What a day! Class was so exciting and interesting. I need to write all of it down before I forget.
Today we talked about superstitions and local beliefs. We spent the entire three-hour period talking about the particularities of our countries and cultures. We got on this topic by reading a text written by a French man who went to Panama to Find Himself (bleh). He was freaked out by the native traditions and so we talked about our own.
In our class, we have five people from Asia: two from China, one from Japan, one from Vietnam, and one from South Korea. I suppose you might count the Indian lady as Asian, but I feel that India is more of a subcontinent in and of itself. These five folks were excited that we were talking about superstition today, because today also happens to be Chinese New Year! Apparently its celebration has spread to most of Asia. They told us about how they exchange small amounts of money in red envelopes as a symbol of wealth for the new year, and about how the number four is unlucky, and about the importance of certain rice dishes. It was the absolute coolest to hear all of this firsthand.
The girl from Syria said that her local superstition is to throw salt over your left shoulder while cooking to ward off bad spirits, but that she knew a lot of the world was like that. The Russian lady said that you should never give anyone a bouquet with an even number of flowers, only an odd number. Merve said that divorced women used to have to get a line tattooed down their chin, but that that practice died out with the gramophone.
The Californians mentioned how unlucky the numbers 13 and 666 are for Americans, and the professor explained to the class that Christian cultures dislike those numbers because of the number of Jesus’ disciples and that 666 is the mark of the Devil. This was new and surprising information for the non-Christians in the class. We had a time trying to explain the disciples thing.
When it was my turn, I talked about how the color of horse feet determines if you should buy it (very strange to everyone including the other Americans) and that crossroads are dangerous because the devil might trick you into selling your soul there. I was about to talk about how we use the color of the sky to determine weather (red in morning, sailor’s warning, etc) but everyone got hung up on the crossroads thing.
The girl from Syria asked if there was a specific crossroads where this could happen. A couple people asked if this means that the devil lives underground at every crossroads. The hardest part to explain was that the superstition is about choice, and that the devil can’t just take your soul: you have to sell it in exchange for a gift. I don’t know why this was difficult to communicate, but it was. I think it’s because the devil (or evil in general) isn’t exactly “tricky” in other cultures, or indeed in all parts of Christianity. The crossroads things feel specifically Southern to me.
It was really fun to talk about all this stuff. Everyone was animated and contributing. Everyone was talking! We spun out whole stories and conversations in French. We jumped from other people’s ideas and made connections in this new language. The barrier disappeared. We were too busy excitedly sharing the traditions of our cultures to remember that we aren’t supposed to know a common language. We forgot that we didn’t know French. I think that’s how language happens. You just have to forget that you don’t know it, and suddenly you do. Every sound in the world, every word, every syllable, exists in our heads. We all have the capacity to make sense of them and use them. It’s hard, and we convince ourselves that we don’t have anything in common, but every mouth moves the same, all vocal chords stretch the same, all tongues must touch bottom teeth to make ssssssss.
Only problem is, I think my class thinks I believe in the crossroads stuff. Probably could’ve been more clear on that. Oh well.
Cordialement,
Allison
P.S.: The number four is unlucky in Japan because the word for four sounds like the word for death. FYI.
Flan in France 