Superstition: The Significance of Their Existence

Malaysia are consist of multi-racial citizens and from there, we are rich in culture and custom. One of the cultures is our own local superstition. Every different race has unique superstition and there is certain reason on why these superstitions were being made up by our ancient local folks.

We trace back to the Malay culture where they prohibit their children to play in the rain during the sunny day. They provoked us by telling that if we play in the rain, some spirit would take us away and we will never be found. Imagine we are taken away from our parents and our fate is unknown. But if you think it again, the main purpose for the existence of this superstition is to prevent us to catch cold because biologically our body would be in a stress condition where it exposes to two different undergoing processes which are cold and hot sensation. Thus, our body becomes over-reactive due to the fact that our body is trying to cope with the homeostasis. It triggered our body temperature and it cause the after effect which is we become weak, sick and catch cold plus in some cases some of the patient have the potential to be retarded. We also must taking into account that the economic condition of our old folk during those times. Back in those days, most of them are working as farmers, fishermen or even a rubber tapper. Due to insufficient amount of money plus the charges for medical cost are quite high during back then, they have to minimize the cost for medical checkup and medicine.

From another different culture, there is another superstition from the Indian custom which they told to their children at home to do not clip their nails at night because it will bring bad luck to the person themselves. This believe maybe work during those time but when we look in the presence, most of the youngsters nowadays just simply having their nails being clip even though it is already nighttime. The reason behind the practice of to do not clip the nail at night is due to the fact that there are no 24-hours electricity enmities available during those days. In fact, to being visible at night people use gas lamp or torch to lit up their home but only for certain purposes; to study for example. Other uses other than important matter are totally out of subject because they want to minimize the usage of the gas. And that is why they do not let their children to clip their nail at night because they want to save the usage of the kerosene. Believe it or not, it does also involve safety purpose. Back in those days, there is no nail clipper or any tools which resemble like one. Instead they use like small sharp knives to cut it off. For that actual reason, the old folks made up that superstition to ensure their children are safe from harm at night. The last thing that they would want is to have their children to cut themselves during the “nail-clipping” activity (mind you they are using a knife).

In the Chinese’s superstition, there is one believe on to do not have your meal outside of the house especially beside the street because it would invite bad spirits to eat together with you. For this believe, we have our concrete proof the reason behind the existence of this superstition. Back then, there are no modernize television, handphone, MP3 player, laptop, astro™ etc. So the youth groups tend to hang-out with their friends outside of their house. During those times, it is common to see every house set up a bench around their house compound. That is their favourite spot if they want to hang out with their friends. Plus, they tend to eat their meal outside the house because they want to stay with their friends and do not want to miss every moment of it. That is when the superstition plays its vital role. To fright their sons or daughters, they made up the superstition by adding bad spirits element so that they would have their meal inside the house with the family instead. Subsequently, it also enhanced the family bond during dining and at the same time prevent their children to loiter somewhere else and cause social problems. By this way, parents could monitor their children movement closely and effectively.

So as you can see, superstition is not all about crap and just an old folk’s inheritance from generation to other generation. It is all about to preserve our own unique culture itself plus to giving us on guidance on what is good what is not. By studying the subject, we could see the benefit behind the superstitious believe itself. Lastly, it teaches us that there are proper ways to overcome certain problem by using indirect approach instead by facing it directly.