It amazes me to think that people were happy and at least content with their lives even though they were working a lot and had arranged marriages. During the get-together at Brenda's house in Ventry, which is a Gaeltacht village in County Kerry, Ireland located on Dingle peninsula, after we watched the film in Dingle, I could tell that not only they had deep Irish culture still in them, but also, that they enjoyed their lives when they were young; the films made me think that they were happy. It made me think deeply about how our society is now - even though we have more resources and more advanced technologies than they did, we tend to be not content with ourselves. Maybe we need to learn to appreciate what we have and learn happiness from little things? And get closer to the nature? The films taught us that it's not hard to be happy. It was really nice to hear thoughts from the Bibeanna about the topics we were curious about, and it was just a fun and comfortable gathering in general that was enjoyable with nice food and nice people.
When the film talked about superstitions and ghost stories, I wanted to not listen to it because I don't like scary stories, so I didn't pay as much attention as I did to other ones. However, as a person who believes pretty much everything, the superstition was interesting to me. I believe in monsters, ghosts, aliens and many other weird existences that other people wouldn't usually believe in. This made me research more into the Irish superstitions and I though about Korean superstitions, too. The Bibeanna seemed to believe strongly in superstitions, which is somewhat similar to the Asian culture in that it's common for us to be superstitious.
Some of the Korean superstitions are: eating seaweed soup the day before exams will result in failure on exams, clipping nails and toenails after sunset will call ghosts, whistling at night will bring ghosts and snakes, clothes being ripped or buttons falling in the morning means bad luck, dreaming about pigs means something good will happen to you, writing your name in red means bad luck, teeth falling out in your dream means someone will die or get really sick, dreaming about your family dying means something good will happen, if your ears are itchy, that means someone is gossiping about you, and etc. Those are only some of the many superstitions we believe in Korea.
Some of the Irish superstitions I found out that were interesting are: you shouldn't build a house on the site of a Fairy Fort because it will bring you eternal bad luck, if you want to know the name of the person you are to marry, put a snail on a plate sprinkled with flour and cover the plate and leave it overnight, and the next morning, the initial of the person will be on the plate, which is traced by the snail, if you hear a cuckoo on your right, you will have good luck for a year. If your ears are burning, that means someone is gossiping about you, if your nose is itchy, that means you will have a fight with someone in the future, if a char falls when a person stands up, it is an unlucky omen, and etc. There are some superstitions that are similar to Korean superstitions, such as the ear gossip. It would be interesting to find out how much teenagers nowadays believe in these superstitions in Ireland.