Chinese superstitions toughened me up. But what do Hong Kong children today know of the invisible forces behind holding chopsticks, slipper placement?
- My generation’s upbringing was marked by folklore and the threat of lifelong jinxing, but it made us resilient
- Many youngsters now seem to have cocooned lives, but sheltering them from harsh realities can do them a disservice
Growing up in a traditional Chinese household can sometimes be very stressful and make one feel anxious about what the future has in store. Whenever a child does something that is not in line with tradition, parents are usually quick to tell their child that they may be doomed or worse, jinxed for the rest of their life.
Mind you, Chinese people say superstitious beliefs are supposed to make one feel more positive about oneself, one’s immediate environment, or one’s life by reassuring them that they are protected by the ancestors belonging to their clans.
But speaking from my own experiences, I never felt that kind of reassurance during my childhood.
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Chinese children are often scared into following Chinese traditions as their parents don’t hesitate to tell them if they don’t respect certain rules and customs, then they will trigger the wrath of various gods.
There are many gods or deities that the Chinese worship, and they fulfil a variety of roles. There are gods for business, careers, academia, health, the oceans, the earth and just about every element in life; there is even a god dedicated to protecting a family’s kitchen. These gods are tasked with keeping the human world and the surrounding universe in balance.
And each of them has their own level of influence that contributes to maintaining the universal balance. This means that if we do something “wrong”, we could tip that balance and bring bad luck to ourselves or even people close to us.
In my childhood years, I was constantly reminded that everything I did had consequences. If I didn’t respect my parents and older members of the family, I would suffer the same fate of being disrespected or even abandoned by my own children when I got old.
Even if I didn’t eat certain types of food it would bring me bad luck. For example, if I refused to eat leeks, then I would end up marrying a man with pockmarks. I used to think how strange it was that one’s choice of food could have such a devastating impact on marriage.
There are so many superstitions Chinese children grew up listening to and believing. Things like not leaving your slippers pointing towards your bed are drilled into children at a young age because it’s an invitation for spirits to join you in bed.
So even now, I am still mindful to never park my slippers pointing towards my bed.
Older relatives constantly warn me to always bow, burn incense, and make offerings in the four corners of a place that I am about to move into so that I can appease the spirits that inhabit the house.
This is because it’s believed the living must get permission from the dead before occupying a new place in case there were some angry ghosts that might have lived there previously.
When I was a little girl, I learned to use chopsticks by myself with no one telling me how to properly utilise them. So, I can tell you that I am the last person you would want to ask to teach a foreigner how to hold chopsticks properly; I grasp them like I am holding a pen, which is technically incorrect.
But hey who cares? I can pick up my food without any quibbles.
But what fascinated me most was my relatives who used to keep telling me that from the way I held my chopsticks, it was a sign that I would eventually leave home and marry someone far away.
As a child, I was pretty excited about this forecast adventure; who wouldn’t want to explore the world, right?
So how did they predict my future; from the way I held my chopsticks?
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The Chinese believe if a girl holds her chopsticks at the top, it means her future husband lives far away. But if she holds them close to the bottom, she will likely marry someone close to home. This prediction applies only to women.
But if you choose to remain a sceptic, expect your relatives to say, “Don’t say we didn’t warn you.”
In my generation, I think Chinese children were quite tough, brave and resilient because most of us had to live with these folklores, superstitions, and invisible forces — both good and evil — while growing up.
Children nowadays seem to be a lot more sensitive, but is it a good or bad thing? Can this sensitivity be flipped as fragility?
Children should be properly nurtured and protected while growing up, but the level of protection shouldn’t be so extreme and overwhelming that it ends up making them lose their innate defence mechanism and ability to overcome difficulties or their curiosity to explore the world.
Overprotection and privilege are never a good thing. About a decade or so ago, people in Hong Kong used to joke that if you asked a local child the colour of an apple, they would say it’s white because their apples were always peeled by their domestic helpers before they ate them.
These kids were branded “Kong Kids”, a derogatory phrase that referred to a subset of children or teenagers who had low emotional intelligence and poor self-management skills.
I am not sure if the “Kong Kids” phenomenon is as prevalent as before, but from my observations, I think many of our youngsters are still very much living in their invisible cocoons. So maybe it’s time we get them out of it and give them a taste of the “real world”.
It doesn’t have to be done in a harsh way, but it won’t do our kids any good if we keep them sheltered from harsh realities.
Luisa Tam is a Post correspondent who also hosts Cantonese-language video tutorials that are now part of Cathay Pacific’s in-flight entertainment programme
