Chinese Logic...Can I Call it That?

I might get some slack for this (if any Chinese people actually read this, which is a stretch), but hey, controversy breeds excitement right?

Let’s get down to business. The Chinese are, to generalize, a superstitious bunch. They also have a lot of views on health, the body, and history that are...well, just plain strange (at least to outsiders).

Did you know that it's bad for you to drink water with food? How about that there are more women than men born in Thailand because of the Thai diet? Or that you shouldn't get your hair cut during Chinese New Year, because an uncle will die?

Before I get the ball rolling further, let me first say that I’m not claiming the West is anything near perfect. If I interviewed a random group of Ohioans, I’d easily find people who claim that a 600 year old guy managed to build a giant arc and fit two of every single living species on the planet inside. The Kangaroos made it all the way from Australia, and I guess the bison managed to make it over the Bering Strait and through Siberia to the Promised Land. Oh, and they all lived harmoniously on the arc, without any food, for 40 days and nights.

What a scene...the pandas made it all the way from China too!

And I’d also find people who claim that a lucky baseball cap or old pair of socks help them hit home runs (if it actually increases your confidence, then maybe the power of positive thought does help…although it’s not actually the socks of course).

I tried to look up Western superstitions, but most of them - Friday the 13^th, unlucky black cats, walking under a ladder - were the kind that are well-known but not widely believed. I guess that’s the point. Today most superstitions in the West are viewed with humor or even disdain. We’re definitely irrational at times, but people – hopefully the educated ones at least – realize this and question things before believing.

Do you actually believe in these superstitions? Maybe
some Westerners do, but none that I know.

If you interviewed people on the street of Hangzhou or Harbin about common Chinese superstitions, you’d find lots of people who unabashedly believe in them. Many have never even questioned old “wisdom.” It seems that the idea of examining the evidence and questioning the validity of sources is still a foreign concept.

Let’s take traditional medicine as an example. Traditional medicine has its benefits, particularly for non-serious illnesses or afflictions. Let’s say I tend to pass gas more than normal, not to the point of stink bombing every room I enter, but enough to create occasional annoyance to others in my vicinity (this is hypothetical!). Do I really want to take a pill that has potentially serious side effects? A natural cure might be better.

Although traditional Chinese medicine can be effective, people don’t take the time to understand why. They don’t question. It’s just wisdom that’s been passed down for countless generations and taken as fact. Along with valuable knowledge come questionable theories. Just think about Western medicine even a hundred years ago. Because of questioning and the scientific method, we’ve thrown out a lot of crap science.

In the 19th and early 20th century 'soothing syrups' were popular
in the West as a way to mellow out misbehaving or restless toddlers.

Problem was these syrups were pumped full of narcotics, including, among
other insanely harmful substances, morphine, chloroform, heroine, and codeine.
Check out this site if you want to see read about more crazy medical practices.

One thing that gets me is Chinese views on water. First, cold water is bad. Many stores don’t even plug in their fridges. If you’re feeling sick, hot water is the cure. I caught a cold a few weeks back, and lost count of the number of teachers and students at my school who advised me to drink hot water.

Also, although hot water might be good, any form of water is bad when consumed with food. Many Chinese believe that drinking water with a meal dilutes the nutrients in our stomachs and makes it harder to digest. Watery soup – okay. Water in a glass – bad news. I mentioned that our bodies are over 50% water and many foods are mostly water as well. “Well, it’s different in food,” was the reply I got. Isn’t it always H20, or am I missing something here?

Two of the craziest theories I heard concerned diet. A well-educated Chinese women living in Hangzhou who had studied and worked in the States told me that men can marry more than one woman in Thailand because there is a sex ratio imbalance. There are more women than men because the tropical diet in Thailand causes mothers to give birth to more females than males. I looked up the numbers later, and sure enough, the male-female ratio at birth in Thailand is 1.05, within .01 of most Western and other SE Asian countries. Maybe she is just used to the uneven sex ratio in China.

China's sex ratio is less imbalanced today than last decade, but it's still far higher
than normal (Thailand, at 1.05, is smack dab in the middle of the normal range)

I was also told that Westerners have more body hair because of their diets. This gem was from a college student I met in Hangzhou. Apparently she was told so by her professor and never had an urge to question it or look it up. I guess I'm not eating enough Chinese food here - I'm still too damn hairy!

Anthropology is also another interesting area. I haven’t encountered this one personally, but supposedly many Chinese believe that they are a different species of human, which evolved separately from humans in Africa. Fossils of human-like primates have been found in China, so it may be that East Asians have a bit of that DNA, like Europeans who share some DNA with Neanderthals. But a separate species…really?

There are a lot of other superstitions, such as too many lucky numbers to keep track of, burning (often fake) money over Chinese New Year to send to ancestors, symbolic associations for every primary color, and the connection between dreams and your future (see a snake in your dreams and it means someone is in love with you). I only know a few Chinese superstitions but bet I’ll come across many more surprising ones.