Title:Turtle as a Pet
General Information about Item:
- Genre and Sub Genre
- Example: verbal folklore: good luck/ bad luck superstition
- Language: English
- Country where Item is from: China
Informant Data:
- The informant is a current sophomore at Dartmouth College studying Computer Science. He is originally from Italy but lives in Los Angeles now. His parents are from China.
Contextual Data:
- Social Context: Yifei’s parents told him this superstition. Yifei was not allowed to have a turtle as a pet growing up.
- Cultural Context: Because turtles are very slow pets, having a turtle as a pet symbolizes your own wealth or business running very slowly. The slowness of the turtle manifests itself in one’s career goals
Item:
- If you keep a turtle as a pet, it will bring bad luck
Associated file (a video, audio, or image file):
Transcript of Associated File:
Informant’s Comments:
- Informant did not offer any more comments other than what was said above.
Collector’s Comments:
- This superstition is grounded in homeopathic magic, for Chinese people avoid having turtles as a pet out of fear that their slowness would manifest itself in their career goals and slow them down.
Collector’s Name: Leo Lei
Tags/Keywords:
- good/ bad/ luck/turtle/ pet/ slow/ business/ wealth/ slowly/ money