The Colour Black

Title: The Colour Black

General Information about Item:

Informant Data:

Informant is a twenty-one-year-old student, currently attending Dartmouth College in Hanover New Hampshire. The student lived in New England prior to attending Dartmouth College. Both of her parents identify as Chinese, and the informant identifies as Chinese-American. The informant emphasized that while her mother believed in these superstitions, she herself did not believe in the superstitions. The informant requested that she remain anonymous as she did not want to be identified as believing in the folklore.

Contextual Data:

Cultural Context: The colour black is can be considered representative of sadness and destruction. Black and white are generally the colours of death, and the fact that it can symbolise death also makes black bad luck.
Social Context: The informant’s mother is Chinese and the superstitions collected were identified as superstitions her mother had brought up as an explanation for things that her mother did, or as rationale for why the informant could not do something. Most of these prohibited activities were related to things done around the house.

Item:

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

Transcript:

“A Chinese superstition is black is an unlucky color to wear so you shouldn’t wear it even at like formal events or even go to funerals because going to a funeral also somehow is bad luck so that could reflect poorly on your life longevity.”

Informant’s Comments:

In western cultures, black is typically very traditional as something you wear to formal events or to go out in like with the “Little Black Dress” so this is really in contrast to this superstition.

Collector’s Comments:

It was also interesting to me how at a contrast this superstition was with prevalent western practices.
This might be fading as a superstitions because my Chinese grandmother has given me multiple articles of black clothing

Collector’s Name: Mia Kobs

Tags/Keywords:

Dartmouth Folklore Archive