What ethnic customs / superstitions doe you follow/do?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

It makes sense if you think of illness as caused by curses or an ill wind; the house is a controlled environment, but who knows who will you run into in the street, or when will the wind change!

Superstitions are unscientific by definition.

Not for keeping lightning away, but in a country in which we conduct a lot of our arguing by hanging things from balconies it’s a form of virtue signaling I certainly prefer to many others!

You know what’s good for keeping lightning away? Manazas. “Big hands” or “clumsy one” is the nickname of the statue of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in my hometown (highest point in town, hand held up in a blessing gesture… oops); poor thing got the nickname from the start (it does have large hands), but it’s also lost both hands to lightning several times and its head to the same once. Giving it a lightning rod gave birth to a local custom of arguing about whether the rod made it more powerful at attracting lightning or worse :slight_smile: (Bizantine discussions are the best).

22

I don’t have one, but my mother does have a statue of the Infant of Prague. And, true to the Bohemian Catholic custom, she keeps a folded-up $1.00 bill underneath it, so she’ll never be down to her last dollar.

23

my mother held to the tradition that if you thanked someone for a cutting of a plant or a rooted plant, it would not thrive. I hold to this, but sometime explain it to those who generously share their plants with me, so they will understand why I do not say a direct “thank you”

24

Carpathian- treat guests nicely. “A Guest is a jewel on your cushion of Hospitality”.

25

This one came to mind because I was searching for something else:

"According to the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawaii’s web site, the significance of the Banzai toast is as follows:

The word banzai literally means “10,000 years” and is associated with long life. Banzai cheers are given at joyous occasions, banquets and gatherings, to express congratulations, encouragement, or celebration. Traditionally, the participants shout the word “banzai” three times in unison, raising their hands in the air each time.

It is customary to deliver two separate banzai cheers at weddings. The first, “Shinro shimpu, banzai!” means “long life and happiness to the bride and groom.” The second banzai is: “Raihin shoku, banzai!” or, more politely, “Raihin no minasama, banzai!” This banzai cheer means “Long life and happiness to all the guests!” In Hawaii, these wedding banzai cheers are often given as a special toast, with participants raising their glasses with each shout of “banzai!”

I thought this was traditional Japanese, but apparently only done in Hawaii. It’s usually done by the best man or MC. It’s funny because I know guys who spend hours practicing getting the words just right!

Another one that I thought was traditional Japanese, but apparently not. As long as I can remember, may family (and Mom’s family) always ate sweet black beans at New Year’s. I don’t even know the name of it, but know the can well. It’s super sweet, kind of hard and dry inside, but I ate it every year (sometimes just a few) until my Mom passed.

Again, beginning to wonder if this isn’t traditional Chinese. When my parents and I would go to their annual bowling league Chinese dinner, there was always a bottle of whiskey (usually Seagrams 7) in the middle of the lazy susan on the table. Since the group my parents usually had dinner with didn’t drink, someone would take the full bottle home. I didn’t think anything about it until my ex (local Chinese) told me that when her half-sister got married, her Dad didn’t talk to her husband for years and didn’t attend the wedding reception because he refused to allow the bottle of whiskey on the table because of his religious beliefs. Early on in our relationship, the topic of any issue about our potential mixed marriage (I’m Japanee/Okinawan and her brother-in-law was white, and her sister-in-law was Filipino), was brought up with her Dad and the only thing he said was: “Are you going to have a bottle of whisky on the table?”. After I answered yes, he said that was all that mattered!

26

I don’t know. It’s hard to tell what you consider ‘ethnic’ vs. ‘mainstream.’ Things that we do that other people don’t necessarily.

We celebrate Epiphany or Three Kings Day with a House blessing, a king cake and small presents.

On New Years we eat sauerkraut with a penny in it and shoot guns at midnight to welcome in the New Year.

We wear orange on St. Patrick’s Day and celebrate the “Glorious Twelfth” (“For God and Ulster” - Why? I haven’t a clue. My grandmother said she’d beat us black and blue if we wore green. She actually was incredibly liberal on most things and liked Catholics as a general rule, but there was no dissent in her house regarding the Troubles. What’s weird is that she was born in freaking Illinois and was largely of English descent. Her grandmother was the only Irish woman on her side, so I assume that she got this stance from her, but really no clue. Regardless, we wear orange and in our youth would occasionally get into fights on St. Patty’s. End of discussion.)

All of the ‘normal’ superstitions, counting crows, no umbrellas indoors, salt over your shoulder. To be honest, there are so many superstitions, that I don’t remember them all. Most are old wive’s tales from my other grandmother who had a superstition for everything. Ring tests for pregnancies. A man needs to be the first to enter the house on the first, all sorts of things like that. My mom still follows some of them out of habit, but I don’t bother so much-like I said, I can’t even remember them all.

The thing is that it’s hard to separate the cultural from the religious. We celebrate the religious calendar pretty ‘religiously’ :slight_smile: so is that due to our culture or to our religion and since it’s freaking United Methodism, is that mainstream or not? 100 years ago, everyone celebrated that way, so I’m not sure what to say about it. Regardless, we fast for Advent and Lent and celebrate All Souls Day and Christ the King Day and all of those things. We attend certain special services at various times of the year and get Ashes and eat Pancakes and make palm crosses and all of the other religious trappings of those seasons. Is that cultural or religious or mainstream? I don’t know. It’s just what we do.

27

Just for fun, we always try to remember to have the first words of a new month be “rabbit, rabbit, rabbit”. There’s nothing like waking up smiling.:smiley:

28

Maybe black soybeans/kuru-mame?

29

Oh my goodness, we do that one too. (although we only use two rabbits, not three) Where the heck did that one come from? Maybe it’s just a ‘This part of the world’ thing?

30

I follow the pagan Celtic pagan calendar, which puts the solstices and equinoxes in the middle of the season…Winter starts on November 1st (Samhain), Spring on February 1st (Imbolc), Summe ron May 1st (Beltane) and Autumn on August 1st (Lughnasadh}. It just makes more sense to me.

31

A friend of my gf told us about this. The next morning was the first of the new month. when my alarm went off I rolled over toward my gf and said, “rabbit, rabbit, rabbit”. She laughed and a tradition was born. In bed.

32

In Australia, “a pinch and a punch for the First of the month” with appropriate actions celebrates a new month. I still do this after more than 30 years in the US (and my wife still tries to get in first>)

33

Yes! That’s it! The name struck a bell (as obvious as it!) I guess it is traditional Japanese. I thought is was just my Mom’s family, since no one else has ever said they eat it. Maybe it’s because we always had it from the can, never homemade.

34

I’m 4th generation Chinese-American, so a huge lot of the old traditions have gone right out the window.

We still burn ghost money at funerals, we don’t allow shoes to be worn in the house, on Chinese New Years we give the kids red envelopes with money in them and moon cakes (which they don’t like), and I have one of the family foo dogs on the mantel, but those are about the extent of our Chinese-ness.

35

I used to wear Black, tan & Orange.

36

One time I was at a dinner with friends and I knocked over a salt shaker. I almost instinctively reached for the salt so that I could throw it over my shoulder, but then stopped myself. Too late. My guests saw what I was doing. They laughed, but encouraged me to do it anyway.

37

Do you stack the oranges in a pyramid? If you do, do you eat them afterwards or eventually toss them. I ask because we used to put out Kagami Mochi (two teared mochi ‘buns’) topped with a tangerine. As a kid, i used to think, “Oh great, Mom bought tangerines!” only to find out she bought only one for the New Year’s display. I had to wait a week (that’s how long we left the display up) before I could eat it.

Also, after a week, the outside of the mochi gets really hard and often moldy between the two. Still, we had to eat it or else it would be bad luck. Cut away the bad parts, foil the rest until it gets really soft and eat it with kinako (soy bean flour) and sugar. Can’t waste any, bad luck! Now they have ones that are encased in plastic and can be reused for years. The even have plastic tangerines to put on top!

38

I lived in Africa for a while and still generally follow the African taboo on touching food or gesturing with the left hand. (The left hand is reserved for ‘unclean’ things like using toilet paper)

39

Don’t step in a mushroom circle or you’ll be taken to fairyland. Fairies may look nice, but they aren’t.

40

I don’t know whether this is a Jewish custom, more widespread or just idiosyncratic, but if someone was lying on the floor in my mother’s house, you must not step over them.