Travel Blog

Paraskevidekatriaphobia.  This seemingly German word is, in fact, English defined as the fear of Friday the 13th.  This seemingly irrational superstition is, in fact, very entrenched in our culture.  Its basis, nonscientific.  Its origin, obscure at best.  Yet undeniable proof of the strength of this superstition appears clandestinely in our lives. 

I recently read a fascinating article by David Emery on this topic.  Here, I will give you a synopsis of his findings.  The superstition can be broken down by its parts: (1) Fear of Friday and (2) Fear of 13.

(1) Fear of Friday

Some say that the fear of Friday goes back to the beginning of biblical times.  It was on a Friday, supposedly, that Eve tempted Adam with the forbidden fruit.  Adam bit, and they were both ejected from Paradise.  Tradition also holds that the Great Flood began on a Friday; God tongue-tied the builders of the Tower of Babel on a Friday; the Temple of Solomon was destroyed on a Friday; and, of course, Friday was the day of the week on which Christ was crucified.

In pagan Rome, Friday was execution day.  Later in Britain, Friday was hangman’s day.  In some pre-Christian cultures, Friday was a day of worship, so those involved with secular activities on that day could not be blessed by the gods.  This explains the taboo on embarking on journeys or starting important projects on Fridays.

Here’s a good story:  One hundred years ago, the British government sought to quell the widespread superstition among seamen that setting sail on Fridays was unlucky.  A special ship was commissioned, named "H.M.S. Friday".  They laid her keel on a Friday, launched her on a Friday, selected her crew on a Friday and hired a man named Jim Friday to be her captain.  To top it off, H.M.S. Friday embarked on her maiden voyage on a Friday, and was never seen or heard from again.  Ooops.

(2) Fear of 13

Thirteen is sometimes called the Devil’s Dozen.  The nexus between the number 13 and misfortune originates from legends and myths of antiquity.

Twelve gods were invited to a banquet in Valhalla.  Loki, the god of mischief, had been left off the guest list but crashed the party, bringing the total number of attendees to 13.  Loki raised hell by inciting Hod, the blind god of winter, to attack Balder the Good, who was a favorite of the gods.  Hod took a spear of mistletoe offered by Loki and obediently hurled it at Balder, killing him instantly.  All Valhalla grieved.  And although one might take the moral of the story to be "Beware of uninvited guests bearing mistletoe", the Norse apparently concluded that 13 people at a dinner party is just plain bad luck.  As if to prove the point, there were exactly 13 present at the Last Supper.  One of the dinner guests betrayed Jesus, setting the stage for the Crucifixion, on a Friday.

Many cities do not have a 13th Street or a 13th Avenue.  Many buildings don’t have a 13th floor.  If 13 people sit down to dinner together, all would die within a year.  If you have 13 letters in your name, you will have the devil’s luck.  Jack the Ripper, Charles Manson, Jeffrey Dahmer, and Theodore Bundy all have 13 letters in their names.

Ultimately, there are powerful forces in this world we have yet to comprehend.  These forces of nature move about us.  We cannot see it.  We cannot hear it or smell it.  Yet we sense it.  Call it destiny, karma or feng shui, deep within our hearts this underlying energy in our lives is undeniable.  Whether or not you believe in superstitions, on this Friday the 13th, take a minute to send a quiet and personal non-denominal wish of safety for your friends and family.  And in case your sixth sense cautions you with bad luck, better stay home, lock the doors, close the blinds, wear garlic, throw salt over your shoulders and keep your fingers crossed.

I have conversed with friends who reside outside of Taiwan who have but only crumbs of knowledge of the China phenomenon.  Being Chinese, and your friend, I think it is a matter of personal friendship that I give you sufficient information for you to be dangerous in discussions.  Here, I will arm you with readily quotable facts and statistics that will impress.

Let’s review some of the cultural and historical aspects:

Historical Fact #1: Why so many Overseas Chinese?  We quietly infiltrate every culture and slowly infuse Chinese food into the culture.  Our aim is to bring it all down from within.  I jest.  Actually, the year is 221 B.C. during the Qin Dynasty.  Emperor Qin, a big fan of Confucius, systematically forced the coaster traders out of the country.  Under the Confucian system, farmers were revered while traders were shunned.  Traders created nothing and lived off the passing of goods between people.  Out with the leeches!  Chinese have been rooted throughout SEAsia since.  Immigration of Chinese to America, Australia, and Europe is a relatively recent phenomenon.

Historical Fact #2: Emperor Qin Shi Huang did the following during his 21 year term:

(1) Unifed China by sheer military might;

(2) Establish Mandarin as the official language;

(3) Built the Great Wall O’China;

(4) Rumoured to have indirectly given birth to Japan;

(5) Created 7000+ terracotta soldiers to guard his tomb.

Historical Myth #1: As with all megalomaniacs, Emperor Qin was fixated with immortality.  Appointed doctors that could not deliver the elixir of youth were subsequently beheaded.  One clever physician was sid to have delayed his decapitation by fabricating a mystical eternal herb in a far away land.  The price: 50 young men and women were sent on a ship to retrieve this herb.  Myth is that they landed in Japan.  Let your imagination run henceforth.

The doctor was eventually decapitated.  Qin built 7000 soldiers, horses and carriages to guard his tomb in case he came back.  I imagine when the tomb was finally sealed; all workers withknowledge of the tomb were executed.  The last guy probably had to commit suicide. 

Historical Myth #2: Labor laws were lax.  Emperor Qin was keen on quality control.  Each section of the Great Wall of China was appointed a foreman overseeing hundreds of laborers.  The mortar had to be tightly packed and the stones meticulously placed.  Each day a Qin officer would ride along the wall and systematically thrust his sword into the mortar.  If the tip of his sword were to pierce the mortar by more than 3cm, the foreman along with his entire crew of hundreds would be beheaded.  That section of the wall would be torn down and rebuilt.  This explains why the wall is still standing after more than 2000 years.

Historical Fact #3: What’s the story with China and Taiwan?  Here is the Cliff Notes version:

(1) Modern China was born after the fall of the Qing Dynasty in 1911.

(2) Chang Kai-Shek led the nationalists.  Mao led the rebel communists.

(3) They fought with each other until the Japanese invaded in the 1930s.

(4) They got together to kick out the Japanese during WWII.

(5) After WWII, they went back to fighting each other.

(6) In 1949, the communists won and the nationalists pushed off on boats to Taiwan.

(7) China and Taiwan have been at a stalemate since.

Today, you will not find a more unique blend of paradox.  When Mao launched the cultural revolutions in the 60s and 70s, he effectively destroyed 5000 years of cultural history.  Why?  My personal conjecture is that a billion people would have no extracurricular distractions but to listen to everything he says.  No religion, no philosophy, no roots.  Freshly injected with western capitalism, teh current generation of Chinese is born with a characteristic that only Gordon Gecko would wish: an ethical bypass at birth.  Capitalism is the new God.  Thanks to Mao, modern day mainland-Chinese do not ahve the ethical or moral roots to anchor their pursuit of happiness.  Like Terminator, they will not stop until the money in your bank account is in their bank account.  they feel no pity, no remorse, no fear.  The paradox: communist by name, socialist by policy, and pure capitalism by mentality.

Now let’s review some of the economic aspects:

Scary Fact #1: China has 1.3 billion people, or 20% of the world population not accounting for the 34 million Overseas Chinese.

Scary Fact #2: China is the 6th largest GDP economy in the world in 2004 and is anticipated to be the 4th largest in 2005, after America, Japan, and Germany.

Scary Fact #3: Opened for business in 1978.  It’s just getting started.

Economically, China is everywhere akin to a swarm of bees hovering over a busted hive.  The majority of items you buy these days is from China.  It always starts with textiles and toys, then plastic and rubber household goods.  Then progress to low tech kitchenware, then electronics goods.  Take a look at the back of your Ipod.  Surprise.  It is the manufacturer to the world for one reason: labor cost.  Here is a sampling:

Average hourly wage in 2004

Germany US$31.00

USA US$22.00

Taiwan US$5.64

China US$0.92

There is no typo.  With 92 cents an hour, any Chinese manufacturer can approach any German manufacturer and claim: "For every one of your workers, you can hire 40 of mine."  Downside risk: quality of product and intellectual property infringement.  But WOW.  US$30 savings per hour! - Yummy by any business standards.

Not bad for 20 odd years of progress.  So if you have an iron will and a fortified consitution, "Go East, My Friend!".  East is the new West.  Red is the new Black.  And a traditional Chinese dress looks fabulous on any woman.

I had a stimulating conversation with my friend Hans who runs a company a floor down from my office here in

Kaohsiung

.  Hans is a chemical engineer from

Germany

, and has been in

Kaohsiung

long enough to be more Kaohsiungnese than me.  The topic: Love.  Being a meticulously logical person that he is, he had created a formula for the Value of Love©, which is akin to the econometric formulas we all feigned to understand in college, and later became embarrassed to even earn a passing grade.  The purpose of this formula was to systematically place a numerical value to love.  It involves multiple variables and utilizes complex charts for prioritization.  As he intends to write a book on this topic, I will not steal his thunder here by divulging trade secrets.  But the discussion ignited another basic observation about human behavior: the need to organize an overwhelmingly chaotic world.

The world is naturally chaotic.  We have a proclivity to put order to chaos.  To achieve this order, we naturally organize concepts and ideas into formulas based on conclusions founded from experiences.  The formulas or basic truths help us understand nebulous concepts such as the personality of someone we love, or personality of someone we love, … oh yeah…, and the personality of someone we love.

Let’s use an example.  I once saw a proof for why girls are evil.  Sorry girls, this is just exempli gratia.  I mean no offense.  It goes something like this:

It is given that:             Girls = Time X Money

We all know that:          Time = Money

Therefore:                   Girls = Money X Money = Money²

We also know that:       Money = Root of all Evil = ÖEvil

Therefore:                   Girls = (ÖEvil)²

Conclusion:                   Girls = Evil

Another thoughtful observation to organize our love lives goes something like this:

There are 5 stages of a romantic relationship:

(1)          Initial Attraction          Boy meets girl.

(2)         Discovery                     Boy and girl engage in dating activities to find out about each other.

(3)         Conflict                        Boy and girl discovers things they dislike about each other.

(4)         Conflict Resolution       Boy and girl resolve conflict by coming to terms with what they dislike about each other.

(5)         Commitment                   Boy and girl are promised to each other.

The conundrum is that for boys, they enjoy (1) Initial Attraction and (2) Discovery; but are more likely to leave the relationship upon first sign of (3) Conflict.  For girls, they also enjoy (1) Initial Attraction and (2) Discovery; but then have the greater propensity to bypass directly to (5) Commitment. 

These formulas provide perhaps a false perception of control.  The control feels good.  We perceive mastery of yet another mystery of life by applying simple structure to it.  If love ad infinitum has a formula, it is undoubtedly complex.  It must involve chaos theory for definitions.  It must involve quantum math for a solution.  Then again, perhaps it is as simple as rolling dice: pure chance.  Conclusion: We should all learn something from

Las Vegas

: “Whatever happens here [in life], stays here [in life]”.