Folk Wisdom
- If you play with fire, you will wet your bed. (It makes children become aware of the danger of fire.)
- If you rest just after eating, you will become a cow/pig/elephant. (This means not to be lazy.)
- If you whistle or play a flute at night, snakes will come to you. (This means not to bother your neighbors.) (When they say snake, it means a thief.)
- A cold midsection will cause diarrhea
- The first dream of a new year will come true
- Breaking a comb or the cloth strap of a "geta" wooden sandal is an omen of misfortune.
- Stepping on the cloth border of a tatami mat brings bad luck.
Read more about this topic: Japanese Superstitions
Famous quotes containing the words folk and/or wisdom:
“Babies are beautiful, wonderful, exciting, enchanting, extraordinary little creatures—who grow up into ordinary folk like us.”
—Doris Dyson. quoted in What Is a Baby?, By Richard and Helen Exley.
“The lesson which these observations convey is, be, and not seem. Let us acquiesce. Let us take our bloated nothingness out of the path of the divine circuits. Let us unlearn our wisdom of the world. Let us lie low in the lord’s power, and learn that truth alone makes rich and great.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)