Thai superstition about having another baby

[Pescator]

Well, you learn as long as you live - hopefully.

 

Today my youngest son (18 months) several times bent over on the floor for no particular reason on all 4 (no flames please).

 

And my wife exclaimed: NO. NO!

 

When asking her what was wrong about that she told me that that was a prediction that she would have another baby.

 

That left me kind of worrying as I am 40 and much too old to have another heir.

 

It just stroke me funny as I`ve been married for 10 years and never heard about that one before. Anyone?

 

 

 

Hua Nguu.

 

 

[Brink15]

HN,

 

 

 

When my wife was pregnant she dreamed of a diamond ring. When she awoke she told me this meant we would have a daughter.

 

 

 

She was convinced the child would be a girl and wanted to buy some clothes. I told her to wait until the ultrasound.

 

 

 

We had a boy.

 

 

 

When I was in the LOS a fiend took me to a Mor Doo to heel a broken collarbone. The "alleged" mystic chanted some rubbish and blew on my shoulder. Then he told me I was healed and to take off the sling.

 

 

 

I said thanks very much, left the sling on, and ........ just left.

 

 

 

Good for me as the collarbone "mysteriously" was not yet healed. My friend said "you no believe, make magic not work."

 

 

 

It is a good thing I'm a nice guy or I'd go into the Mor Doo business and fleece the Thais over here.

 

 

[Guest]

Yeah, I know what you mean. In India they have the snake bite healers. They seem to neutralize the posion about half the time which keeps the people coming to them in droves. Strangely enough, about 50% of the snakes are poisionous. LOL.

 

 

[Pescator]

Hi Brink15

 

 

 

So after your wife had given birth to your baby son, did you notice what words visitors used to describe his looks?

 

 

 

Was it something along the lines of: Luuk maa nahkliad?

 

 

 

Concerning your friend at the Mor Doo with his immortal line: "you no believe, make magic not work."

 

What a great line. So basically when going to se the Mor Doo there are two different outcomes possible.

 

1) you get cured (if that`s why you went to see him)

 

2) you don`t get cured because "you no believe, make magic not work."

 

I could have that line framed and hung on the wall and start working as a GP.

 

Always keep it simple.

 

 

 

By the way I didn`t know that a Mor Doo also did healing. As I understand it a Mor Doo translates into fortuneteller in english?

 

 

 

I experienced on an occasion that it can be wise to follow their advice even though you don`t believe in the "magic".

 

I was sitting on the beach with a bunch of thai friends. We were grouped around a large table and sitting in the shade of the coconut trees.

 

While we were happily chatting away I vaguely noticed a noise from the foliage above. But before I could lift my head to look upwards I felt a sudden air pressure on the left side of my cheek followed by a thud as a friggin coconut missed my head by a few inches and hit me on my little toe only leaving a barely visible scratch.

 

After the initial shock had worn off the whole table was roaring with laughter.

 

I didn`t think much about at the time but it could have knocked me cold for sure.

 

Well, to get to the point, one of the thais Suchart said to me:

 

Can you see the Pha Pum or spirit house right over there? The spirit in there was the one who saved your sorry ass by making the coconut miss your scull. Now tomorrow you go and make the spirit happy by offering him/it (do spirits have genders??) incense, whiskey and fruit.

 

Tjuure.

 

And you guessed it! The next day came and I`ve forgotten all about it. But it only took until nightfall when I came down with the most dreadful coughing I`ve ever experienced followed by a sinusitis that make my head hurt like hell and my teeth too.

 

Every time I took a small sip of a cold beer would start me coughing like a tubercoulus lungcancerpatient.

 

What a refined punishment for my negligence.

 

 

 

Hua Nguu

[Brink15]

HN,

 

 

 

I was told of the custom of saying insulting things about a newborn to fool the evil spirits. My son did have his share of Thai visitors but they all said "narahk jung." I guess they figure the evil spirits don't hang out in the States.

 

 

 

I have two stories similar to your coconut experience. A guy I worked with on Koh Phi Phi had a coconut fall and hit him in the head and it did knock him cold. When he woke up the Thais were all saying this was very lucky for him. Not in terms of lucky he didn't die, but now he would have good luck.

 

 

 

The other story is not related to superstition, although it involves falling objects. A student of mine on Koh Phi Phi was on his way to class one morning and as he walked under a tree he heard a thump. He turned around and saw a green snake with a diamond shaped head slithering into the woods. A tree viper had tried to land on him and missed. This is typically how they catch larger prey. Although a person, one would think, would be too large.

 

 

 

As far as the Mor Doos, many are seen as healers as well as fortunetellers. More like the mystics in India, the Sadhus.

 

 

[Pescator]

All right. It would seem then that evil spirits don`t make it across the Atlantic, but they do find their way to Europe for sure. Because most thais I know up here are a superstitious bunch for sure.

 

 

 

Concerning the tree viper:

 

I have a rather similar experience. I lived on Koh Chang with my son a few years back. I was sitting in my hammock on the porch of my hut and my son - then 3 ys. old - would be playing with the coconuts in the sand on the beach. It was a windy day and every now and then another coconut would drop from the trees with a thud.

 

My son would then run to bring it to me and I would crack it open with my meatcleaver that I had bought for that very same reason and together we would drink it.

 

After a while we heard another sound of what we thought was a small coconut. My son went off to fetch it but returned empty-handed and said to me: Daddy snake!!

 

What the ... I got out of my hammock in a hurry and went to have a look. Sure enough there it was a beautiful bright green coloured tree snake.

 

I got a couple of good shots of it with my camera before it with astonishing speed went right up the trunk of a coconut tree.

 

Whether the snake was venomous or not is hard to say. Because if you ask an average thai they are all venomous and should be killed.

 

 

 

Regards

 

Hua Nguu.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Brink15]

HN,

 

 

 

I guess we're highjacking your thread, but since you're participating it must be OK.

 

 

 

One night on Koh Phi Phi I was hanging out in the dive shop waiting for potential students to stroll by. My roommate came flying down the road and, upon entering the shop, exclaimed "We have a snake in our bungalow!" Oh joy.

 

 

 

He proceeded to tell me that he had gone to the bungalow for a quick shower. It was dark and in our bathroom the light is in the middle of the room, turned on by a cord. He walked into the bathroom and turned on the light, only to find a large black snake coiled of the floor. I asked how big and he said at least three meters. "Oh shit."

 

 

 

I can't even imagine being all the way in the bathroom, turning on the light, and seeing this huge snake at my feet. I don't like surprises in general, let alone large potentially lethal ones.

 

 

 

He asked me to go back to the bungalow to help kill it or scare it off. Must be my lucky night, why couldn't I have been out doing a night dive? The Thais all said to bring it back so they could barbeque it. Yeah right.

 

 

 

We made our way up to the bungalow, stopping to get a couple of large club-like sticks. I'm thinking as we go in that we don't know for sure the snake is still in the bathroom or somewhere else in the bungalow.

 

 

 

We enter the main room and do a quick scan. Good, no snake. Now for the bathroom. Since the light is in the middle of the room we check with flashlights. Nothing. I go in far enough to turn on the light. Still nothing. We spend about half an hour doing a thorough search, but the snake is gone.

 

 

 

In the end we figure it must have been some type of constrictor, like a python. It must have entered through the ceiling and the next day we buy plywood to seal this off.

 

 

 

Kind of made for light sleeping that night though.

 

 

 

On another night we were heading back to the bungalow from dinner, walking up the trail in the dark. Our bungalow was somewhat remote, up on the side of a hill. No lights, narrow dirt trail. As I was shining my light on the door to unlock it, my roommate told me to look in the direction his light was pointing.

 

 

 

Climbing up the outside wall of our bathroom was a black, red, and yellow snake. Our bungalow was made of palm boards, but the bathroom was cinderblock. The snake then slithered into a hole in the cinderblock. Obviously we had another roommate.

 

 

 

I told my roommate that I recognized the snake from the show at the snake farm in BKK. It was a banded krait, very poisonous, related to the cobra family, but thankfully very docile.

 

 

 

We went inside and made sure there weren't any holes on the inside. There were not.

 

 

 

As scuba instructors we dealt with another member of the krait family, the banded sea snake, all the time. Krait are very docile and the have small teeth that are used for chewing. They don't envenomate through long sharp fangs like vipers or cobras. We even used to gently play with sea snakes on dives.

 

 

[Guest]

i had a broken rib in cambodia, far off from any hospital. after suffering that thing for a week or two, an old monk offered to do that spell/blow thing on it. it did work amazingly well. straight after the pain was nearly gone, one or two more days it was healed.

 

 

 

i have seen that working here in thailand more than a few times too. an uncle of my missus is rather famous in his area for his healing powers, i have seen him healing several people.

[Pescator]

It would seem then that you belong to the category "you believe - make magic work" as opposed to Brink15.

 

 

 

Hua Nguu

 

 

[Brink15]

It's all humbug! Born of ingnorance!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

...........ouch....................

 

 

 

 

 

.....hey my collarbone is starting to ache again.......

 

 

 

 

 

OK, OK.........I believe..........

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

..........ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh......much better.