E305/505 Korean Language and Culture

Luck & taboo

1. What is the general strategy Chinese uses to deal with luck and taboo?

2. What are the five blessings in Chinese?

3. What are the Chinese customs dealing with blessing?

4. For luck: uses homonyms that have the same pronunciation as good thing or concepts.

Happiness:

• tangerine
• cypress, persimmon and big tangerines
• big orange
• "Your fu is upside down."
  
• bat = luck, happniness
  
• Five Happiness/blessings (Fuzhou, Fukien):
  

Wealth:

• Making huat-ke 'fermented/raised cake' before New Year's Day:
  
  • huat 'to ferment or rise'
    
• Pasting the character of ts'un 'spring' on the rice crock/jar:
  
• A dish of fish as the last main course:
  
• Funeral practice of "Drag out the pants": drag out wealth (Canton city)
  
• Happy mariage and the proliferation of male children:
  
• Practice of "to stay together until they are old"
  
• to wear the same shoes till they are old
  
• Happiness card along with clothes and foods to bride's family (Peking):
  
  • dried dates
  • chestnut
  • peanuts
  • dried longan
  • lily bulbs
    
• Sending a pair of chop sticks sewn in a quilt when informing the wedding date:
  
  • chopsticks
• Serve balls of glutinous rice, fish balls, or meat balls in wedding (Amoy, Taiwan, Guangdong):
• Throwing lead powder onto the bride's body (Taiwan):
  
• Throwing chestnuts, lotus seeds, dried dates (Shangdong):
  
  • chestnut
  • lotus seed
  • dried dates =to have a son soon
• Send bananas, pine apples, oranges:
  
  • banana
  • pine apple

For taboo: not allow to mention words that can be construed as being inauspicious or ill omens or that are homophones with the words that are considered unfortunate or evil

• For the first two weeks of the first lunar calendar month: avoid saying anything about death, losing money or becoming poor
  
• Avoiding number 4, which is homophonous with the word for death
  
• Do you want some more rice? => Do you want to add some more rice?
  want more rice = beg for rice as a beggar (Northern China)
  
• I have finished eating: use one character over the other for 'to finish,' which is homographic with 'to lose money in business' (Amoy, Taiwan)
  
• Do not give clock for present (Amoy, Taiwan)
  
• Duck among all poultry cannot be served (Taiwan)
  
• Paternal grand aunts and aunts, husband's sisters not allowed to go in the couple's room: ko
  
• Avoid the same name as senior members of the family: give a new name for the engaged girl
  
• No handkerchief or fan (Taiwan):
  
  • to give a handkerchief = break the root (to part for good)
    
  • to give a fan =not to see each other again
    
• Banana is not used as sacrifice article:
  • banana (Southern Min dialect)

Korean luck
1) People

• If your eyebrows is itching, a pleasant person will visit.
  
• If you bite your tongue while eating, there will be a visitor.
  
• When you put your hands on the chest while you sleep, you will dream a good dream.
  
• If you have your finger nails cut at night and throw them in the bathroom, you will become rich.
  
• If you look up the moon while pregnant, you have a good luck.
  
• When you see a man in the morning, you will have a lucky day.
  
• When a magpie sings in the morning, there will be a pleasant visitor.
  
• When you see three mourners on the street, you have a luck that day.
  
• When you sleep long on the first night of your marriage, you will live long.
  
• When a bride gets angry on the wedding day, the first child will be a son.
  

2) Objects: noodles = longevity, seeds = children,

• On the wedding day, if you take out a red clothes, the first child will be a son; if a blue clothes, the first child will be a daughter.
  
• When you pick up keys on the street, you will have a luck.
  
• When your belt get loose on the street, you will get new clothes.
  
• If someone opens the lid of your kettle, blessings will run into the kettle.
  
• If you move your seat while eating, you will move often.
  
• If you move your seat twice while eating, you will marry twice.
  
• When you see a funeral car and touch the collar of your coat, you will have a good luck.
  
• When you see a funeral car and come home while doubling your fist, you will have a good food.
  

3)Dreams

• When you have a bad dream, a good thing will happen to you.
  
• When you see a poor person in your dream, you will have a good luck.
  
• When you see a noble man, you will have a good luck.
  
• When you are insulted by someone, you will earn wealth.
  
• When someone give you his dung, you will be rich.
  
• When you get angry, you get healed out of your illness.
  
• When you see yourself reading, you will become wise.
  
• When you have a headache, you will be promoted.
  
• When you get beat up, worries will disapper.
  
• When you see a full of dung, you will gain wealth.
  
• When you take a long trip, you will have a good luck.
  
• When you bathe, you will get healed, will have a chance to drink, will be promoted in government.
  
• When you comb your hair with you wife, you will have a good luck.
  
• When your wife bare her body, you will have a good luck.
  

Korean taboo

1) People & objects

• If you cry on the wedding day, you will not live well.
  
• The person who falls asleep first on the wedding night will die first.
  
• If you take a break on your way, you will stop studying.
  
• When you go to a bathroom of someone else's, you will visit him again.
  
• If you get passed by a woman, it is a bad luck.
  
• If you speak ill of somebody else's child, your child will become like that.
  
• If you study lying down, your knowledge will slip through your toes.
  
• If you eat something lying down, you will become a cow.
  
• If someone steps on you, it is a bad luck.
  
• If you sleep with your legs crossed, you will become poor.
  

2) Dreams

• When scissors break, your wife will be harmed.
  
• When you see scissors, you will lose your properties.
  
• When you see a mirror, a bad thing will happen.
  
• When you see a mirror broken, you will depart your spouse.
  
• When you lie down in the middle of a boat, you will die.
  
• When you see a colorful paper, watch out your properties.
  
• When you pick up a sword, it will bring a bad luck.
  
• When you eat meat, you will get sick.
  
• When a noble man hold a party, a bad thing will happen.
  
• When you eat rice-cake, you will get sick.
  
• When there's fire in the kitchen, there will be an emergency.
  
• When you wear white clothes, someone in your family will die.
  
• When you get drunk, you will gain illness.
  
• When a well dries out, you will lose your properties.
  
• When your house gets robbed, your family will ruin.
  
• When you sit on dung, a bad thing will happen.
  
• When a man and a women bathe together and climb a mountain, it's a bad luck.
  
• When you marry, it is an ill omen.
  
• When a sick person sings, he will die.

What are the factors and motivations for these sayings for taboo and luck in Korean?