That old black magic

Japan may be one of the most technologically advanced nations in the world and yet it is saturated in superstition.

“The root of all superstitions is that men observe when a thing hits,” philosopher Francis Bacon wrote, “but not when it misses.” It is indeed the ‘hits’ that drive people to distraction, resulting in otherwise rational thinkers hastily closing umbrellas indoors, shunning black cats and — locally — hiding ones’ thumbs whenever funeral cars pass. The following are a few more Japanese superstitions that have survived the years, proof that even in the 21st century, rationality sometimes has to take a backseat to the historically-accepted, often extremely non-scientific explanations of why something hits (but not, of course, why it misses).

The Dead

In typical Buddhist funerals, the body is incinerated, with the remaining bone fragments of the deceased passed from family member to family member using ceremonial chopsticks, which is why it is considered quite bad form (and, according to some schools of thought, bad luck) to pass food to another person in the same method. Standing chopsticks straight up in a bowl of cooked rice (a very similar setup to the one people put in front of family shrines to burn incense) is another no-no, as is not making at least some effort to return to one’s hometown during August’s Obon holiday (more of a social more than a superstition; but still, someone has to be there to guide ancestors’ spirits upon their return to the ‘real’ world). Older locals may cover their thumbs – the ‘oya yubi’, or ‘parent fingers’ – when a funeral hearse passes by, out of fear that their parents will soon die if they don’t. The film industry has to pay heavy respect to the dead, as well; before many films – particularly horror movies or films dealing with the supernatural – a Buddhist or Shinto priest must come by to purify the set.

Current Relevance: High. Disrespected for the dead is, as it is pretty much everywhere else in the world, highly frowned upon.

Children

Every child in Japan knows how to make a taro taro ball (a doll constructed of tissue, and hung right-side-up near a window), though few can explain why exactly it has the power to keep rain away. Most children will be able to explain what happens to the kids who fail to eat every grain of rice in their bowl (they go blind – a pretty severe version of the common eat-all-your-dinner-because-people-incountry X-are-starving trope a lot of Western countries have), and why cutting fingernails at night is a bad idea (do it, and you might die before your parents do). An oldie-but-goodie parents invoke to keep the wee ones in line is the stern warning kaminari ga heso oh toru (‘light- ing will get your belly button,’ more or less). The concern of cold weather — and the obvious drop in temperature that accompanies storms — encouraged parents to kill two birds with one stone by telling their clothing-averse children that their bellies would be stolen unless they keep it covered (thus, making the kids run back and dress warmly).

Current Relevance: High. Logic and scientific reason are fairly unfamiliar concepts to the five-year-old mind (and to some minds much older than that), something parents everywhere are happy to exploit.

Dreams and Premonitions

‘Premonition’ is translated as mushi no shirase (literally, ‘a bug’s notification’) in Japanese; as it goes, seeing an unnatural swarm of insects portends that … well, something bad will happen; so its good to keep ones’ eyes open to observe whether a bug — or a group of them — is doing anything ‘strange.’ Another superstition contends that human souls can appear in the form of a butterfly, and that the appearance of one in the house can signal, for example, a loved one coming to visit (which is why its bad form to squash one if it ever flies inside). Additionally, because the ‘dream world’ is reversed, losing ones’ hair or fingernails in a dream (bad fortune) will result in the ‘reverse’ happening in the real world (good fortune – though not necessarily good fortune involving hair growth). On New Year’s Day, however, dreaming about Mt. Fuji or hawks or eggplants portends good luck for the rest of the year.

Current Relevance: Low; as many people point out, it would presumably be quite easy to rig the system by watching a continuous loop of a hawk on Mt. Fuji eating eggplants right before one goes to bed on the first night of the new year.

Dates

Though Friday the 13th isn’t such a big deal in Japan, butsumetsu certainly is. The aforementioned, which literally trans- lates to mean ‘death of Buddha,’ has a place on the calendar date along with five other day designations, and is famous for being the very worst choice when selecting a wedding date. (If Buddha, after all, can meet his end, your marriage certainly can, too.) Additionally, although there are certainly no ‘good’ days for a funeral, a definite bad one is tomobiki, a day designation that implies ones’ friends joining in on bad fortune (for example, a funeral). Butsumetsu and tomobiki join the four other days, repeated cyclically, on the calendar to make up the Japanese calendar month. Though most seem to offer bad luck either all day or at varying times of the day, the day of taian is known as the luckiest day for events and, as such, is a good time for things like weddings and starting vacations.

Current Relevance: Very high. Even today, bridal boutiques like Best Bridal and Watabe Wedding make it a point to advise couples on ‘lucky’ and ‘unlucky’ days for their big event. Some savvy (or at least, not particularly superstitious) couples, however, opt to reserve a ‘bad luck’ day for the ceremony straight away — the better, actually, to shave a decent amount of yen off of the cost.

Directions

There are lucky directions — for example, the designated lucky direction to eat sushi in, on the night of Setsubun in February. Then there are the unlucky ones — for example, sleeping with your head to the north, a placement usually reserved for corpses. As well, fusui (the Chinese art of feng shui’s local translation) is as big here as it is everywhere else; for the die-hards, everything from home location to the placement of doors and furniture has to be just so, in order to keep things on an even keel. The very worst direction for placement is northeast, which is known as the kimon (‘devil gate’, or ‘demon gate’) direction. Because the kimon is where demons and other evil spirits pass through, putting an entrance to a home in this direction is regarded as extremely bad luck; Shiga’s Enryakuji Shrine, atop Mt. Hiei in the northeast of Kyoto, was constructed with the sole purpose of blocking the Kyoto’s kimon direction and protecting the city from incoming demons.

Current Relevance: Given the popularity of fusui in Japan, quite high. There is, however, the apocryphal tale of Kansai entrepreneur Konosuke Matsushita, and his determination to build his new Osaka company in a kimon direction, something the locals strongly advised him against. Matsushita founded his company in the kimon direction in 1918 anyway, and it may say something about superstitions as a whole that Panasonic — and its parent company, Matsushita Electric — are still doing just fine, nearly 90 years later.

Text: Jeff Lo • Photos: KS • Illustration: Jack Lefcourt