I've been living in Vietnam for almost a year, and there is a crazy amount of superstitions here. Some of them are eastern Asian, and some were proudly invented here.
- Number 4 is an unlucky number. 6 and 8 are lucky numbers. In fact, most wifi passwords here are 66668888 or 88888888.
- Don't stick the chopsticks in rice in the middle.
- Don't flip the fish as it mimics the fisherman's boat flipping.
- Burn a ton of stuff to help the diseased at Tet holiday.
This is common in the West [1], I do it, probably picked up from the Chinese around tea. I've also seen ice nerds talking about it in a positive way.
My conspiracy is when you have dirty water any memes that encourage boiling more water will proliferate. (Since you'll drink the old boiled water over collecting more from a stream)
For that 4th bullet, did you mean "hóa vàng"? I think the paper stuff that's burned symbolizes things that will be carried to the afterlife - where their ancestors/dead loved ones currently are. This is why you may find many modern objects like phones, cars or even houses in small paper forms ready to be hóa vàng-ed.
i'm not any kind of Asian but I believe #2, chopsticks sticking out of your rice, is rooted in a belief that it resembles the incense burners that would be set up at a funeral - a sort of bad luck charm.
When I was a kid, my parents held the belief that if you keep lily flowers in a vase in a room with the windows closed overnight, and you sleep in that room, you will get a headache. The belief went on to state there is a small chance of death, for the presumed cause that the flowers somehow consume the oxygen in the room. As an adult, I never revisited this superstition; I don't buy flowers often, but my wife does. For some reason, neither one of us ever buys lilies. It could be that we both hold a remnant of this superstition deep inside our subconscious.
Italians have a similar superstition about being hit by gusts of wind, 'colpo d'aria'. Often sickness are attributed to it, but not death like this article.
I lived in an ashram for 3 months in south india.
There were a lot of superstitions but the ones which were strangest to me was not being allowed to cut your nails after sundown and to never step over a sleeping dog.
- Number 4 is an unlucky number. 6 and 8 are lucky numbers. In fact, most wifi passwords here are 66668888 or 88888888.
- Don't stick the chopsticks in rice in the middle.
- Don't flip the fish as it mimics the fisherman's boat flipping.
- Burn a ton of stuff to help the diseased at Tet holiday.
- Don't boil the same water more than once.