‘A baby takes away luck’: China landlord evicts pregnant woman over ‘death’ folklore belief, bemuses many online
- Ancient belief is that a person who dies at a house would leave fortune in it and a person born at a house will take away its luck
- Folklore goes hand-in-hand with another saying, ‘Better lend stuff to new husbands than new wives’
The story of a pregnant woman in China who complained about being evicted by a landlord who believes newborn babies bring bad luck to a home has bewildering many people on mainland social media.
The woman, who goes by the name @Xiaozhuzhudebao on Douyin, the mainland version of TikTok, posted on October 11 that her landlord in southeastern China’s Guangdong province asked her and her husband to move out after learning she was five months pregnant.
She said the landlord justified herself by citing the folk belief – “Better lend house to a dead person than a newborn baby” and was willing to pay a month’s rent as compensation.
She and her husband had to pack all their belongings to move back to his hometown in eastern China’s Zhejiang province.
The old folklore belief, originated in rural China, goes that a person who dies at a house would leave their fortune in it, and a person born at a house will take away the luck of the household.
Another belief is that every household has a predestined number of lives and deaths, and if a person outside the family is born in their home, the newborn will take up the family’s quota.