Strange Japanese beliefs & urban myths

[Dogen Z]

>Eating peanuts will make your nose bleed.
>Drinking soda (especially dark ones) will melt your bones.

If they really believed this, it would be hard to explain all the bags of peanuts and cans of soda that are sold in convenience stores as snacks; why Coke is one of the best selling beverages in Japan, and; why peanuts are sold in a such variety as shelled, unshelled, and mixed with those rice cracker things.

>Leaving a window open while you sleep will give you a stomach ache.
>Leaving a fan on while you sleep will make you sick and may kill you.

Maybe your gf was just trying to test your mettle. I've heard that in some karate classes you are forced to train Tokyo in the middle of summer in a room with the windows and doors closed and no a/c. And in Hokkaido during the winter in a room without heating.

Did you pass the test?

[gaijinalways]

I remember reading on a cat website that the bottle trick was something originally discovered in Norway (or Finland). I have found it doesn't work on most cats, and I have never seen anyone with bottles in their garden in England. Here you see them in a lot of driveways withe stray cats knocking them over.

One of my favorites is one I have heard in Chinese communities and in Japan, 'Don't mix lemon with milk' (I like it in my tea). Supposed to be poisonous or something, strangely enough I have survived 47 years of the stuff.

[basuotoko]

>Eating peanuts will make your nose bleed.
>Drinking soda (especially dark ones) will melt your bones.
If they really believed this, it would be hard to explain all the bags of peanuts and cans of soda that are sold in convenience stores as snacks; why Coke is one of the best selling beverages in Japan, and; why peanuts are sold in a such variety as shelled, unshelled, and mixed with those rice cracker things.
>Leaving a window open while you sleep will give you a stomach ache.
>Leaving a fan on while you sleep will make you sick and may kill you.
Maybe your gf was just trying to test your mettle. I've heard that in some karate classes you are forced to train Tokyo in the middle of summer in a room with the windows and doors closed and no a/c. And in Hokkaido during the winter in a room without heating.
Did you pass the test?

Well, I don't think they believe that simply eating peanuts will make your nose bleed or drinking dark cola will make your bones melt, but rather that eating or drinking in excess can lead to such things. It's more like, if somebody's nose bleeds, they'll try to trace back the last time they ate peanuts and attribute it to that if possible. Kind of like how many people around the world try to blame junk food on acne when (as any dermatologist can tell you) there's not really a connection. But anyway, people still love junk food.
The fan thing isn't really exclusive to Japan. I've heard from friends that people in Korea also believe it, so it's probably East Asia in general. I know that a lot of people really believe this because I've been warned about it by several Japanese friends during the summer months.

[Ewok85]

I've heard that in some karate classes you are forced to train Tokyo in the middle of summer in a room with the windows and doors closed and no a/c. And in Hokkaido during the winter in a room without heating.
Did you pass the test?

Most martial arts are done in school gyms - that means no a/c, no heating, and most of the time the best you can hope for is to leave a door open

[basuotoko]

As I often do for reading practice, I was looking at some blog entries on mixi.jp when I found a post from a guy who was worried about his health because of a recent nose bleed. In the comments section of his post, I happened to stumble upon the peanuts/nose bleed belief again.

A user commented:

突然なんてピーナッツ大量に食べすぎた時以来ないよ。

Translation:
Ever since a time that I ate a lot of peanuts, I haven't had a sudden [nose bleed].

So there it is again. While I doubt Japanese believe eating peanuts alone will cause nose bleeds, they obviously think eating a lot will. What I also found interesting is that the majority of people told him he should go to the hospital. I really don't think an isolated nose bleed or two is cause to see a doctor, but Japanese seem to go for really small things like this all the time. Hypochondriacs? Or is that part of the reason they live so long?

Anyway, that's another topic altogether....

[gaijinalways]

Doctors here tend to overprescribe, and a minority of patients live in clinics and hospitals (tend to be elderly or later middleaged). My wife will suggest to see a doctor over bruises, which I'm likely to ice and say 'ouch' about.

[KirinMan]

Drinking soda (especially dark ones) will melt your bones.

Actually I've heard that one used by American's as well, not quite that way and directed towards young athletes.

"Drinking carbonated soda's are detrimental to the growth of bones. "

Some of these "superstitions" evidently are based on old wives tales as I am sure that nearly every country in the world has.

For example here is one; "Dont each ocha-zukei in the morning"

Now at face value that sounds like a bunch of BS particularly in this day and age of "instant foods" but in the era of no refrigeration the left-over fish from the previous evenings meal was used in the preparation of the fresh "ocha-zukei", and if the fish wasn't fresh anymore it is easy to understand how or why someone might get sick from eating it the next morning. Easy to understand the reasoning behind that one.

How about this one; "Don't go directly home after attending a funeral."

Reason being that it is possible for a person to bring the dead or some dead spirits back home with them. So a person should go somewhere else before going home and once a person gets home have someone from inside the house throw a bit of salt at them to ward off any "dead" spirits that may have remained with them.