Superstition #11: The Number 8 Brings Good Luck

Title: The Number 8 Brings Good Luck

General Information about Item:

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

Informant Data:

  • Tian Zhang is a member of the class of 2020 and was born in China. When Tian was 11, he moved to New York where he would be raised until coming to Dartmouth. Tian is agnostic and leans to the left politically. Tian fears insects and in his free time enjoys traveling, listening to music, and playing pong.

Contextual Data:

  • Social Context: Tian learned that that number 8 was a lucky number from television shows growing up. Although he can’t remember which show he learned it from, he remembers that it was from a cartoon show.
  • Cultural Context: The number 8 is good luck in China because the number 8 also sounds like the words ‘wealth’, ‘fortune’, and ‘prosperity’ in Chinese.

Item:

  • Good Luck Superstition: The number 8 brings good luck.

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

Transcript of Associated File:

Tian_Transcript

Informant’s Comments:

  • Tian told me that he doesn’t obey this superstition because he doesn’t believe that choosing a number has any role in shaping reality. He says that the implications of choosing 8 don’t ever cross his mind when making decisions on which number to choose.

Collector’s Comments:

  • It’s interesting to learn that the number 8 sounds like words such as ‘wealth’, a clear indicator of bad luck. It would be interesting to research if a number like 13, widely considered an unlucky number in America, lends its roots partially to the way it sounds.

Collector’s Name: Gaurav Varma

Tags/Keywords:

  • Chinese/Good Luck/Superstition/Numbers/8

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