Item: Not Eating Eggs (Vietnam)

General Information About Item:

• Customary Folklore: Pre-test custom, superstition
• Language: English
• Country of Origin: Vietnam
• Informant: MM
• Date Collected: 11/02/21

Informant Data: MM is a sophomore at Dartmouth College where she is studying Economics. She is from Manhattan, NY and was born in 2002. Both MM’s mother and father are Vietnamese. They immigrated to the U.S when they were young adults. 

Contextual Data:

• Cultural Context: As my informant described, in Vietnam, it is believed that it is best to avoid any and all negativity that one can — it is better to be safe than sorry, as one may say. This applies to one’s academics. 
• Social Context: MM’s parents made sure that nothing was going to get into the way of their daughter’s academics. The informant collected this piece of folklore when she was in grade school. When her parents lived in Vietnam and were students themselves in middle and high school, like many Vietnamese children, they were not allowed to eat eggs before an exam. They continued to follow this superstition with their daughter as they wanted to help in any way to make sure that she would do well in school. 

Item: In Vietnam, eating an egg before an exam brings one bad luck as it is thought that the shape of the egg which is the same as the number zero, will cause a student to score a student on the assessment. 

Associated File

Transcript:

• “On mornings that I would have a quiz or test, I would have to have a completely different breakfast from what I would usually eat — hard boiled eggs. Instead, my parents made sure that I would eat cereal or oatmeal.”

Informant’s Comments:

• My informant always thought that this superstition seemed a bit extreme. However, she also notes that she doesn’t know a world without it and that now she is away from home and in college she subconsciously follows this superstition on exam days. 

Collector’s Comments:

• I found this superstition to be a creative one. I don’t think I would personally practice it, but I found it interesting to learn how ingrained it became in my informant’s life.

Collector’s Name: Claire Macedonia

Tags/Keywords:

• Superstition 
• Vietnam 
• Egg