What in the world?
Every country has superstitions to call its own
By ALEX HEBERT, SUN MEDIA

OTTAWA -- Thirteen is a lucky number. No, really it is.
Just ask anyone living in Greece.
Different cultures have different ideas of what's unlucky. While most of
us believe Friday the 13th is unlucky, people in Greece say Tuesday is a
bad-luck day.
As for numbers, four is considered unlucky in China, while eight is OK.

"Seeing an elephant is supposed to be good luck," says Akaash Koundinya,
23, whose family is originally from India and practises Hinduism. "I
think it's because it represents Ganesha, the god of good fortune."

ANIMALS CENTRAL
Many Hindu superstitions revolve around animals. A peacock is lucky but
hearing its shrill is not. A crow cawing in a house means you're getting
visitors. A dog howling near a sick man's room is a sign of death. And
the various movements of wall lizards is thought to predict the future.
"Superstitions throughout various cultures are linked to a number of
factors," says Stuart Vyse, author of Believing in Magic: the Psychology
of Superstitions.

"One is geography and another is religion. For instance, a society that
lives beside an ocean will generally have more superstitions involving
water than a society that lives in a jungle. Likewise, our (western
society's) infatuation with Friday the 13th likely stemmed from
religious beliefs."

As an example of religious influence on superstitions, Greeks consider
it a bad omen to see a priest walking in the street. To reverse the bad
fortune, you spit three times into your shirt, although only the most
superstitious actually do it.
Vyse says many cultures have different variations of superstitions based
on their surroundings.

In Laos, if you place a baby's placenta in a tree, spirits will eat it
and prepare the child for a happy life.
Vyse says natives of the Marshall Islands throw babies' umbilical cords
in the ocean to make them good fishermen.
"Superstitions are related to geography for at least two reasons," says
Edmund Kern, professor of history at Lawrence University and an
authority on superstitions.
"Geography determines lifestyle and a society's lifestyle often forms
their superstitions and beliefs. The second reason is that, despite
increasing globalization and better and quicker communication, we still
are creatures of our local culture. Superstitions have to be
communicated from one generation to the next."

And we also adopt new superstitions when we move. Greeks consider
Tuesday unlucky but many Greeks who have immigrated to North America now
consider both Friday the 13th and Tuesday unlucky.
In some parts of the world, superstitions have been known to impact
societies in profound ways.
In China, it is widely believed that zodiac signs will determine a
baby's fate. Of the 12 zodiac signs, the most favourable is the dragon.
China saw an explosion in its birth rate during the year 2000 - the year
of the dragon.

DRAGON YEARS
In 2002, Forbes published a report that said 43 of the 400 richest
American businessmen were born in dragon years.
In 2004, Dr. Ka-Fu Wong, an economics professor at the University of
Hong Kong, set out to disprove the dragon year belief along with another
colleague.
"The Dragon is a favourable Zodiac sign in Chinese culture," Wong wrote
in an e-mail. "It has been used as a symbol by emperors for a long time
but I really don't know why it is considered a favourable sign."

Some say the dragon is the very incarnation of
China. Others point to the mythical creature's power.
Wong says there are many reasons why those born the year of the dragon
may generally have better earnings.
If a parent is willing to plan a baby's birth to coincide with a certain
zodiac sign, chances are the parents will push the child to do better in
life, he says.
Another well-documented Chinese superstition involves numbers. The No. 8
is associated with good fortune and prosperity while the No. 4 is
associated with death.
The No. is read "si" in Mandarin, a synonym of "shi" meaning death.

The influence of these superstition numbers can be seen in the Chinese
marketplace. Lee Simmons, of the Nanyang School of Business, and Robert
Schindler, of Rutger's School of Business, conducted a study
investigating the price endings of Chinese consumer products.
They found that posted prices favour the number eight and avoid the
number four wherever possible.
Much like the west avoids constructing buildings with a 13th floor,
China avoids numbering fourth floors in buildings and fourth rows in
theatres.

In California, researcher David Phillips found that heart attacks among
U.S. residents of Chinese descent tend to spike by 13% on the fourth day
of every month.
"That trend was even more pronounced in California where cardiac deaths
among ... Chinese residents spiked 27%."
He attributed the anomaly to an increase in stress brought about by the
fear of the No. 4. The same study conducted with the No. 13 among
American subjects produced no anomalies.
So does Canadian culture have any superstitions unique to it?
"Uh-huh, never mention a shutout before the end of the hockey game,"
says Peter Kent while strolling outside a downtown mall.

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FOR EXAMPLE ...
ANIMALS AND SUPERSTITION IN VARIOUS CULTURES:
- Elephants are considered lucky in Hinduism.
- An albatross circling your boat in the Mediterranean symbolizes a
storm brewing.
- Bats are considered a lucky omen in Poland, but are considered unlucky
in other parts of the world.
- In Iceland, if the first calf born during the winter is white, the
rest of the winter will be a bad one.
- Greeks once believed that dogs could foresee evil and revered owls,
considering them sacred to Athena.
- It is considered an omen of death in England if a rooster crows three
times between sunset and midnight.
- Storks were sacred to Venus in Roman mythology.
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