{"id":1279,"date":"2018-03-02T09:09:32","date_gmt":"2018-03-02T01:09:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/2018\/03\/02\/five-strange-chinese-superstitions\/"},"modified":"2024-12-29T20:17:13","modified_gmt":"2024-12-29T12:17:13","slug":"five-strange-chinese-superstitions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/five-strange-chinese-superstitions\/","title":{"rendered":"Five Strange Chinese Superstitions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chinese culture<\/a> is as old as they come, and as with any ancient culture, you\u2019re going to have some pretty interesting superstitions built in.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Chinese culture is as old as they come, and as with any ancient culture, you\u2019re going to have some pretty interesting superstitions built in.<\/p>\n

Egyptians have their blue tortoise (protection from evil), Italians have the number 17 (bad luck) and even Americans have the seasonal\u00a0playoff beard<\/a> (kind of just looks awesome I guess?).<\/p>\n

China remains a surprisingly superstitious society, and some people can take these beliefs so seriously that the government has had to initiate programs to remind people not to follow them too closely.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll get into a few of my favorite Chinese superstitions below!<\/p>\n

Aversion to Used or Second-hand Things<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"superstition2.jpg\"<\/p>\n

Image: Yoyo Chinese<\/p>\n

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In a red-hot, fast moving economy with a \u201cWild East\u201d reputation, you\u2019d think there\u2019d be a big market<\/a> for second-hand,\u00a0or “\u00e8r sh\u01d2u (\u4e8c\u624b)”\u00a0\u00a0(literally \u201csecond hand\u201d)\u00a0goods.<\/p>\n

After all, people are moving between cities and apartments all the time (I\u2019m doing it this weekend after just moving into my new place 3 months ago…long story) and new versions of products come out with crazy frequency.<\/p>\n

Oddly enough, though, there\u2019s a superstitious aversion to second-hand or used products that\u2019s a subtle but important force in Chinese commerce.<\/p>\n

Part of it comes from the classic \u201cface\u201d construct, wherein one\u2019s reputation takes a hit if it becomes known that they\u2019re using second hand products.<\/p>\n

Another part of it is that many believe while being in possession of a secondhand item,\u00a0they’ll inherit whatever bad luck or misfortune of the item’s previous owner. For that\u00a0reason, estate sales<\/a>, which typically happen after bankruptcies, divorces, or deaths,\u00a0rarely occur\u00a0in China.<\/p>\n

The continuation of this superstition in modern times\u00a0may\u00a0also be because\u00a0that\u00a0\u201cnew\u201d is the norm in China, and has been for a whole generation now.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the world\u2019s global manufacturing hub and construction is constant and ever-present given the low price of labor and materials, leading to a culture and atmosphere in which repurposing old goods or extending their lifespans is rare \u2013 there\u2019s always something new on the horizon because new stuff is relatively\u00a0cheap to make here.<\/p>\n

This is particularly\u00a0applicable to apartments: the common belief among home buyers in China is that once a tenant moves in, the home value drops by up to 50%.<\/p>\n

Numerical Superstitions<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"superstition3.jpg\"<\/p>\n

Image: Yoyo Chinese<\/p>\n

\n

Lots of cultures have numerical superstitions, but China tends to take this to the next level.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s commonly known that the word for the number 4, or “s\u00ec (\u56db)”,\u00a0sounds a lot like the word for death “s\u01d0\u00a0(\u6b7b)”, and thus is considered highly unlucky.<\/p>\n

Many, though not the majority, buildings in China lack a labeled 4th floor, and license plate numbers, phone numbers and even addresses with 4\u2019s tend to be considered less desirable. A study even proved that in North American communities with large numbers of Chinese immigrants, addresses ending in a 4\u00a0sold for 2.2% less than average.<\/p>\n

Addresses ending in an 8, on the other hand, sold for 2.5% more than average, which speaks to the auspicion, or\u00a0“j\u00ed l\u00ec (\u5409\u5229)”\u00a0,\u00a0superstitiously attributed to that number.<\/p>\n

The reasoning here is that “b\u0101 (\u516b)”\u00a0\u00a0sounds a bit like\u00a0“f\u0101 (\u53d1)”\u00a0, a shortened version of “f\u0101 c\u00e1i (\u53d1\u8d22)”\u00a0, or \u201cto get rich,\u201d which is a nice linguistic lesson in the way that words with the same tone but different sounds can be considered a strong rhyme in Mandarin.<\/p>\n

White is Associated with Death<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"superstition4.jpg\"<\/p>\n

Image: Yoyo Chinese<\/p>\n

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For Westerners, the association is so ingrained and automatic that its figurative use is ubiquitous: white hat\/black hat hackers, black metal music, white flags, etc.<\/p>\n

In China<\/a>, however, while black has a somewhat similar (though less grave) connotation, white also signifies darker things, namely death.<\/p>\n

The association comes from the ancient tradition of wearing white at funerals, which made white the color of mourning.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s still fairly common to see funerals in China where people are dressed predominantly<\/a> in white, in fact, and while the tradition was to wear white only at funerals or other mourning events, that\u2019s really not the case anymore (except after Labor Day, of course).<\/p>\n

Until somewhat recently, though, it was rare to see brides wearing white dresses, as it struck much older Chinese as inappropriate, though these days it\u2019s pretty standard.<\/p>\n

Yu\u00e8 zi \u2013 A Month of Post-Natal Inactivity<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"superstition5.jpg\"<\/p>\n

Image: Yoyo Chinese<\/p>\n

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Childbirth is a process that engenders conservatism everywhere \u2013 no one wants to take any chances with their new baby or their own health<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As usual though, Chinese culture takes this to a whole other level with the “yu\u00e8 zi (\u6708\u5b50)”\u00a0. I’m not sure what to call them other than “The Month”, capital T, capital M.\u00a0This\u00a0“yu\u00e8 zi (\u6708\u5b50)” business<\/a> is\u00a0\u00a0a month-long period of confinement for mothers after a child is born.<\/p>\n

Now you\u2019re probably thinking, it makes sense to take it easy after childbirth for a bit, right? Sure, but to “zu\u00f2 yu\u00e8 zi (\u5750\u6708\u5b50)”\u00a0\u00a0(this is just the verb form, with\u00a0zu\u00f2\u00a0meaning \u201cto sit\u201d) is a horse of a different color.<\/p>\n

Mothers are not permitted to leave the house for the month, and are prescribed strict treatments of traditional medicines and diets, which can include weird food<\/a>s like\u00a0bird\u2019s nest soup.<\/p>\n

Besides that, these new mothers are discouraged from showering for an entire month. The reasoning behind this is new mothers are\u00a0especially susceptible to colds and diseases during this time. Some go even so far as to prohibit new mothers from brushing their teeth.<\/p>\n

Observing “yu\u00e8 zi (\u6708\u5b50)” isn\u2019t quite as mandatory these days, and the practices have eased up a bit among younger Chinese who are more comfortable with modern medicine than with TCM, but it\u2019s still as strictly-enforced as any other Chinese superstition, and actually jives quite nicely with the Western maternity leave concept.<\/p>\n

Don’t Build a House Facing North<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"superstition6.png\"<\/p>\n

Image: Yoyo Chinese<\/p>\n

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It\u2019s no surprise that a country famous for inventing “f\u0113ng shu\u01d0\u00a0(\u98ce\u6c34)”\u00a0\u00a0(literally \u201cwind water\u201d but meaning\u00a0the art of home design and orientation to optimize the flow of “q\u00ec (\u6c14)”\u00a0, or vital energy) has a lot of superstitions about home building.<\/p>\n

One of the most prominent is that a family should never build a home that faces\u00a0north, rooted in the traditional belief that the north represents darkness, evil and bad luck.<\/p>\n

Perhaps it\u2019s an ingrained-over-the-millennia fear of the Mongols or a few too many episodes of Game of Thrones, but this is a genuine superstition that (mostly older) Chinese folks follow.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve even occasionally heard it offered as an explanation for why certain apartment building facing north feature cheaper rents than their south-facing counterparts.<\/p>\n

“F\u0113ng shu\u01d0 (\u98ce\u6c34)” is all about arranging things so there is harmony in the shared\u00a0“q\u00ec (\u6c14)”, but there are some practical considerations as well. Homes in the southern half of the country generally are not well-insulated due to government regulations that don\u2019t mandate it, which means that rooms with southern-facing windows (which receive the most sun in the winter) are generally the warmest \u2013 in this case the superstition holds true!<\/p>\n

Source: Yoyo Chinese<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chinese culture is as old as they come, and as with any ancient culture, you\u2019re going to have some pretty interesting superstitions built in. Chinese culture is as old as …","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25500,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[1948,60,386,353,3562,1780,1874,306,1713,29,34,1209,3007],"class_list":["post-1279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pro-tips","tag-business","tag-china","tag-chinese-culture","tag-e-china-cities","tag-five-strange-chinese-superstitions","tag-food","tag-health","tag-hiredchina","tag-in-china","tag-jobs","tag-jobs-in-china","tag-market","tag-sales"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1279","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1279"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1279\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25501,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1279\/revisions\/25501"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}