Want to read more superstitions related to Japanese culture? Also check out on Japan Switch: Guide to Japanese Culture It’s not desirable to sleep with a mirror facing you. I also remember my grandma always covered the mirror if it was facing her bed. Mirrors were said to have mysterious powers and people back then believed in its supernatural powers. Japanese people believe that it’s bad luck when a mirror breaks. This is another popular superstition in Japan but one that is also common all around the world. There’s no doubt it’s frowned upon in Japan to do anything related to funerals and death while eating or in any activity, really. This is because this practice happens during a funeral after the cremation process is done, when the 2 relatives carry the remaining bones into the box. In Japan, it’s considered bad luck to pass food from one set of chopsticks to another set. This superstitious rule is really well known and was even followed in my not so superstitious household. This superstition is more like a famous taboo. It’s apparently because whistling is something you do when you are happy and the act of whistling at night indicates how well you’re doing financially which is why it is said to attract thieves. I remember my grandma telling me not to whistle at night because it attracts snakes but I never quite knew why. It says if you whistle at night you attract thieves and bad luck. I feel like almost everyone has heard this superstition at one point in their lives. For example the number 4 shares the same pronunciation as death and is considered such an unlucky number that some hospitals and hotels even remove the 4th floor entirely. Japanese people consider it unlucky when something resembles or sounds similar to topics related to death and suffering. Japanese superstitions are mainly focused on themes such as death and suffering, sometimes involving numbers. For example the superstition that seeing a leaf stuck in your tea is a sign of good luck and you can feel a sense of Japanese culture behind the superstition. Superstitions are a big part of the culture. As a collectivistic culture it’s more likely to stick to superstitions or conform to society like in Japan so they’re taken more seriously than the western ones. I think the main difference is the way people view superstitions and how seriously they incorporate them in their daily life. It's based on the idea that throwing your old teeth in the opposite direction will make the new teeth grow in the direction you threw it. Whereas in Japan when you lose a baby tooth, you throw your teeth high if you lost a bottom one and vice versa. For example the superstition about teeth believed in the west is that if you sleep with your tooth under the pillow the tooth fairies leave money in exchange for taking the tooth. There are many similar superstitions concerning the same topics around the world expressed in a different way.
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