Superstition #2

Title: Birthday Festival & Name in Red

General Information about Item:

  • Genre and Sub Genre
    • Verbal Folklore: Superstition
  • Language: English
  • Country where Item is from: South Korea

Informant Data:

  • The informant was born in Korea but has also lived in Singapore and in the United States. He is Roman Catholic and his hobbies are playing tennis and watching soccer and basketball. His aspiration is to enhance the image of his home country, South Korea.

Contextual Data:

  • Social Context: The informant has heard most of these superstitions from friends and family members. However, he also mentions that some superstitions are widespread knowledge that a lot of Korean people know.
  • Cultural Context: The informant suggests that the origin of the superstitions can be traced to China. He cites this rationale to the lack of the number ‘4’ in Korean elevators, which can be directed to the Chinese aversion towards the number 4 due to its similarity to the sound of the word meaning death.

Item:

  • Good Luck Superstition: A baby picking up a pencil on his/her first birthday
  • Bad Luck Superstition: Writing your name in red

Associated file (a video, audio, or image file):

Transcript of Associated File:

Informant’s Comments:

  • In Korea, we celebrate first birthday of babies and during the birthday celebration there are various object that are placed in front of the baby such as a pencil, soccer ball, a baseball ball, and money and each object represents the career path of that baby.
  • in Korea, it’s common knowledge that if you write someone’s name in red, the color red, it probably means that they want that person to die.
  • I mostly heard it from my friends and my family members. I can’t remember exactly who told me because this is common knowledge and there are a lot of references to the superstitions in every day life

Collector’s Comments:

  • It is interesting that the informant attributes some of the superstitions to Chinese origins, which is highly likely considering the geographic proximity.

Collector’s Name: Kyoung Tae Kim (Tim)

Tags/Keywords:

  • Superstition/Good Luck/Bad Luck/Korea/Red/Death/4/Baby

 

 

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