Indonesian Zeitgeist — Superstitions, Cultural Beliefs, Diverse Religious Values
Growing up with mystical superstitions & rich cultural values of Indonesia
Growing up in Southeast Asia, especially in Indonesia, I couldn’t count how many superstitions I had heard my parents or society told me over my 18 years there. Indonesia has an incredibly rich identity of diverse local cultures, where these superstitions originated from. Not only that, the country is well known for its mystic folklores, legends, myths, taboos, religious beliefs, and witchcraft.
People are willing to spend money to “protect” themselves from the evil spirit, home owners are willing to pay a lot higher price of their house because it’s facing the north (great luck for the family), and children are not allowed to play outside after Maghrib (a daily prayer right after sunset performed by practicing Muslims) because they can get snatched by the demons. The list goes on and on..
This superstitious culture & stories were passed on from generation to generation, and they are ingrained deep into the roots of the society’s heritage. I do think that these strong cultural beliefs give each Asian country its own identity, especially highlighting their uniqueness if you compare them with Western countries.
…children are not allowed to play outside after Maghrib (a daily prayer right after sunset performed by practicing Muslims) because they can get snatched by the demons.
As a Chinese-Indonesian (my ancestry came from China during the revolution, but only a few of us can speak Mandarin since we have been rooted in Indonesia for a really long time. Same concept with Chinese-American), we are still pretty tuned in with our Chinese heritage, beliefs, and superstitions. What makes it interesting is the diverse Indonesian cultural & religious influences going all the way back to its colonization days by the Europeans in 16th-20th century, which has slowly married together with the Chinese cultures, thus creating one incredibly unique zeitgeist.
A crash course in cultural history — Indonesia was first colonized by the Portuguese, then Spain, then England, then Dutch (for 350 years), then the Japanese (during World War II), before we eventually declared our independence in 1945. Can you imagine how rich the Indonesian culture is with all these influences? All of those stirred together with Islamic values from the Middle East (Indonesia is 87% Muslim), Hinduism from India, Buddhist from East Asia, and Christianity from Europe…
What makes it interesting is the diverse Indonesian cultural & religious influences going all the way back to its colonization days by the Europeans in 16th-20th century, which has slowly married together with the Chinese cultures, thus creating one incredibly unique zeitgeist.
Here are some superstitions I could remember growing up:
We celebrate Chinese New Year just like the native Chinese celebrate it, we don’t sweep our house during Chinese New Year so not to sweep away our luck,
we call our older family members with the correct Mandarin pronunciation, red is our lucky color,
#4 means death, #13 means bad luck (buildings rarely have floor 4 & 13 because of this reason),
#7 is our lucky number (that’s why slot machines’ biggest jackpot is if you get 7’s in a row),
#8 is a symbol of good fortune (the Cantonese pronunciation for 8 is “baat” which sounds similar to “fatt” which means prosperity; whereas 8 is pronounced as “ba” in Mandarin, which sounds similar to “fa” which means to prosper. Source: Wikipedia),
clipping finger nails at night will invite ghosts,
our feet should never point to a door or to a mirror because it looks like we are a corpse being brought out from (or entering?) the room,
we had to whisper some permission (to whoever is “guarding” that area) if we need to pee on the grass outside,
giving things with our left hand is incredibly rude, because we use our left hand to wash our a-hole,
we should never point a flashlight up to the trees at night.
But think about it…
Isn’t it amazing how we, as human beings can adapt, evolve, and manage to marry together all our different values, beliefs, and culture into one unique identity? Maybe we are not that different after all… no matter where we come from, what color is our skin, which God we worship, or what period we live in.
