Superstition

[Guest]

I never heard about that even I am Thai.

What we do believe not give for others are Knife, Lighter (fire), bullet. As it bad meaning. If someone give you that you must pay them some money back, maybe 1 baht. Pretend like you buy it.

Cheers

[khunsanuk]

Hi,

I heard about the knife (cutting ties, right?), but never heard about the lighter and the bullet.

Would you mind explaining those?

Sanuk!

[Guest]

Yo NutGirl -

Interesting comment on the knife, and a very true observation at that!

My story - a few years ago I bought a beautiful chef's knife (J.A. Henckels). Absolutely gorgeous, it was, and I paid over $100 bucks for it.

After using it so many months the edge became slightly dulled, so I took it down to the Chinese groceria and had good ol' "Joe" sharpen it for me.

A week later I came back and Joe gave my knife back, all smiling, wouldn't take any money, etc.

Then I look down at my blade...JAYSUS, both sides are all hacked to sh*t from scraping the knife on the sharpening stone.

I just smiled away at Joe and thanked him profusely, and walked away.

I get outside...aw, fuuuuuuuuuu*********kkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk

Next time I went to PDang for a haircut, I gave her the knife as she was making som-dtum (yeah, she feeds me ). Now the knife wasn't worth sh*t to me. Anyway, she insisted that instead of just taking it for nothing, she would buy it from me for...$1.00.

[khunsanuk]

Hi,

Thanks for the explanation.

Even though I am not superstitious, I find this stuff fascinating.

Sanuk!

[Central Scrutinizer]

Thai Tradition (The Ubai)

Today it may all sound like superstitious nonsense,

but many old Thai stories and sayings were clever ways of getting people to live together harmoniously. These trick teachings (ubai in Thai) were used to get people to do things.

This made me think about an impression I've had about Thai women over the years. Many Thai women I've known can be very stubborn. Khun Sujit (article below) put this very well in the following analogy comparing Thais with a cat: "The more you forbid Thais to do something, the more determined they are to do exactly that," he said. "In this respect, they are like cats. If you pull a cat's tail, it will try its hardest to go forward. Then, if you pull its head forward, it will do its best to back up. If you try to lift its back, it will try to crouch down, and if you pull its stomach down toward the ground, it will try to arch its back upward."

BigDog

---------------------

The following article is very interesting reading

about how Thai tradition dealt with getting children and others to do what they are told.

Bangkok Post

22 July 1999

By Suthon Sukphisit

"Thai tradition is full of tricks and stratagems used to teach the rules of daily living," said Sujit Buaphim, of the public relations department of the Office of the National Culture Commission, "but what is interesting is that their real intention is kept hidden so they achieve the desired effect." Mr Sujit, who has researched these tricks for years, compiled them into two books, Jao Nok Krawao and Banthuek jaak thaai rai. Both became big sellers immediately upon publication, because, for perhaps the first time the meanings behind many well-known sayings were there in print! Even though the trick teachings (ubai in Thai) are rarely used today, they shed light on traditional ways of thinking, and on the currently fashionable notion of Thai folk wisdom. Mr Sujit said these ubai are intended as warnings against harmful behaviour. Their actual intention is kept hidden, however, to disarm the Thai tendency to do exactly the opposite of what one is told.

"The more you forbid Thais to do something, the more determined they are to do exactly that," he said. "In this respect, they are like cats. If you pull a cat's tail, it will try its hardest to go forward. Then, if you pull its head forward, it will do its best to back up. If you try to lift its back, it will try to crouch down, and if you pull its stomach down toward the ground, it will try to arch its back upward."

"There is no use trying to use reason against this

tendency in Thai people; it won't work. Instead, you have to use threats and trick warnings instead of stating things directly."

"The three types of threats that work best are those involving ghosts and other frightening things, those that involve being struck by lightning, and those that concern personal or family decline."

"Ubai can also be categorised according to the age

group of the people to whom they are directed. There are trick warnings for boys and girls, others for teenagers, and a third type for pregnant women."

"It's important to understand the social context in

which they developed. In the old days, communities

were organised largely in

villages in which everyone was related and knew each other. Everyone made their living the same way, as farmers. All the tools used in daily living were home-made, and water travel was most common. I became interested in ubai because I come from a country background. I heard many ubai myself while I was growing up. Then, while working with the Office of the National Culture Commission, I got the idea of collecting them and explaining the meaning hidden inside each one. It took me years to do this for the 200 of them I collected."

"In the countryside, children were warned if they

tried to ride a dog, lightning would strike them.

Rural households raised dogs to guard the property,

and children liked to play with them. Sometimes the

children tried to climb on the dog's back and pull its ears. This hurt the dog, and sometimes the child would be bitten."

"Adults knew that, by nature, children were afraid of thunder and lightning. If they told youngsters not to harass the dog because it might bite them, the children wouldn't believe them. They would probably think the dog would not hurt its owner. After all, if they had played with the dog since it was a puppy, why would it bite them now? But if you told them lightning would strike them, they got scared and listened."

"Girls often heard that if they went to sleep in the early evening, at around five or six o'clock, and didn't wake up again until after dark, a ghost would come and carry them off. The hidden intent here was to keep them from sleeping at a time of day when it was their duty to help mothers in the kitchen."

"Girls were forbidden to do more things than boys. For example, they were told never to play with a mortar and pestle by pounding into an empty mortar, otherwise their breasts would droop!"

"Naturally this was more to do with the fact married women traditionally did not wear bras! However, the reason behind scaring girls in this way, was to stop them from pounding when there was no nam phrik or other food in the mortar. Pounding an empty mortar would mean chips of stone would be knocked loose and settle in the bottom-and the noise was irritating to adults."

"Another ubai concerning mortars and pestles was:

'Don't use a mortar and pestle to pound curry paste

and then stir the curry pot with the pestle, or you'll marry an old husband.' The reason for this one was that, after the curry paste has been pounded it had to be transferred to the curry pot using a spoon. The paste that adhered to the pestle had to be scraped off with the spoon, but it was tempting to take a shortcut and stir the pestle in the curry."

"If the pestle was dropped when they were doing this it could shatter the pot, which was made from ceramics. Then the family would have to do without a meal."

Mr Sujit went on to explain that there were also ubai concerning menstruation. Girls were told, if they went to the ubosot of the temple while they were having a period, it would bring bad luck to them and their families. "In those days there were no sanitary napkins," he said, "and it was feared the floor would be stained."

There were also trick admonitions for boys. For

example, they were told bad times could be expected if they combed their hair at night without first running their fingers down the teeth of the comb three times so it made a noise.

"The reason was that people normally do not comb their hair at night unless they are going out. If a boy was going to gamble or drink with his friends, he wouldn't bother to comb his hair. If he stroked the comb his parents would know he was sneaking off to visit a girl! In the morning, when everyone went to work in the fields, it would be known whose son had visited whose daughter the previous evening. If the girl was from a family whose behaviour the boy's family didn't approve of, they would forbid him to go again. But if they liked the family, they would encourage him by telling him that if he went to visit the girl, he should bring along some fruit for her parents."

"There were many ubai for pregnant women. For example, they were warned if they walked over the long rope used to tether a water buffalo while it was eating grass, her baby would be as dark as a water buffalo. The intention was to keep her from tripping over the rope and suffering a possible miscarriage."

"A pregnant woman was also told she shouldn't attend cremations because a ghost might enter her womb. If she absolutely had to go, however, she should wear a belt around the hem of her blouse to prevent the ghost from getting in."

"The reason behind this ubai was that cremations were open, with the remains burned on an open platform. Sometimes the coffin would break open and the corpse would roll out, presenting a horrifying sight that people of the time thought was harmful to pregnant women."

"Belts were scarce and expensive in those days. They were made one at a time by hand. Some households didn't have any at all. A pregnant woman often had to borrow one from a neighbour. If she requested it, she would be asked what she needed it for. When she answered she was going to a cremation, she would be warned to stay away."

"Sometimes she had to go from house to house before

she was able to get one, and each time she would be

given the same advice until she eventually changed her mind."

"Some ubai were directly concerned with agriculture. One warns that if a mango harvester [a long pole with a basket at the end used to gather the fruit from the tree] is made from a type of bamboo called mai phai luak, the mangoes will be wormy."

"Here the actual reason for not using the wood was

that it was very thin and brittle. If it broke, it

could cut the hands of the person doing the

harvesting."

"Another agricultural ubai was more complicated.

During the rainy season, rivers and canals would

flood. Then, with the coming of winter, the water

would recede and the banks of these watercourses would be rich with natural fertiliser. Rural people liked to grow long beans, cucumbers, and gourds there, putting in trellises for the vines to climb on."

"As soon as the fruit began to form on the vines,

fathers would tell their sons to go out into the

fields and find some land snails. Then he would say to bind them together in groups of three using tawk, a thin skin taken from the bamboo plant that can be used as a kind of temporary twine."

"The tawk had to be threaded through the snails by

cutting off the ends of the shells and passing it

through all three. While doing this, the boy had to

hold his breath. Then the threaded snails had to be

hung from the supporting poles of the trellises. If

this was done properly, the boy was told, the vines

would bear good fruit. Looked at superficially, it's hard to see any connection. But after several days, the snails would begin to putrefy and flies would come to eat them and lay their eggs. The flies and maggots would confine themselves to the dead snails and not disturb the fruit, which would mature healthy and undamaged."

"The reason the boy had to hold his breath while

threading the snails was that they have a strong,

unpleasant smell, and if he got a whiff of it he might not do a good job."

Mr Sujit said these old tricks involving ghosts, thunder, and matters concerned with the kitchen and the fields don't work any more.

People want straight explanations for things now, and the traditional ubai have disappeared almost

completely from Thai life.

But on the other hand, he added, a different type of irrational belief is gaining ground. "Worshipping plants that have unusual or suggestive shapes, appeasing supernatural beings that are supposed to be able to confer good luck, avert danger, or cure diseases, and similar phenomena are finding a growing number of believers." he said.

"All this goes to show we Thais are still as stubborn as ever in the way we think!" he said. "We're not as easy to frighten as we used to be, but we're more ready than ever to believe all kinds of groundless nonsense!"

__________________________________________________

[Guest]

Cent,

when you translate "ubai" as "tradition" you're not quite right; your second version, "trick teachings" is more like it (Sanskrit "upaya" = means, method, scheme etc.)"Tradition" is "parampara".

All of which of couse doesn't make your post any less interesting.

[Boo Radley]

Someone was telling me that Germany also had (has?) these trick teachings which children were fed on.

Apparently children were told that if they went too near the river's edge there was a monster called the Hakemann who would pull them in to the river with his crooked stick.

There was also the Sandmannchen, a being who would sprinkle sand in children's eyes if they were not asleep before a certain time.

So I guess these sayings exist across cultures.

[ January 22, 2002: Message edited by: Boo Radley ]

[Guest]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Khun Sanuk:

Hi,

I heard about the knife (cutting ties, right?), but never heard about the lighter and the bullet.

Would you mind explaining those?

Sanuk!

---

For bullet it really wellknown for everyone who use gun here (you can ask). Some said you may get shot or accident from it that what one of my friend told me.

Lighter it is fire.

It will burn your relationship

Sound a bit silly but that what we believe.

[Guest]

Originally posted by Boo Radley:

"Someone was telling me that Germany also had(has?) these trick teachings which children were fed on as children. ...

So I guess these sayings exist across cultures."

You're right on both counts. It would be a strange (dumb) society indeed which would not find ways to subtly steer its children towards "the good" or "sensible" - or whatever the particular society perceives that to be. There are some (many?) things which are universal across cultures. Only thing is, they may look a bit different at first glance.

[ January 22, 2002: Message edited by: Scum_Baggio ]

[Guest]

I'm not sure about the perfume either but I heard it's bad luck to give someone a watch because if the watch dies or is lost, the person who gave it will either die or become seperated.