Fish Flipping

Title: Fish Flipping

General Information about Item:

Informant Data:

Informant is a fifty year old adult woman, currently living and working in Boston Massachusetts. The informant was born in Taiwan. The informant moved to the United States for graduate school. The superstitions detailed are from her time spent living in Taiwan. Most are passed on from her parents, both of whom are also Taiwanese, though some may have been picked up from other sources through childhood.

Contextual Data:

Cultural Context: There are a number of superstitions surrounding Chinese New Year’s and things that one is supposed to do to have good luck or not have bad luck in the coming year.
Social Context: This was something that was told to the informant by her mother and father as a child. It was brought up as important and enforced during yearly Chinese New Year’s dinners.

Item:

Don’t flip over your fish on New Year’s to eat the other side or you won’t have extra next year. “年年有餘”.

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

Transcript:

“Uh one of the superstitions is uh 年年有餘. Uh this is about uh at uh Chinese New Year’s Eve uh we need to all have uh a fish dish uh and uh you can only eat one side of the fish uh but not the other side, and the reason being fish is also uh uh have the same sound uh as uh uh extra or saving uh so so you don’t want to uh eat the whole fish meaning you don’t want to eat up all your extra saving uh and the idea of uh only eat one side of the fish uh also mean you don’t turn over the fish to eat the other side of the bone uh and uh this has another uh uh symbol of uh if uh you have any family member working on the boat uh you don’t turn over the fish and sunk the boat.”

Informant’s Comments:

This saying was something both their mother and grandmother on their mother’s side said. It’s a generally very well know saying though.

Collector’s Comments:

This is both good and bad luck in that not flipping the fish means that you will have savings, but flipping the fish will mean you lose your money and potentially have your family members die.
This is seems like maybe a good analogy to teach restrain which might lead to saving money or other things during the year.

Collector’s Name: Mia Kobs

Tags/Keywords:

Dartmouth Folklore Archive