – and (2) to help the body heal from it whatever is afflicting it. The small change of the color of one’s back stands in for the immaterial presence of an affliction or illness which helps categorize this as a ritual, as well as its repeated, pattern, and symbolic characteristics.

Steam Bath

Age: 24
Occupation: Paraprofessional

[Do you have any home remedies? Things you would do when you were sick as a kid?]

“I do! Either my grandmother or mother would boil a big pot of water. After it was steaming you would add pomelo leaves, lemon grass, and other herbs, ginger. Next, you would set it on the floor and kind of hover over it and bath in it, and it would open up your airways. It would also combat the cold air, if that makes sense.”

[It does! I know some cultures have hot and cold foods, but not like their actual temperature, but their impact on the body. Is it similar to that?]

“Exactly! It’s like when you were sick, your body was cold, and you need to heat it back up.Pho is also considered hot, because of all the spices.”

[Was this only for sickness? And when do you first remember seeing or doing it?]

“It was something my family did, but also my friends and some neighbors. And not necessarily, I know pregnant women or people who were about to be sick would also do it. Like after strenuous activity, it would tighten up muscles”.

Analysis: As I mentioned during my interview, many cultures share the idea of “hot” and “cold” foods, and this is the first time I’ve seen it out of a purely food context. After the interview with my informant, they mentioned how they felt that traditional medicine can be seen as more “gimmicky” because it tends to lean towards “cure-alls”, versus scientific medicine that pinpoints 1 issue. I think that in our example, you can see both of these ideas appear, the usage of the steam bath serves 2 purposes: to rid the body of cold air (something considered more “folky”) and to clear sinuses/the airway (which could be considered more “real” to Western medicine). I’m curious as to how, depending on the audience, steam baths could be portrayed: as a way for anyone to clear cold air, or only for people who are sick with clogged sinuses.

Folk Belief: String on Finger

Age: 24
Occupation: Paraprofessional

“I’m not sure if it has an actual name, but it’s like if you get a stye on your eye, it means you saw something you shouldn’t have. You would then tie a black string around your finger- I can’t remember, either middle or ring- 12 or 13 times. You would keep it there until it fell off to ward of bad luck”

[Would you do this yourself?]

“No, it was mostly my grandmother and sometimes my mother. Oh! And it also had to be done on the left hand.”

Analysis: There’s a lot to unravel here (like a string, haha): beginning with the stye on the eye, I think that many cultures consider the eyes “windows to the soul”, so it makes sense that any particular harm to the eye would be considered very serious. Additionally, there’s this “seeing something you shouldn’t have” element, which has manifested itself into a physical bump on the body. There’s a lot of folklore surrounding the idea of karma, which I think this also exemplifies: you saw something you shouldn’t, so now you have a bump and the possibility of bad future luck. What I find particularly interesting is the number of times the string must be wrapped around the finger: In many cultures, 13 can be considered an unlucky number, but here, it is used as protection against bad luck.