i've been really busy (always am around this time of the month) but this is something funny and endearing, i must write it down.
i was lying down in my room, with the lights turned down .... i had a warm cloth on my right eye because i kinda think i'm getting an eye infection. not think, actually will soon because the area around my right eye feels a little tender and being the compulsive-organizer that i am (will write about THAT when i'm feeling better), i checked it up and yes, it's the symptom of eye infection. anyway, i had a hot cloth pressed onto my eye as instruced by my doctor friend and dad came into my room.
dad: what are you doing?
me: i think i'm going to get an eye infection
dad: you think?? ok ... tie a black thread round your finger then
me: what?!? -.- no way! it's an eye infection. what's the logic of that? how is a piece of black thread (yeah, has to be black) on my finger going to stop the infection?
dad: just tie la. no one's going to see it
me: but i'd feel stupid...it's not logical .... and i don't believe in such stuff....
but i allowed dad to do it anyway. it's funny and sweet. and because yeah, it is an old chinese mid-wife belief that if you have something like that, tie a black thread round your third finger. must be third finger too.
of course, i really really can't figure out the logic of it and how that little piece of thred will stop the thing but i think it's sweet that such little 'beliefs' still exist. it makes us laugh. it also reminds us that hey, there were generations of folks before us who lived like that, very simply. and they lived! happily too.
for us modern folks; sadly, we're so technologically advanced that everything's steel, metal and high-tech gadgets.
so cold. so impersonal. a true loss indeed.
September 12, 2008
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3 comments:
Just a black thread on the third finger? How simple the Chinese superstitions seem!
Here in hillbilly country we always knew that you had to find a dead cat (or make one) and hold it out facing north at midnight and tell it to take your eye infection (or tooth ache or whatever) to its master the devil, then throw the cat down and turn around and walk away without looking back. Oh, I forgot to mention, you are supposed to be naked, but even if you aren't you absolutely have to be bare foot. But it works best if you're naked.
I'd rather just tie a black string around my finger though, now that I know that works too.
By the way, how is your eye doing?
haha wow
that IS some major 'ritual'. sounds like Salem. now i'm doubly glad i'm chinese. our ways are so much more simpler.
i don't know which did it: the hot cloth or the black thread. but there's no swelling and the area around it doesn't feel as tender anymore. or maybe i just treated it very very early, that's why it's gone.
either way, yes, just a black thread! ;)
My mom told my brother that and we just laughed and saix it didnt make sense...
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