Interesting Facts!! #42

42. Bad Luck

Everywhere in the world has superstitions that will cause bad luck like in the U.S., the number 13, walking under a latter and much more. In Japan there is bad luck every where; clipping your nails at night, showing your belly button, and killing spiders are some ways to kill your experience in Japan. If the though of becoming cursed with bad luck while on your trip in Japan is unnerving to you, here are some well known Japanese superstitions and how to prevent them from coming your way.

Kita Makura/ The North Facing Pillow
Bring along a compass if you have to because you have to make sure your pillow isn't facing the north when you're heading to bed. The pillow facing the north is the same way corpses are positioned during funerals. So sleep in any direction you want but not north.

Clipping Nails at Night
The saying goes that - if you clip your nails at night you may not see your parents before they die. Don't clip your nails at night, just sleep and do it in the morning. Anyways it may be annoying to the people you live with to hear someone clipping their nails while they are trying to sleep.

Sticking Chopsticks Upright in a Bowl of Rice
Stabbing a bowl of rice with chopsticks placed upright is a gesture reserved for funerals only, this will earn you a few uneasy stares if you do this. To rest the chopsticks, use the hashioki (chopstick rest) position (lay them across the top of the rice bowl) or just lay them down on the table next to the bowl.

Avoid the number 4 and 9
You may notice that some buildings are missing the 4th and 9th floor and some hospitals are missing rooms 4 and 9. The reason for that is 4 is read as "shi" which means death, and 9 is read as "ku"which is the word for suffering.
Some maternity wards don't have the room number 43 "shi-san" because it means still born and for that reason many women ready to give birth avoid getting a room with those numbers.
Keep in mind when you are getting a gift for someone not to get 4 or 9 of the item...this can cause a bit of panic.

Whistling at Night
Japanese superstitions mostly come from old folk wisdom - night time is quiet time, and those who make noise will be targeted by the bad guys.

The Broken Geta Sandal
In Japan, the popping off of a geta strap causes bad things to come, while in the west, its the breaking of a mirror. If you can't bear the thought of bad luck geta, don't buy cheap geta from the 100 yen shop.

Pointing Your Index Finger or Thumb in The Presence of a Hearse
Aiming your index finger toward the dead implies insult, but the thumb is supposedly worse - the word for thumb is "oya- yubi", oya means parent. Exposing your thumb or oya in the vicinity of a hearse means that your parents will be the next to die.
Just keep your hands in your pockets if you're unsure - that way you don't wish ill on your parents or unintentionally insult a spirit.

Morning Spiders VS Evening Spiders
I don't know how this rule cam about - Hold off from killing the morning spider because it is auspicious, but go ahead and kill the evening visitor spider, as pm spiders are considered bad luck. Not really sure how this will apply to a pet spider.

Yakudoshi (Bad Luck) Year
Men and women are known to have different bad luck years when obstacles and suffering are known to peak. If you have a bad luck year, don't worry, a few hundred yen at a local shrine will get you a special amulet or omamori - remember to ask for one made for Yakudoshi and always carry it with you at all times.
As tempting as it may be don't open your amulet pouch because you'll be hit with a double whammy of Yakudoshi and bachi (curse) if you do.

Women Born During the Year of The Fire Horse
Every 60 years the year of the fire horse or hinoe uma occurs - women born then are considered fierce enough to destroy men, thus making them unlucky in love and marriage. If you or your spouse believes you are one, you or your partner must of been born in 1906 or 1966.
Your daughter may be a fiery fire horse if she was born in 2006. The next year of the fire horse is 2066 - if you didn't get a fire horse daughter and what one plan to give birth during 2066 to curse your daughter with bad luck in love and marriage.

Hide Your Belly From The Thunder God
If you sleep with you belly exposed during a thunder storm, you may wake up to a button less belly which had been taken by the thunder god -or so folklore goes.
For peace of mind, get a haramaki - a wide, elastic cotton undergarment - which is worn over the belly to prevent a belly chill, and to steer the thunder god away from your innie or outie (he likes both). The good thing about a haramaki is that you can wear it as a micro mini skirt low on the hips, or a tube top and they come in many different colors.

So for those of you that are conflicted by curses and bad luck, those are some famous superstitions and ways to prevent bad luck from going after you.

-The more you know~

Superstitions

Unexplained Noises From The House

In modern Japanese, yanari means the shaking or rattling of a house, usually during an earthquake. In the past, any strange noise that a house made was caused by a monster called a yanari shaking, hammering, and pounding at the walls. While earthquakes were common in ancient Japan, it wasn’t known that a lot of low-level quakes occurred throughout the day that couldn’t be felt. When a house shook for no apparent reason, it was thought to be theyanari causing mischief.
Disappearances

Japanese folklore states that common animals were often more than they seemed. Foxes in particular were responsible for a variety of supernatural mischief. They usually confined themselves to common pranks, but could also be responsible for more sinister acts ranging from arson to kidnapping. A common belief was that, after nightfall, foxes appeared as beautiful women who lured men away from their families.
Falling Down
Kamaitachi, or “sickle weasels,” were packs of monstrous weasels that rode the winds and inflicted cuts and scrapes on innocent human victims. Moving faster than the eye could see, kamaitachi worked in groups of three. The first would knock the victim down, then the second, bearing the sickles, would slash at them until a third came behind and healed the wounds. The monsters were held responsible for all sorts of tumbles, and after getting up and finding a cut, the victim would exclaim they had been cut by a sickle weasel. They were a ready excuse for cuts and scrapes that someone might not be willing to explain. Several accounts had people blaming their wounds on the sickle weasels instead of admitting what they had actually been up to.
Sleep Paralysis

Compared to other countries, sleep paralysis is common in Japan, with an estimated 40 percent of the population experiencing it at some point in their lives. The prevalence, however, is likely cultural rather than genetic. Called kanashibari, which roughly means “to be bound by metal,” it is considered a well-known phenomena in Japan. With a plethora of blogs and television programs about it, Japanese sleepers are simply more conditioned to recognize kanashibari than those in other parts of the world. Sometimes, though, being unable to move while lying half-awake in bed is believed to be caused by spirits.
Children say that sleeping with a stuffed animal draws the binding ghost, as does sleeping on your back. Others say that it’s from being unkind or studying too much.
-The more you know~

Interesting Facts!! #41

41. Superstitions

A superstition is a widely held but unjustified belief in supernatural causation 
leading to certain consequences of an action or event, or a practice based on
such a belief.

Many countries, nations and cultures have superstition some are very vague or 
sound pretty crazy. Japan runs on myths and spooks which give lessons and/or 
warnings in the stories the locals tell. In Japanese society there are lots of 
superstitions that can lead to a consequence if you don't follow the belief. Like 
any other country these superstitions are pretty unique where that superstition explained the unexplainable by turning it into living things. It is said that Japan was a rich supernatural world where spirits lurked in every shadow and monsters walked in the footsteps of men.

Here are some Japanese superstitions:

According to folklore, the supernatural was as big a threat to Japanese travelers by night as were wildlife and bandits. It was only natural that many travelers got lost in the dark when the only light to show you the way came from the Moon and stars, unless you carried a lantern. Superstition, however, pinned their detour on a monster.


Getting Lost at Night-


A yokai is a Japanese monster - the nurikabe was a yokai shaped like a wall that appeared in the paths of travelers. Usually invisible, it would completely block a road, forcing travelers to go around it. Like many yokai, though, the nurikabe was a trickster. Even if someone tried a different path, the wall would stretch out or uncomplainingly get up and move. It was said that anyone who encountered a nurikabe could get lost for days.

Mysterious Foot From an Empty Room-

Large houses in ancient Japan were open affairs with rooms separated byshoji screens. Noise would carry and would often seem to come from strange places. When rustling noises or the sounds of footsteps came from an empty room, superstition had it that a spirit called a zashiki-warashi was inhabiting the house.

Roughly translated zashiki-warashi  means “parlor child,” and were child-like spirits that lived in empty rooms. They were said to be at most 12 years old and would occasionally appear to the house’s tenants. While the noises they made were mysterious and their sudden appearances would probably have given most families a shock, zashiki-warashi were said to bring good fortune and prosperity to whomever they lived with.

Unfortunately, they also took it away when they left. Zashiki-warashi moved from place to place whenever they saw fit. In one story, a family had two living with them who brought prosperity to their household while they were present. Eventually they left, however, and soon after almost the entire family died when the servants mistakenly served them a meal of poisonous mushrooms. The next family that the two zashiki-warashi moved in with, meanwhile, immediately became prosperous. Due to their association with fortune, it’s been theorized that zashiki-warashi were a device used to explain the sudden rise and fall of wealthy families.

Missing Children-
There could be any number of reasons for a child to go missing, but according to ancient Japanese superstition, most missing children were spirited away by a monster called an ubume. An ubume is a bird-like creature that became a woman who kidnapped children once its feathers were plucked. Ubume were believed to be the spirits of women who died in childbirth, though they could also have died while pregnant. Either way, their attachment to their lost child lingered after death and gave them an insatiable need for one of their own, which they appeased by kidnapping one.

A different story of the ubume is that there is a topless woman carrying a baby. Appearing at dusk at crossroads and bridges, the ubume would ask passersby to hold her child while she ran an errand. The baby grew heavier and heavier until the person holding it recited a Buddhist prayer, whereupon the ubume returned and thanked them for bringing her child back into the world of the living. Still other accounts had ubume searching for guardians to care for her baby after her death, while in others she did so herself by making occasional visits into town to buy supplies with coins that turned into dried leaves after she disappeared.

Missing Lantern Oil-
Work done at night was usually done by oil lamps in ancient Japan. Unfortunately for those who made their living at night, the preferred oil was fish oil, a favorite of both mice and cockroaches. The pests would drink the oil and force the worker to waste time fending them off. Sometimes, though, when the loss of oil was thought to be too much for the critters to have stolen, superstition held that it was taken by a monster called the himamushi-nyudo.

It was said that the soul of a person who wasted all his free time would become a himamushi-nyudo—which roughly means “oil licker”—and interfere with the night work of others. Despite the superstition, the connection to cockroaches was not lost on yokai catalogers, and the monster was often depicted alongside cockroach symbolism. This association led to the suggestion of himamushi-nyudo being giant anthropomorphic cockroaches.

Dirty Ceilings and Night Chills-
Without modern heating and insulation, ancient Japanese houses were very cold in the winter. Those with high ceilings also grew quite dark at night. Superstition held that both winter’s chill and the dark were caused by a monster called the tenjo-name. The creature would float in the upper reaches of the room, bringing down the temperature and obscuring the ceiling. It was a tall, bony creature with a long tongue that it used to lick the ceilings. When the tenjo-name licked the ceiling it became dirtier, not cleaner.

The Feeling of Being Watched-
Like today, taking shelter in an abandoned house often proved an unnerving experience in ancient Japan when taking shelter was necessary for protection against the elements. It was often reported that people who slept in an abandoned house had an uncanny feeling that they were being watched by an unseen presence. Unwilling to chalk the sensation up to mere imagination, superstition held that uninvited guests were in fact being watched by the house itself. Called a mokumokuren, the old, abandoned house would sprout hundreds of eyes that would watch them closely.

These are just some Japanese superstitions...I will make another post with more superstition but for now I hope you are satisfied.
-The more you know~