Welcome to the AID's English podcast. My name is Jack and I'm here with my co-host
Sochel. And today we are, where are we? Are we in the culture corner? Or yeah, we are
in the culture corner. Yeah, I almost forgot there for a second. This one, this episode
is strictly for our exclusive subscribers. So for those of you who are exclusive subscribers,
we really appreciate your patronage. You know, you're helping us keep the lights on here at AID's
English podcast headquarters. It's really, really helpful and we appreciate your generosity.
So Sochel, today we're talking about Americans and whether or not they are superstitious.
And maybe you could explain what superstitious means first just for our listeners.
Sochel, superstitious is someone who believes in kind of good luck, bad luck, and
those sorts of things. So let's say if you do XYZ, it will have a consequence of XYZ in the sense that
they believe in some larger sense of luck in karma and cosmic energy. Yeah, Jack, can you explain
any better than nothing? Just magic, you know, like magic or irrational kind of thinking or non-scientific.
Let's call it non-scientific thinking. Yes, non-scientific thinking. Yeah. So for example,
if I flip this coin and it lands on heads, I should accept the job. But if I flip this coin
and it lands on tails, I should reject this job. And so you're basically putting the power of your
choice into this coin. And so that would be considered superstitious. You know, you're not using logic
and reason and science to make your decision. You're using luck, like social said, just luck, you know.
And there are a bunch of little kind of superstitious things when I was a kid, a popular one was
step on a crack as an a crack in the sidewalk or whatever, break your flip back. So it's like you
had to dump over cracks in the sidewalk because you didn't want your mother's back to break. I
don't know why that exists. I think because it rhymes, you know, back and crack, you know.
So there's a lot of little superstitious thinking. Or for example, Friday the 13th,
that's a very popular one in the US. You can go out Friday the 13th. It's a bad luck day.
You know, if you have a job interview, don't schedule it for Friday the 13th. If you have a wedding,
don't schedule it for Friday the 13th, a little superstitious things like that.
Are still I would say sort of pre-bale and US culture, but on the whole, I would say,
we're not a superstitious culture. No, we're not compared to places I've lived like Thailand,
you know, which is very, very much like, like instead of car insurance, you'll have like a
Buddhist shrine, you know, in your car on the dashboard, basically set up. That's, I mean,
I'm sure they do have car insurance, but I mean, it's just like that's going to protect me
more than like anything is this shrine that I've built on my on my car dashboard. Yeah, and I'm
not I'm not trying to malign our listeners out there who believe in who might be Buddhist or
believe in that, but I would I would put that in a kind of superstitious basket, whereas like
actual car insurance is probably much more useful than some kind of spiritual belief or something
like that that that may or may not protect me. At least in non superstitious thinking,
that's here. That's what we subscribe. Right. There you go. Yeah, non superstitious thinking.
You know, and I'm superstitious in some ways. I've got my own like weird little superstitions.
Like, for example, if I break a mirror, you know, I don't I'm not happy about it. You know,
yeah, those are seven years of bad luck for. No, I feel like I'm still paying off like
17 years of old mirrors, you know, like I've still I've got like a life sentence of bad mirror luck
that I'm just going to be paying off for forever. I think my good luck comes back this year because
the last mirror I broke was when I was like 21, I believe. So good for you. Yeah. My luck finally
comes back to me by that lottery ticket. Yeah, because supposedly. Yeah. So yeah, there's
little superstitious things. But mostly I don't even pay attention. For example, Friday the 13th,
I really usually don't even notice when it comes and goes. If you don't notice it, I feel like
you can you've almost you win. Like you you got if you get through the whole day and you don't
even think about it, like if you start thinking about it, then you're going to start making mistakes.
You're going to start screwing up or you're going to start noticing things that went wrong and
you're going to attribute that to 13th, which is a huge part of superstitions thinking is
seeing like a chronology of events. So like a series of events and then attributing it back to
something that caused you to have bad luck or seeing things go well and attributing that to
something that caused you to have good luck. For example, another big superstition in the US is
carrying a rabbit's foot for good luck. Yeah. And let's say you took the rabbit's foot to your job
interview, put it in your pocket and you knocked the interview out of the park, meaning that it
went really well. So you're attributing it to that rabbit's foot, but it was probably the confidence
that you got from carrying that thinking you give up that inspired you to actually do well.
Yeah. That's interesting. That's interesting. That object actually changed your, it's almost like
a, I don't know if I'm right here, but like a confirmation bias type of a thing or something.
Yeah, it is a little bit. Yeah. It's you attributing events to something superstitious. Again,
either good or bad. Yeah. So yeah, that's a big thing. Because we can go, you could go to the end
of the day every day, every single day, you can go to the end of the day and look back and look at
all the bad things that happen and say, oh, this was a bad luck day. But if you twist your,
you're thinking and saying, look back at all the good things that happen that day, you could convince
yourself today was a lucky day. I mean, it's all about your attitude because every day is a mixture
of they kind of positive and negative things. Like good things happen, bad things happen, and I mean,
that's life, you know, the power positive thinking really sometimes. I don't subscribe. There's
another super-suspect where people think you know, positive thinking, well, cure cancer. I don't
really subscribe to that. I think you better get into chemo or something, but sometimes for small
things, it can help. My grandmother, for example, the one who's still living, said she accidentally
somehow left the sink running in her house and it flooded the, she realized it flooded the upstairs
bathroom. And so she went down to the kitchen where it's like the kid, that upstairs bathroom is
above her kitchen. And when she went down the first floor, she thought, oh, God, the ceiling is going
to be on the floor. It's going to be cave because it flooded. And it didn't. It just left a
water stain above that kitchen. And so she said she was jumping for joy because she said,
anytime the worst thing doesn't happen, it's a good day. It wasn't like the worst possible
outcome. And so I liked that. Yeah. Philosophy because that's a good attitude. That's a good
thing. The worst thing didn't happen. Yeah. Then you better be happy. And I felt that way today. I was,
yesterday I fell down on the sidewalk because the sidewalks were very uneven here. And today I
slept and almost fell, but didn't. And my aunt would like, oh, no, like she thought I was going to
fall again. And I was happy because they're like, oh, I didn't fall this time. It's a good day for me.
Yeah. I just stumbled and caught myself. Yeah. Or my mom and my aunt were very worried
yesterday when I fell. And I was just laughing because I was so happy that I didn't break my knee.
Like I was completely fine. I just barely scraped my knee. I have no blood or anything. I felt
fine. I was happy that I was okay because I fell on a cobblestone. It's cobblestone here.
And the sidewalk's quite elevated. So I slipped off the side of the sidewalk and fell on my hands and
knees. Now, when you fell, did you step on a crack? I think I stepped on a crack and fell. But I didn't
think that I was going to suffer. Okay, so your mother is the one who's going to suffer for this.
No, but they got worried and you know, they were really freaking out. And I was very happy because I
was actually fine. And I feel fine today. I didn't have any bruising or anything. So I told them it's
that would be 27. So yeah, yeah, when you fall at my age, especially my height, bad things happen.
So just a quick list of like, okay, so like superstitions in America, I would say the number 13 is like,
you know, on that. I would say, I tried it. The 13th is like really bad.
Don't walk under a ladder. That's bad luck. Don't let a black cat cross your path. Don't let a
black cat cross your path. Don't step on a crack. Not a mother's back on a crack.
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