Thai Superstition

[Spitfire]

OK, we all know about the the locals being superstitious at certain times but sometimes it makes me think just how far into this nonsense they are.

The cities display a certain degree of Thai superstition but it pales into nothing when you leave the cities and go "rural".

Thai society is a great conflict of the old and the new, a real mix, as can be seen by those that stay a while and those that visit many times.

What surprises me sometimes is the seriousness with which a lot of this is taken, it is not to be joked about.

When I was in my wife's village the last time and an event regarding men becoming monks was happening(In the Thailand photo thread in the "Entertainment" section), the "big" monk at the event gave away a forecast for the lottery results for the next time.

People listened intently and ran off to try and buy these numbers he had mentioned. My sister-in-law lives in a city about 100km away from where this all happened and went to buy some tickets on the "local" lottery(the 4 number one) and they refused these numbers because the monk in that village had predicted them and everyone was trying to buy them in a 250km radius so the lottery had stopped selling those numbers through fear of the monk being right.

I suppose this situation is partly due to the education system, or lack of it and that superstition/fear is conquered through knowledge and that(info/education) can be lacking here, certainly in the rural areas.

I've heard all kinds of nonsense like, in a bedroom the master bed has to face in a certain compass direction, women burying pigs heads at a new property before the foundations start being done.

Don't even start me on ghosts. Has anyone watched a Thai "spooky" village film?

All comment or experience of the stuff welcome, and I'm sure most have a story on this one. Might have a laugh and help the collective get a clear picture.

[dtaai-maai]

Oh good, another thread about Thai superstitions...

[Spitfire]

Maybe correct DM, , but ironically the possibility of discount at Buff Bill's place or the time it takes to get to Hua Hin from Bangkok will probably get more replies.

[lomuamart]

I used to up to Buriram quite regularly. The black lottery was big business and controlled from Nang Rong. The locals really believed that they could go to a specific tree (banyan, I think) scrape the bark off and see the numbers that were revealed.
Or they could catch a toad etc etc.....
At the end of the day these people are not Buddhist, they're animist. Nothing wrong with that. I always had a good time up there, but drank my beers from the hammock when the hoards went to " the tree".

[The understudy]

A good thread tht you started Spitfire

Ok let me start this off with an incident which happened early 2002 when I was still a Student @ then called Schiller - Stamford International Uiniversity.

It was just after 1:30pmn a couple of my friends and I was sitting in the Media Room @ our Library and wanted to Play CM Championchip Manager the very first edition. I as sitting behind and started that Game when I talked to my friend: "Hey Taz isn't it amazing that we hadn't had any Power outages this year?" He relied cautiously "Hey don't say things like that it might happen you know?!" By the way my friend Taz... that his Nickname he's not the rural right out of the Village Thai who believes instantly in superstition, he got some Background studyied Highschool in Boston ect... Ok right after he said his word of caution "pzzzt!" them "juice Power" went out the entire Campus! My friend starts to Yell "Ai Hia Noi I told you you shouln't say this look what you had done!!!" Then he approeached me and wanted to Kick my Arse only a senior fella was between us and said "I Know it just a coincidence allright now you calm down now Taz!" This event had really freaked the hibbie Jibbies outta me.

The Moral of this sory is "Don't talk abotu things that did not happen or that might happen" It's considerend as bad Omen and when thngs do happen you be labled of bringing Bad Omen!!!!

Your's The understudy

[lomuamart]

Simple - blame others when "you" should be accepting responsibility. It happens all over Thailand. Really, as simple as that.

[cozza]

This is an interesting topic for myself, I mean Western Folk (myself included) often instantly dismiss this stuff as nonsense and uneducated thinking.

My wife's family members have had a quite few experiences with these sort of things, nobody has any reason to believe me, but I also have no reason to lie as I was bought up a Catholic and still believe in the Christian fairy tales.

The bark thing raised my eyebrows because a similar thing happened to my wife's aunty, though it was an old boat that people were rubbing powder on to see any numbers. My wife's aunty walked up to the boat and instantly saw numbers that the person next to her could not see. She then got those lotto numbers and won.

Another aunty, in their prayer room there is a young boy statue, dressed traditionally with long hair shaved shaolin style that stands with chest out and fists to waist, elbows out. Anyway, she was talking to this statue and asking for the statue to bring her good fortune and if it did she would give it the traditional Thai theatre/dance. Aunty had a dream about the boy and it said to look under him, when she looked under the statue there were numbers, she took those numbers for lottery and won twice now!!

I cannot say this is not a coincidence and there is no reason for anyone to believe me. Though, I do have more stories of ghosts and haunted homes with rooms where people cannot go without being attacked.

[Roel]

Indeed a widespread phenomenon trying to determine winning lottery numbers through consulting monks, trees, toads, behaviour of insects, mud patterns etc.
So with millions of Thais doing this every fortnight, statiscally the chance that any Thai at one day will be successful himself or at least knows someone very close to him who has been is nearing 100%.

This (statiscally normal) success proves to them that it works, completely ignoring the 99% of the cases where it (conform statistics) did not.

And how does your Thai partner react when you try to explain this to (in most cases) her? She gets angry....."farangs really do not understand anything! Why oh why are they so stupid?"

[cozza]

Actually Roel,

My Thai partner never says anything like that, its usually more like this is what happened, I myself don't believe in this stuff and don't believe in anything that I cannot see or feel myself, but, still this is what happened and I cannot explain it.

Regarding your probability calculation, I don't really think it hit the nail on the head, but I believe you were taking the piss, so whats the point?

[hhfarang]

I spoke to guy who is planning a move from up north to Hua Hin. He said he really wanted to move to Phuket but his Thai wife said she didn't want to live there because of all the ghosts that reside there after the tsunami!

[crazy88]

We sometimes get a bird in the garden at night that makes a strange screeching call .I have been told I must ignore it as it is a bad omen .Anyone know what kind of bird it is .

crazy 88

[Spitfire]

Hi Crazy,

Think those birds are called "Nok Sak" (Thai นกแสก), might be a type of owl or something. The wife tells me it is "supposed" to be a bad omen indeed. What we would call "an old wife's tale."

[lomuamart]

We sometimes get a bird in the garden at night that makes a strange screeching call .I have been told I must ignore it as it is a bad omen .Anyone know what kind of bird it is .

crazy 88

Is that the bird whose screeching gets louder and more shrill every time? If so, I can't help you with the species but they're all over the place in Thailand. There's one nesting in a big tree near us but I've never seen it. Heard them all over golf courses but again have never seen them and no-one has been able, so far, to tell what sort of bird it is.
Anyway, back to topic. Years ago, I was given one of those Buddhist things that you wear around your neck. It was just worn with a piece of string but so many Thai people remarked on it and wanted to read the inscriptions. They were impressed. It came from Buriram and they really believed that it would keep me out of harm's way - ie dodging bullets etc.
I don't wear it anymore which is probably why I'm accident prone and my golf is so bad
On a serious note, years ago, my ex left some prayers in a school book that was hidden under our mattress and it was the landlady who found it when turning the mattress one day. Bad news. It was all about getting me to sell the house in London and the ex getting all the money. I never got a satisfactory translation of that from good Thai friends. They'd just read so far and say "no good for you". I confronted her with it when she returned from wherever and she burnt the book!!!
That freaked me out a bit and set me on the path to happiness - ie finish with her and become happily married. Some witchcraft backfires!!

[BaaBaa.]

We sometimes get a bird in the garden at night that makes a strange screeching call .I have been told I must ignore it as it is a bad omen .Anyone know what kind of bird it is .

It sounds like a lesser spotted mia noi.

[Condoking]

The most misleading superstition I have come across is that all Farangs are walking ATMs