Very superstitious…

‘Four leaf clovers are good luck.  Don’t walk under a ladder.  Break a mirror and you get 7 years of bad luck.’

Every culture has superstitions or folklore used to explain the unexplainable. Growing up Khmer, my parents had a lot of explanations for everything.  As I got older, I started to question the validity of of these superstitions.  Some of them are pretty ordinary and usually predict bad or good luck.  Others are more far-fetched and are only used to discipline children (or that’s how it felt when my parents tried to use them on me).

Here are a few of my favorites that, to this day, my parents, especially my mother (bless her), use to explain everything.  A few of these have been turned into video clips, thanks to a few of my friends at UCLA who looked at Khmer superstitions as part of a Khmer Intermediate language class.

• A mole on your foot means you like to travel or go out.  Or as my parents explain, it means I have good feet and can’t sit still, very true since I live in Australia now.
• Don’t take a photo with 3 people otherwise the person in the middle will die.
• Don’t eat lying down or you’ll turn into a crocodile (probably one of the weirdest, but most hilarious)
• If you suspect there is a ghost, you can see them by looking through your legs upside down.
• Dogs and other animals can sense ghosts (anytime my dog barks, my mother asks her what the ghosts want)
• If your left eye is twitching, it means bad luck.
• Don’t touch others on the head, it’s sacred because the soul rests there.
• It’s rude to point or rest your feet towards someone’s head.
• A mole on/near your eye is bad luck and you are oversensitive.
• A mole on your left cheek means you’re pretty.  A mole on your right cheek means you’re ugly but have a good heart.

Thanks to Lisa Chorn, Saly Heng, Richard Chhuon and Alex Singam for letting me use their videos.

If you have more superstitions, we’d love to hear them!

Get in touch with the author at kristine@khmerlette.com