10 quirky Hong Kong superstitions you should know about

Lots of Asian cultures have the same belief against trimming your nails in the nighttime, though the reasons vary slightly. For example, in Japan, there is a saying that if you clip your nails at night, you won’t be with your parents when they die; the connotation is that you will meet a premature death, passing away before your parents. In Chinese culture, it is simply believed to attract ghosts. There is also a creepy legend about avoiding clipping your nails on the MTR for the same reason, but we also think that’s just gross and unsanitary!

One should never stick their pair of chopsticks vertically in their food, especially if it’s a bowl of rice. This is reminiscent of how incense sticks are burned and offered to the dead. Not only is this ill luck, but if you’re at a table with older Chinese people you’ll also likely get an earful for bad form and table manners.

Spirits are attracted to shadowy dark spaces, and the inside of a folded umbrella is thought to be one of them. Opening an umbrella indoors will, therefore, release any hitchhiking spirits into your home. It’s best to play it safe and open your damp umbrella to dry outside instead. In a similar vein, don’t ever pick up a stranger’s umbrella and bring it home—you never know what sort of spirits or bad vibes it may have picked up!

This is one often told to Chinese children. If you point at the moon, the tips of your ears will fall off. As the legend goes, Chang’e, the goddess who resides on the moon, regards this as a rude act and retaliates by cutting off bits of your ears!

Similar to the Lunar New Year, there are plenty of things to look out for over the course of the seventh month of the lunar year. One such superstition is not carrying things that jingle or make tinkly noises, such as bells or little jangling keychains on your bags. The noise is thought to attract spirits, which will be roaming the mortal world during this festival. We’ve even known people who take the bell off their pets’ collars, just in case!

Another superstition often repeated to children, not clearing your bowl of rice is frowned upon because each grain left behind indicates how many acne scars or spots your future spouse will have on their face! We think it’s simply to ensure children don’t waste their food, but we’re also loathe to test this theory out ourselves...

Most people will already know this, but the number four is considered unlucky as it sounds similar to how the word ‘death’ is pronounced. Numerical combinations with this number could be negative too: for example, “5354” sounds like the phrase “not alive, not dead” in Cantonese, seemingly referring to a sinister state of limbo between life and death.

To this day, you sometimes won’t find floors containing the number four in apartment buildings, and some hotels even go so far as to eliminate all room numbers with four in them. People avoid giving each other gifts in sets of four and also prefer phone numbers and car plate numbers without the digit.

Conversely, the number eight is very well-loved because it sounds like the Chinese word “prosper” and has therefore been given auspicious connotations. Telephone numbers containing the number eight, or flats on the eighth floor of buildings, can be sold at a much higher price due to this popularity. A few years ago, a car license plate with the numbers 28 was auctioned off for a record-breaking $18.1 million. All this because the two numbers together sound like ‘easy fortune’ in Cantonese!