Ep.2: Superstitions in Serbian Culture

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Good morning.

Here is Maki.

Here is Ivana.

How are you, Maki?

I'm super. And you?

Okay. It can be gone.

It can be gone means...

It can pass.

It's okay. I know it can be better.

It can be better.

It Of course.

Today we're going to talk about something cultural.

Not a heavy topic, right?

Not at all.

yeah i'm actually really curious to see if you know about these things and

also if you

do say the same things in turkey so we're talking about superstitions yeah some

of them we already

know but some of them we didn't even think of them as superstitions it's

it's quite funny because

it's so ingrained yeah in our body like in our not body but like

in our mentality that yeah it's

just the it's nothing about like god or whatever it's just kind of like

i don't know you don't jinx things it's so weird it's such a weird

thing but you you think about like something about like

someone's really looking if you are gonna do certain thing not to have a

bad luck you know

like it's so funny i don't know it is but probably they all have

their explanations

from like the history yeah And some of them are nice.

Some of them are like a reason to cheer up, right?

Yeah, definitely. I think they were quite useful sometimes.

Probably some of them are not that nice, you know?

But yeah, I wanted to say superstitions in Serbian is sujeverje.

Sujeverje. In plural, it's sujeverje.

and in singular suje verje suje verje is it like two words coming together

or it's one word

uh it's one word but uh it means verje i'm guessing is to believe

like and suje i don't

know what that means in that word but one question to be is prestigious

uh is kind of negative in

in general in serbian people's minds or is it like something completely neutral or

i think it's

completely accepted yeah completely it's not like if you see someone doing something then

you're like yeah okay i mean there's always gonna be some people that are a bit

more kind of like modernized

and they're like what is happening but it's such a normal thing for us

to do i don't know no one really judges it that's good yeah i

mean as long as you don't you know cause any other person

trouble that's that should be the case i mean it can go places it

can it can be quite like weird

you know it really just depends on how far you go you know with

it because uh you know that we

are very big also on like magic and uh like using herbs and

like just like believing about something above like this is the more the eastern

mentality not the western mentality like

you believe in something um above you you know bigger than you it doesn't

have to be god it can

be just like universe karma energy whatever energy whatever you know so you don't

want to mess with

it and i guess that's why you do all these things so i've seen

that you categorize them as bad luck good luck and what is the third

one miscellaneous i think that's a how do you pronounce it i would say

miscellaneous but i think it's another it's another way how you have to pronounce

it which is basically everything like mixed stuff

oh yeah i forgot to say that um there's also the mentality of like

because if it's superstition and

and if you're not a believer of superstition and if it doesn't really hurt

you because you don't believe in it then people are going to be like

well if it doesn't hurt you then just you know

don't don't judge it you know then why not like for example my mom

would do certain things and

i'm like but why are you doing that i don't want to mess you

to mess with me and she's like but if

you don't believe it like just let me do my thing it makes me

feel happy it makes me feel like

calm and and it's okay fine just do whatever you want to do you

know and i i realized that you put more examples for bad luck and

yes a few more things for the good luck i don't know why i

i i mean maybe because okay these are just like the frequent ones that i know

and that i've heard

um but probably maybe someone else knows more about good luck i don't know

it it it was kind of also difficult for me to like categorize them

but

like because it's all about this balance kind of, you know.

Obviously, you don't want bad luck,

and obviously, you do want good luck

yeah so there's a lot about that oh it's a lot about luck actually

just if you think about it

just a lot about yeah luck if you do that it's going to be

either bringing you bad luck if you

don't do that it's going to be good good luck again no honestly it

goes back to the mentality of like believing that something is bigger than you

right because in in west in the west they

would probably be like what luck like just work you know like work or

like make an effort or

whatever but here it's like no if i have luck you know it doesn't

have to be work related it's just

like you know yeah luck is a thing you cannot buy yeah and you

wrote one nice phrase which means so that evil cannot hear it?

Yes.

So, I wanted to start with this knocking on three times, right?

So, let's start with bad luck.

How do you repel bad luck?

How do you, you know, shoo it away?

How do you say it?

Like, how do you...

Yes, scare it away.

Like, are you prevented?

Yeah. So, if you say something...

uh like for example what if i i don't know die tomorrow and then

someone's gonna tell you

like no don't i like don't attract bad luck and in order

to not attract it and from that what you

said not to become true you need to um knock on the wood three

times i learned to knock on the wood

upside like not upside down uh bottom up like i say not upside down

but um so that uh the thing is that if that's the wood, you

knock,

like the bad luck goes away.

I see.

you scare it away so you don't like push it towards you but some

people don't do that

they just knock three times and also for me like knocking on the door

you don't have to say a bad

statement you can say wow my grandma is like quite healthy and she's 90

years old yeah i mean you

just think about like thank god she she's like not gonna die so even

if you don't say it you still knock on the door even if you

say something positive you knock on the door yeah exactly because you don't want

to because everything is good you don't want to attract

the bad luck right you don't want to jinx it but uh another thing

that you can do is you can also

we say move from your place so you'll be like it doesn't it doesn't

have to be completely but like

one centimeter or two centimeters or something so this one we don't have in

turkish by the way Knocking on the wood, I guess.

We have it in English as well.

But changing place, I heard it here.

Maybe because, now I'm thinking, maybe because you're sitting here.

You say the thing.

And then if you move away, the bad luck cannot find you.

Because you are not in the same.

Maybe because of that.

I don't know.

But it kind of makes sense.

Makes sense.

And then the last thing that I said is spitting three times.

And it's not actual spitting.

it's just like poo poo poo

so you can do that

and if you're really superstitious you can do all three of them you can

knock on the wood three times you can spit three times

and then you can also move and replace which I used to do sometimes

yeah actually after praying

I remember my grandma she does that as well

yeah oh you're so pretty

poo poo poo poo okay

the salt thing is new to me throwing salt across your left shoulder

yes so uh throw so throwing salt across your left shoulder behind right um

this is to

repel also bad luck and i'm guessing it can be situations like an event

or something like that

you know so uh more more that rather than like imagine if you were

talking and then someone says something like just throwing salt that would have been

really funny but i'm guessing it's more for

like bigger events i never done that but i heard about that yeah and

the cat of course this is also

kind of universal i guess black cat it is and um i don't know

why but yeah if you see a black

cat so the rule is to wait let me just see which order it

is because i used to do when i was younger i forgot what it

is so you basically cross your i think it's for first cross your heart

then you spit i think you actually spit at this time if i'm not

mistaken and then you go three

steps behind and then you can continue so it's not like uh you remember

that for for like you

know the americanized version is like you have to go around or like go

in a different direction but here you can continue in the same direction you

just like kind of like you know do it all

these like customs to spin and i don't know what so now everything's fine

i see in our case you just

uh touch your hair when you see a black cat or yeah what else

was it you just yeah change your

direction that's another one but you don't go like backwards yeah it's

so funny because i I love black cats.

I used to have a black cat and you know that black

cats are the one of the most like difficult cats to foster because they're

black so no one wants

them because they're black because they're black you mean because they their hair is

so visible or

because they are like no bad luck um because because hair is visible i

mean then prussian cats should not be interesting but they are you know oh

yeah luckily though now nowadays people

are changing now i like five of my friends i guess have black cats

there you go there you go

oh this one is uh so if it's a holiday a religious holiday so

it should also be for slava right and

uh you're not allowed to work well i don't want to say allowed to

work because obviously you have to go to work uh if it's if it's

your slava then you don't go to work but if it's some other holiday

uh like some other religious holiday that might not be how can i say

it's not like a state holiday

but it's still religious then um maybe some of them are state then you're

not allowed to

work usually it means work in the house so not clean obviously cook

you need to cook right but don't work too much it's kind of like

don't work in the field you know don't

paint something just like

take the day off

yeah take some time to think

and to pray maybe or

yeah and if you

don't do that then it's bad luck

I see how about babies

yeah this one is I'm interested

to see what you're going to say so

I remember this when I was younger

when a baby is born you take a red thread, so it's very thin,

and then you tie it around its wrist as a lucky charm.

So again, it's kind of like repelling, you know, like, so that it's healthy,

and that it survives, because, you know, babies, like, we're not like, nowadays, babies

are, how can I say, have everything to survive, you know, but before it

was like the toughest ones only like survive right yeah that one is new

yeah i'm sure in turkey there are some things for babies but um i to me

have never seen one i have

never realized like in my family like nobody did that for a baby but

there is you know in turkey the famous

evil eye stone with blue

that is gonna be put

everywhere on baby's crib and on the doors and everywhere

that is the good luck symbol for us and it's pretty I like the

okay Friday the

colors

13th

you wear 13 different sets?

yes so if you want first of all I don't know if it's like

a new thing in Serbia Friday the 13th or not I don't

know but I remember when I was in school that if you don't want

to if you don't want to have bad

luck the whole day then you have to wear two separate socks like from

like the separate color

like not from the same pair so um so yeah we used to wear

that or you can also different socks or maybe also flip it

I think that would also work I mean not everyone has

13 different socks

but

no not 13 no no no no

on Friday the 13th

Not wear 13.

No, no, no. It's... So, like, for example, one sock red, one sock white.

Like something like that. Okay, okay.

All right. Then it's okay.

Imagine 13, that would be 13 socks.

Yeah, you're gonna die out of heat.

Yeah.

Good luck. Yeah, good luck.

The first thing...

The first image comes to my mind is clover.

The four-leaf clover.

We do have that, of course.

i never got one never yeah me neither a friend of mine got gets

all the time

but she's not as like more lucky she's not luckier than me i guess

i don't know

oh we have a saying who has um luck in cards does not have

luck in love yeah that's true

yeah yeah there you go you know so think about that uh so this

one is uh quite funny actually if a bird poops on you then that's

good luck definitely we have the same thing but i had never

experienced like you know i told you before here in balkans you have a

lot of crows like

and once a crow just pooped on me and it smells like so badly

i pigeon chicken they're all fine but that one wow that was really terrible

it never happened to me at least not the crow

so except that i'm okay with the bird poop i

had i think twice or three times like pigeons

so that happened to me but um actually and it wasn't like it wasn't

that bad it wasn't like

you know you always think of like their poop it's gonna be like this

massive and it can be but

you know because they're flying and they're pooping then it can just be a

bit of like so

i had some things on my shoulder and it's for some reason it's extremely

difficult to wash it

like from my like um backpack um and then i had one that actually

pooped on my laptop

so that was uh good luck for your work or studies i couldn't believe

it thank god my laptop it was

on my screen imagine if it was like you know got in inside i

would have to like repair it so i just

turned it off and cleaned it but the thing is that how what are

the chances that a bird is going to

poop on you you then if that's the chance then something really good has

to happen now that's That's the bottom line.

So you change your energy, your attitude.

It's something very negative normally, but you just make it.

It's kind of like the balance, right?

It's like, okay, this horrible thing happened to me.

Now something good has to happen.

There cannot be worse.

Okay.

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and now

let's get back to our episode i just so throwing water after someone brings

luck you explain it as

because everything flows right the water flows like the water the waves yeah so

i mean if it's not like the ocean waves but like you know the

water like the river flows so basically if you

again it's before an event so i remember i think i told you once

before i went on a date my mom

went after me and then she threw the water after me obviously they shouldn't

hit you because it's

not the point the point is that behind you so that when the flow

goes behind you that takes you and it just flows the reason we do

that is different though what is it so like tides if you throw water

after someone else then you expect them to come back to you it's like

easily go and easily come

back it's like oh go safely come back safely that's why we do it

good one yeah but it's it's

more selfish like come back exactly um then this one if you see a

chimney sweep uh so it's the person right that cleans the chimneys you will

have luck because they're you know you can't see

them you don't see them quite often so they're like in this specific like

clothing but i don't

think i ever saw one but we have it if you see a store