Superstition in China

This is kind of a tributary of the 'Strange Customs for New Mothers' thread, but I get wound up by Chinese people's superstitions.

I recognise that China has its own culture, but I don't think it's reasonable for it to have its own laws of science. Of course some old wives tales contain some truth, and its not a uniquely Chinese phenomena.

From my British eyes, some widely held beliefs / superstitions in the USA are laughable. I'm unsure what Americans find ridiculous about us; perhaps the belief that Cricket is an interesting sport to watch.

We all have superstitions, but some of my Chinese friends seem to have problems separating fact from fancy. One of my friends said she was an atheist, and yet when she passes a Buddhist temple she starts praying.

Some may feel that this is harmless, but it feeds the idea that scientific facts are, in fact, just one possible idea, and superstitions should be given equal weight.
Please note that I have deliberately avoided specific superstitions, (apart from the Cricket thing). if this thread became about subjects that will cause argument that would be unfortunate.

I was speaking to one of my students just recently about a current notion/superstition that has just passed recently. Quite literally 'the protective power of salt against radioactive waste from Japan'. For one day there in March salt was more expensive than gold in the stock market. Apparently the government released an official statement informing the Chinese people that salt would not protect them but it was ignored. A controversial (and in my opinion quite funny) comic strip artist drew a picture of two married people giving each other salt as opposed to rings.

Some old wives tales/superstitions have a real bearing in life/science or ring of truth to them, some however appear to be just genuinely mis-guided.

I was speaking to one of my students just recently about a current notion/superstition that has just passed recently. Quite literally 'the protective power of salt against radioactive waste from Japan'.

That was discussed here: http://raoulschinasaloon.com/index.php?topic=6151.0

Quote from: mkate on April 12, 2011, 03:47:28 PM

I was speaking to one of my students just recently about a current notion/superstition that has just passed recently. Quite literally 'the protective power of salt against radioactive waste from Japan'.

That was discussed here: http://raoulschinasaloon.com/index.php?topic=6151.0

Thankyou... I think?

I hate superstitions no matter where they come from. Chinese culture is deeply superstitious, and superstition is something that the Communists tried very hard to eradicate (and rightly so, in my opinion. Culture is one thing but deliberate and sometimes harmful ignorance is another entirely), although they didn't quite succeed.

Western culture has its superstitions but most people, at least in my experience, don't really take them particularly seriously, they're more things that we all know are kind of silly and if we mention them, it is in an ironic way. No one I know really believes that if you break a mirror you'll have 7 years of bad luck or that Friday the 13th will be a horrible day.

Which superstitions are widely held in the US in your opinion?

Which superstitions are widely held in the US in your opinion?

I'm going to sof-foot this a little. (I think it must have been me that prompted the question).

The Wikipedia definition is 'a credulous belief or notion, not based on reason or knowledge'.

I'm not sure if I put the China bit into the thread title or a mod added it. I've no wish to turn this into a discussion of sensitive Western superstitions. As has become clear in the past, there are plenty of more appropriate forums for discussing those. I just mentioned it because nor did I want to suggest in some snobbish way that China is the only country that has superstitions, though my goodness do they have a lot of them.

The Local Dialect is right in suggesting that non-religious superstitions are taken with a pinch of salt (deliberate pun - see below.)  in the West, but in China there seems to be a dangerous blurring of the lines between science and fancy.

The Chinese aren't the first to believe in the miraculous properties of salt. The phrase 'pinch of salt' comes from Pliny the Elder's Naturalis Historia, regarding the discovery of a recipe for an antidote to a poison. In the antidote, one of the ingredients was a grain of salt. Threats involving the poison were thus to be taken "with a grain of salt" and therefore less seriously. An alternative account says that the Roman general Pompey believed he could make himself immune to poison by ingesting small amounts of various poisons, and he took this treatment with a grain of salt to help him swallow the poison. In this version, the salt is not the antidote, it was taken merely to assist in swallowing the poison.

I'm not aggressively challenging your assertion, I just am unfamiliar with what a foreigner would consider "widely-held" superstitions in the U.S., other than the common belief in superstitions that occur around the world, like religion. Things like "The world is dangerous and 'those people' are out to get you" would be something else I notice about the U.S. although I wouldn't classify it as superstition, which to me typically brings to mind beliefs based on magic or the supernatural.

I've got a perfect Chinese-American contradiction on what might be called a low-level superstition.

In America, the BEST thing to eat if you have a cold is chicken soup. (not everyone believes this, but some really do)

In China, chicken soup is supposed to be one of the worst things to eat if you have a cold.  This according to my lovely wife who knows all about everything I am and am not supposed to eat at all times, mostly based on what will either make me too cold or give me internal heat.

I slammed my toes full stride into a lawn sprinkler-head Sunday afternoon. (Yeah, a sprinkler-head in China-not something you're expecting to find as you walk across a lawn.) I was wearing canvas shoes and it hurt like a MF. Luckily, no blood but I was pretty sure I broke something down there. (I didn't.) As I writhed in pain, all the Chinese were telling me to go home and soak it in HOT water.

I'm a coach and luckily I have an ice-pack in the freezer which I bring to practices just for occasions like this (no, not sprinkler-head injuries, but things like getting hit with a bat or a thrown or batted ball, or twisting an ankle rounding first base, etc.)

So I went home and iced it down. Swelling was down by the evening, but still really painful. (Then the building's elevator broke down, so I had to hobble down and up 6 flights the next day, but that's another story.) Today, 72 hours later, and after ice treatments the last 2 days, I can walk with minimal pain, just in time for my first two classes of the week this afternoon.

Honestly, I think this Chinese fixation on all things hot is somehow rooted in the fact that up until only 15 or so years ago, there was no refrigeration here and thus, no cold drinks, no ice cubes, etc. It was just easier for them to boil a kettle of water and only running dog capitalists had refrigerators and the means to pay for the electricity to run them 24 hours a day. Three Chinese teachers share an apartment in my building, and they recently told me they have a refrigerator in their apt., but it's been unplugged since last September when the weather started getting cooler.  

Three Chinese teachers share an apartment in my building, and they recently told me they have a refrigerator in their apt., but it's been unplugged since last September when the weather started getting cooler.  

Hey, what's wrong with that?! We actually do that during the winter as well, because it is so damn cold outside of our bedrooms (where the heaters are) that I feel like plugging in the fridge is a waste of electricity!

The superstition that bothers me the most is the going to bed with wet hair thing.

So far i think 20-30 students (at different times) have told me that it is not only unhealthy but extremely dangerous to go to bed with wet hair. When I say why, they say because when I'm 60 all the water will have slowly seeped into my brain and give me terrible headaches!

I always ask for medical proof on it, some more of paper or something, but they have yet to show me one!

And like you Olds, I was trying to figure out where the superstition came from because i believe it is rooted in something logical for the time it came from. Maybe something to do with mold growing in pillows if you repeatedly put wet hair on them? I'm not sure. 

Thank you Borkya!  At long last I get the explanation!  My darling "knows" that wet hair will cause headaches later in life, but no one ever told her it was from water seeping into one's brain.

I also ask for proof of some of this and she says "Scientists say so." 


This is your brain.  

This is your brain after going to bed with wet hair for 60 years.  

Any questions?
 

Me mamma always said that going ta bed with wed 'air would make mold grow on me scalp from it bein' constant wet like, she'd also said dat it wasn't no good for me pillow cause it never got dried and little mold spores and stuff wood grow aye.

How's that?

Also heat can help with swelling as well, depends on the injury right? RICE - rest, ice, compression and elevation except for when you need a heat pack haha.

No EL, you clearly don't understand the dangers of going to bed with wet hair! If you do every day, well, you won't live to be 60. They told me you only have to do it ONCE, then.....
 

....60 years later.

China's got a strange mixture of science and superstition.  Just about everyone I've ever discussed religion with in China is an atheist, but almost every one of them observes lots of old religious practices.  Some of it is just traditional I guess, like the complex funeral rituals and tomb sweeping stuff.  They don't believe in an afterlife but burn paper money to benefit the dead in their, um, afterlife.
My theory is that they are not naturally very questioning and accept as gospel what their parents, grandparents and teachers tell them.  These things may be contradictory, but western logic doesn't apply here, ha ha!