15th February – 如月

日本の迷信　（Nippon no Meishin）　‐　Japanese Superstition

<<<Try to avoid those actions!>>>

Just like the all other countries have their own superstition, Japan have many too! There are weird but interesting superstitions told from long time ago. Today’s blog, I would like to introduce the negative ones and then tomorrow the positive ones!

夜に爪を切ると、親の死に目に会えない

If you cut your nail in the night, you won’t see your parents before they die.

Origin: In the Edo era, there were not much lights during the night time so it was not easy to see clearly. Therefore, people said this in order not to clip the nail too deep or injure the body. The other possible origin is the word ‘夜爪 (Yozume)’ have the same pronunciation as ‘世詰め’ – making own life shorter, therefore if the person’s life is shorter they will die before the parents. So this superstition was born.

夜に口笛を吹くと、蛇が出る

If you whistle in the night, snake will show up

Origin: As the snakes are sensitive to the sounds (Indian snake pod, snake charmer shows the proof), they are believed to come if people whistle. There are poisonous snakes in Japan and night time is dark and uneasy to see if they are reaching, therefore people even nowadays worries about this. Another possibility is that snake (=蛇,Hebi) can be pronounced ‘邪,Ja’. 邪が出る(Ja ga deru) means lost the way, therefore, parents told this story and make the kids scared. Also they used to tell this to kids as whistling can bother the naighbors.

しゃっくりを100回すると、死ぬ

If you do hick ups 100 times, you will die

Origin: 100 times does not mean the exact times – means many times. In the old time, people could not go to see the doctor often. Hick ups can be the sign of the illness and people in that time believed hick ups is one of the sicknesses. Not being able to go to the doctor with many hick ups might scared people back then.

茶碗を叩くと、餓鬼が来る

If you hit the rice bowl, brat (hungry evil) will come

Origin: Brat are the evils who did bad deeds during their human life. They are always hungry and thirsty. If the brat comes to the house, they will eat all the foods and drink all the water so the house becomes poor. Telling this story to scare kids and make them stop the rude attitude while having meal.

Many of the superstitions were made in order to stop something bad habit. There are still many people believe in those superstitions even the young generations.

What are the interesting superstitions from your country?