Title: “Red Ink”
General information about item:
- Bad luck superstition
- Language: English
- Country of Origin: Korea
- Informant: Sunglim Kim
- Date Collected: 11-5-18
Informant Data:
- Sunglim Kim was born and raised in Seoul, South Korea until the age of 17. Her family origins are Korean. When she was a junior in high school she moved to the United States, and went to high school in Seattle, Washington. She then went to UC Berkeley for her undergraduate degree, went back to work in Korea for a few years, and then came back to the United States to get her masters degree at the University of Kansas, and then went back to Berkeley for her PHD studies. Currently, she is a professor of Korean Art and Culture, in the department of Art History at Dartmouth College. This is her 7th year teaching at Dartmouth College.
Contextual Data:
- Social Context: Professor Kim shared that she was first taught this superstition at a very young age by her grandmother. She thought she was probably about three or four years old when she learned this superstition and shared that she learned it when she was learning to write her own name. One day she picked up a red pen and began to write with it and her grandmother warned her that she should never write anyone’s name in red colored ink because it would bring very bad luck.
- Cultural Context: Although Professor Kim was not certain about the origins of this superstition, she thought that in pre-modern times death sentences were written in red ink and that frequently the names of people who had been arrested were also written in red ink. This explains why writing names in red ink is so strongly connected to death in Korean culture. Even today this superstition is strongly followed in Korean culture. Professor Kim shared that she will take notes or highlight in red but would still never write someone’s name in red ink.
Item:
- Text: Writing a person’s name in red ink brings very bad luck and is strongly associated with death.
- Audio:
Collector Comments: This superstition seemed to be a very common one in Korean culture since several of our informants told us about this superstition. Another interesting note is that this is an example of a magic superstition (homeopathic magic).
Collector’s Name: Will Graber
Tags/Keywords:
- Superstition
- Bad luck
- Korean Culture
- 18F