Thread: What japanese superstitions do you know?

Grumble Grumble Grumble

Have you seen those wooden walkways over ponds that have a sharp zig-zag to them... According to tradition, evil (but invisible) demons can only move in straight lines when moving over water. Those sharp turns allow you to ditch those demons...

And I've heard that people answer phone calls with 'moshi-moshi' because 'Kitsune' (the 9-tailed fox spirit) can't say those words, thereby proving your not fox imitating you...

Originally Posted by LenMiyata

Grumble Grumble Grumble

Have you seen those wooden walkways over ponds that have a sharp zig-zag to them... According to tradition, evil (but invisible) demons can only move in straight lines when moving over water. Those sharp turns allow you to ditch those demons...

And I've heard that people answer phone calls with 'moshi-moshi' because 'Kitsune' (the 9-tailed fox spirit) can't say those words, thereby proving your not fox imitating you...

that sounds so freakin cool!(seriously). i love japanese superstitions! theyre so much more thought out than american ones

You have the tale of the Slit-Mouth Woman. A woman with a Glasgow smile roaming the streets, wearing a surgical mask to hide the disfigurement and murdering kids after making them answer to the question "Am I pretty?" after taking off the mask. If you say no she kills you and if you say yes she kills you as well.
Later on the answer that she looks average was added and if you said that she wouldn't kill you.

Here's one: Never stick your chopsticks into your bowl of rice, because that's what they do with chopsticks and rice offered up on altars in Japanese funerals.

Good thing I took that Japanese language and culture class when I had the chance. Saved me a great deal of embarrassment when I went out with friends and a few others who weren't as sensitive to Japanese sensibilities...

Originally Posted by psychical

Here's one: Never stick your chopsticks into your bowl of rice, because that's what they do with chopsticks and rice offered up on altars in Japanese funerals.

Good thing I took that Japanese language and culture class when I had the chance. Saved me a great deal of embarrassment when I went out with friends and a few others who weren't as sensitive to Japanese sensibilities...

That's not a superstition though.

Originally Posted by Hassun

That's not a superstition though.

Oh? I was sure it was. Not "superstition" enough? I'll give you another one. Lemme try to remember...

Ah, here's one. Remember that cat sculpture some shops have? The one that "waves"? Well, it's called the "Maneki Neko", or lucky cat.

The lucky cat comes in several different colors, each color signifying something, though I won't talk about that further here. The least everyone should like to know is that these cats are considered lucky, as they bring about good fortune to whoever owns them.

The sculpure "invites" wealth and good luck should it have its right paw raised, and more customers if its left paw's raised. However, you can have the best of both worlds, and get yourself a Maneki Neko that actually "waves" perpetually.

Hope that's an improvement over the last post, Hassun.

A friend once told me that the Japanese have their own ghosts (idk). Their ghosts are different from ours because all that we really think of as ghosts are clear little white things that are see through. Their ghosts each have their own personality and ways to terrorize people. Some general terms for ghosts are "obake" or "bakemono". That really means transforming thing. "youkai" means bewitching apparition, which includes monsters, goblins, and ghouls. "yuurei" is a dim, hazy, or faint spirit. These are probably the closest types of ghosts to America's vision of them that you will get. They are supposedly dead spirits living on earth for a reason. An example of youkai is "Rokurokubi", a female monster with a long, flexible neck. She looks like a regular woman during the day, but at night, she takes all of their energy away from them, and they die. Women ghosts come back in taxi cabs, and other ghosts come back as cats.

And I found this one: The numbers four, nine, and thirteen are considered unlucky. Four means death, nine means pain, and thirteen is basically just the result of American superstitions. In a hospital, it is very uncommon to see rooms numbered four, nine, fourteen, or 42 because they are all somehow associated with death or pain. In the maternity section of hospital, the room numbered 43 is avoided because it literally means still birth.