Traditions, Superstitions, Omen, and the like

Anything you guys have learned of things from others, relatives, or just yourself, that fall into these categories. Things like "Walking under the ladder = bad luck" or "punch someone on the shoulder for every year they have on birthdays" or "Rabbit foot = good luck". This can vary from country to country, from what i've heard, so it would be interesting to hear these kinds of talks!

The one i always believed is the age-old breaking the mirror. Never want to break that shit.

Though I don't believe in any sort of superstition, I still pick up heads-up pennies. The story goes that its a full day of good luck.

My mother believes in the most ridiculous superstitions possible and for years taught me to believe in them too, specifically things like "don't pick up any money from the ground", "if you forgot something in the house, enter the house backwards, look in the mirror and only then get the item you forgot", "don't look in the mirror while eating" and much more of this crap. But i'm not stupid, i don't believe in this stuff. I have to admit though that every time a black cat crosses my path or some other bad superstition happens, i kinda feel frightened a little, but try to ignore it anyway..

I'm Catholic. According to the saddened modern Western world that's practically a superstition.

There is something that may be more relevant though. I have grandparents who are strong traditional Christians who keep pictures of saints everywhere and pray every night. There is something that apparently happened to my grandmother twice with witnesses to back it. In two separate occasions she dreamed of a love one dying, resulting her waking up screaming in fear (loved ones in the other side of the world). My grandfather told her to shut up, it's just a dream and go back to sleep. Well... they came true and received word from relatives of what happened within the week.

My superstition: The more devout and somewhat blindly loyal someone is to their faith the increased chance such a unique vision or connection with a loved one may occur.

Naturally my rational side is assuming very old people are prone to come up with some stories one way or another - but her entire family, including my mum was aware of the dream before they received the news. The fact it happened twice sort of rules out coincidence. I am sort of happy about it, as it's tough to strongly believe in heaven and God without proof. These scenarios puts some healthy doubt in my skepticism.

Owning a white lighter is bad luck because a few celebrities have died with white lighters in their pockets or possession

"If you don't cough, you can't get off"

I was also raised Catholic but do not believe in the magic parts of religion anymore.

Can we just go ahead and leave major modern world religions out of this discussion? That wasn't the intention behind this anyway.

DEFINITELY NOT. I just wanted basic ones like punching someone when a punch buggy passes, or "quncinerras"!

NO stepping on cracks and the white tiles are hot lava.

Well, the thread title DOES have "traditions" in it. Right before superstitions, actually.

I read somewhere that fucking virgin girls can cure you of AIDS.

darknation said:

I read somewhere that fucking virgin girls can cure you of AIDS.

XD
You got to tell is where you read that!

Africa.

darknation said:

I read somewhere that fucking virgin girls can cure you of AIDS.

Laugh of the day, thanks.

Some local people are inclined to believe non-baptized childs are taken/killed by dwarves/goblins, not trying to steer the thread back to religion stuff but i think this superstition is very stupid.

darknation said:

I read somewhere that fucking virgin girls can cure you of AIDS.

I don't know about that, but they can cure blue balls!

There is no way my day can possibly suck if, during my travels, I've seen at least three cats. I haven't quite figured out if that includes cats I've seen on the internet or not.

darknation said:

Africa.

Lmao f***ing South africa .

Chinese people have all kinds of superstitions they pass around. It's really hard to tell if any of this is connected to local versions of certain religions or is somehow culturally universal. The word for 4 sounds like "death" so it's unlucky. "Give clock" sounds like "go to funeral" so giving clocks as gifts is bad (this is form a Chinese-Catholic friend who was so scared of the idea he mentioned it even before we suggested it). Cutting your hair two weeks before Chinese new year is unlucky. Living anywhere near a funeral home or cemetery is bad. Similarly, certain numbers and actions are lucky, so 8 is everywhere and gift money in red envelopes is never refused.

I have no way of telling how universal most of these are. The number 4 seems to scare almost everyone who comes from China or who was raised by someone who did.

My (Chinese) friend and I were in China once and wanted to give our spare cash to a girl in a restaurant who served us before we left China. Her family had taken us for dinner and they clearly had less money than us. She had taken us for lunch the next day too. Well, they were having none of that because apparently you just don't accept such things from guests. She even refused a souvenir $5 bill, and the most expensive bundle of flowers we could buy her from the hotel came to about $5. We got clever and stuffed some in those red envelopes you see at Chinese parties. Well, that just about crashed her mind. She really hesitated before taking those. She tried to give one back the next day. Dammit, the money was so much more useful to her. We would have paid a frustrating fee to switch it into something we could use (either HK dollars or Canadian dollars).

Reminds me of how at various times, groups of men have thought that their penises were being stolen in their sleep, so if they screamed in the night they had to do all sorts of rituals to ward off the evil spirits. It turns out this "ghost penis" phenomenon has cropped up in some way, shape or form across the globe.

PseudoGold said:

Reminds me of how at various times, groups of men have thought that their penises were being stolen in their sleep, so if they screamed in the night they had to do all sorts of rituals to ward off the evil spirits. It turns out this "ghost penis" phenomenon has cropped up in some way, shape or form across the globe.

I was told that if you see a white moth disappear into a light or flame, someone you know was going to die, that was when I was 16. I was told that after I mentioned to said person that I just saw a white moth fly into the ceiling light and it never came out. Shortly thereafter a woman I knew killed herself. I was going to say it's never re-occurred, but then earlier this Summer I saw one fly into a porchlight and disappear, and shortly later my great-uncle died.

Spoooooooky! I realize it's a superstition, the friend who told me that was Hispanic, so that may be where it came from. Apparently there are superstitions about moths heralding death. I've lost touch, so I guess I can't ask where it came from. I realize the moth had nothing to do with it, but it was an odd coincidence.

However, I've never liked moths, might be because when I was a baby in a crib they got in and started swarming on my face and my mother had to shoo them off. Or camping trips where they were always beating on my face when I was trying to sleep. Or just the creepy way you can watch them, from 15 feet off, darting and weaving and swooping, trying to fly, and then they just crash into your face.

I think that probably explains why I kind of think bad ju-ju about moths, although I realize it's ridiculous. They seem so erratic for insects. Butterflies fly gracefully and look for nectar, bees bumble around searching for flowers, ants and wasps are organized hunters, moths just kind of zig-zag like drunkards going the wrong way on a highway because they see a pretty light. But it's pretty much the only phobia I have. I'm fine with rattle-snakes, black widows, brown recluses, mountain lions, wolves; I've encountered them all and I'm cautious, wary, but I keep my head, and back away.

If I see a moth I say "Oh no, fuck that" and duck and weave like hell. Although thinking about it, maybe that's the right approach to something that can't hurt you. If I did that to a wasp, or rattlesnake, or mountain lion, or wolf, I'd attract far more attention than if I was calm. Maybe it's important to have that one weird fear or phobia or superstition that you can get crazy about, so you can face everything else.

I still don't trust moths, especially white ones.

Jello said:

I was told that if you see a white moth disappear into a light or flame, someone you know was going to die, that was when I was 16. I was told that after I mentioned to said person that I just saw a white moth fly into the ceiling light and it never came out. Shortly thereafter a woman I knew killed herself. I was going to say it's never re-occurred, but then earlier this Summer I saw one fly into a porchlight and disappear, and shortly later my great-uncle died.

Spoooooooky! I realize it's a superstition, the friend who told me that was Hispanic, so that may be where it came from. Apparently there are superstitions about moths heralding death. I've lost touch, so I guess I can't ask where it came from. I realize the moth had nothing to do with it, but it was an odd coincidence.

However, I've never liked moths, might be because when I was a baby in a crib they got in and started swarming on my face and my mother had to shoo them off. Or camping trips where they were always beating on my face when I was trying to sleep. Or just the creepy way you can watch them, from 15 feet off, darting and weaving and swooping, trying to fly, and then they just crash into your face.

I think that probably explains why I kind of think bad ju-ju about moths, although I realize it's ridiculous. They seem so erratic for insects. Butterflies fly gracefully and look for nectar, bees bumble around searching for flowers, ants and wasps are organized hunters, moths just kind of zig-zag like drunkards going the wrong way on a highway because they see a pretty light. But it's pretty much the only phobia I have. I'm fine with rattle-snakes, black widows, brown recluses, mountain lions, wolves; I've encountered them all and I'm cautious, wary, but I keep my head, and back away.

If I see a moth I say "Oh no, fuck that" and duck and weave like hell. Although thinking about it, maybe that's the right approach to something that can't hurt you. If I did that to a wasp, or rattlesnake, or mountain lion, or wolf, I'd attract far more attention than if I was calm. Maybe it's important to have that one weird fear or phobia or superstition that you can get crazy about, so you can face everything else.

I still don't trust moths, especially white ones.

And I thought wasps were bad enough.

PseudoGold said:

And I thought wasps were bad enough.

Yeah, I'm usually fine with wasps. Few years ago I was driving, and the passenger said "Hey... a wasp just climbed up your pant leg." I felt it crawling up my leg, so I calmly pulled into a parking lot about 200 feet later, parked the car, opened my door, got out, lifted up the pant leg and it flew off.

If it was a moth, I hope I would've done the same. But I probably would've felt it crawling up my leg and freaked out.

When I was young my grandmother tried to tell me ghosts are real and they are actually malicious demons. I half-believed her for a while but eventually as I grew up I became less superstitious.

Funny enough having an anxiety disorder really opened my eyes to how creative our brains can be. Now I have a hard time believing anything without actual proof, just because I grew up having so many false delusions. Looking back on them they sound ridiculous, like people can hear my thoughts, my family isn't actually my family, I'm being followed, don't walk by parked cars at night...

When I moved here to Oregon some people tried telling me a full moon makes people act crazy, something to do with the waves and ocean at night and our bodies reacting to it. I did a simple google search to see if this was a common belief and lo and behold it is. It's called the Lunar Effect, but there is no supposed connection between us and a full moon.

I try to watch what I say when I'm arguing with someone. I avoid saying to someone directly, that they should get hurt, or die in an explicit manner. In the past I feel as though this has comeback at me multi-fold. Negativity brings more negativity.

Also, I am under some suspicion that my house is haunted. I can't verify that, but I do get the feeling sometimes.

EDIT:

I know that my more catholic family members flip their shit about stuff like fortune-tellers.

Most superstitious person I knew was this Protestant guy. He was ok but really into his Jesus stuff and really hated Hallowe'en. I wanted to leave my copy of the Satanic Bible out and watch him flip his shit.

Whenever, I cook, I always stir clockwise.

This thread reminded me of how fucking stupid humans are. Thanks.

Friday 13th, associated with bad luck.
Getting shat on by a bird, associated with good luck.

'twas Friday 13th May, in the year of our lord 2016 AD, I was walking home from the shops when I suddenly heard a light splat a mere few feet from me. I stopped and looked, and spotted a fresh dollop of bird shit on the pavement right next to me. Yes, on Friday 13th, a bird nearly shat on me but it just missed. I continued home and enjoyed the rest of the day which was about as uneventful as every other.

imho, superstitions are a load of crap, which in this case, turned out to be quite literal.

I know it has absolutely no basis in reality, but I still knock on wood when I say something like "I've never broken a bone" or whatever. That's the only one that stuck with me, not really sure why.

Aliotroph? said:

My (Chinese) friend and I were in China once and wanted to give our spare cash to a girl in a restaurant who served us before we left China. Her family had taken us for dinner and they clearly had less money than us. She had taken us for lunch the next day too. Well, they were having none of that because apparently you just don't accept such things from guests. She even refused a souvenir $5 bill, and the most expensive bundle of flowers we could buy her from the hotel came to about $5. We got clever and stuffed some in those red envelopes you see at Chinese parties. Well, that just about crashed her mind. She really hesitated before taking those. She tried to give one back the next day. Dammit, the money was so much more useful to her. We would have paid a frustrating fee to switch it into something we could use (either HK dollars or Canadian dollars).

I may be off base, but isn't refusing gifts a certain number of times before accepting them some kind of weird yet common chinese cultural behavior?