Title: Birds & Fans
General Information about Item:
- Genre and Sub Genre
- Verbal Folklore: Superstition
- Language: English
- Country where Item is from: South Korea
Informant Data:
- Informant is currently a sophomore at Dartmouth College. She was born in Korea but has also lived in California and Seattle, which is where she currently lives. She is Catholic and supports Liberalism. Her hobby is cafe exploring and enjoying life in general.
Contextual Data:
- Social Context: The informant heard these superstition from female adult figures, such as her nanny, grandmother and mother. The others are from her common knowledge gained from books.
- Cultural Context: The superstitions relating to birds most likely comes from East Asian cultures, such as that of China. The context behind the fan-related superstition is unknown.
Item:
- Good Luck Superstition: Hearing the cry of a magpie
- Bad Luck Superstition: Seeing a crow, leaving the fan overnight
Associated file (a video, audio, or image file)
Transcript of Associated File:
Informant’s Comments:
- Korean believe that magpies bring good luck. I don’t really know why but it’s just a saying that a lot of adults say.
- For bad luck, apparently in Korea, there is a saying that if you sleep with you fan on then you’ll die from it. That’s like you know apparently not true but it was very huge.
- I feel like magpie is more of a generally East Asian cultural thing because I do think it’s pretty like, I also do think it exists in China. No idea why for the fan one
Collector’s Comments:
- The superstition regarding the fan is quite interesting, as it seems to be one that exclusively exists in Korea while being widespread within Korean society.
Collector’s Name: Kyoung Tae Kim (Tim)
Tags/Keywords:
- Superstition/Good Luck/Bad Luck/Korea/Magpie/Crow/Fan