Cutting your hair at night
Cutting your hair or nails at night was unlucky in a Korean family from Daegu, where crows were said to carry nail clippings to the fields and spoil the crop. Household rules like that circle whatever the family depends on most.
What it may mean
In Daegu, Korea, in the late 1950s, a boy took out the nail clippers one night and his father ordered him to put them back. Cutting hair or nails after dark was unlucky, he said: crows prowling at night would carry the nail clippings to the fields, the seeds would not sprout, and the harvest would fail. The boy remembered it for decades. In farming country, nearly every rule leads back to the crop, because the crop is the living. City households have their own center of gravity (a paycheck, a spot at a good school, a small business), and their worries bend toward it the same way. A Mexican family's haircut rule faces the other direction: cut it when the moon is full, so it grows back longer. Which rules you were raised on often says what your household could not afford to lose.
Depending on how you saw it
A kitchen haircut after dinner
In plenty of families the haircuts happened at home, with a towel around the shoulders and a parent with the scissors once the dishes were done, because evening was the only free time. The results were uneven and fondly remembered. Which skill did someone in your family pick up mainly to look after you?
A full-moon haircut
A woman whose parents came from Guadalajara, Mexico, learned from her mother to cut her hair when the moon is full, so it will grow back longer. Gardeners plant by the same moon. What do you do on a schedule that has nothing to do with your calendar app?
A cut the night before a big day
Lots of people book an appointment, or trim their own hair, the night before a wedding, an interview or a new job. Hair grows about half an inch a month, so the result stays on display for weeks. What do you leave until the night before, and how does it turn out?
Why it happens in nature
Before electric light, cutting hair after dark called for working by candle or lamp, where an uneven cut was easy to make and clippings were hard to sweep up completely. Hair grows only about half an inch a month, so a cut made in poor light stays visible for weeks.
What folk beliefs say
Korea (Daegu)
A man from Daegu, Korea, learned from his father in the late 1950s that it is unlucky to cut your hair or fingernails at night; the father's reason was that crows would carry nail clippings into the fields, keep the seeds from sprouting and spoil the harvest.
Source: ronniyoon (collector), Korean Superstition – Hair cutting (USC Digital Folklore Archive) (2012), folklore.usc.edu. View the page
Mexico (Guadalajara)
A woman whose parents came from Guadalajara, Mexico, was taught by her mother to cut her hair when the moon is full, because that is when it will grow longer.
Source: Tinna Flores (collector), Full Moon Hair Cut (USC Digital Folklore Archive) (2022), folklore.usc.edu. View the page
To reflect on
Which worry in your house always leads back to the thing you depend on most?