Issue 54 - Tse Qigong Centre

Chinese people are very superstitious people. The more you see, then the more you findthey are different from Western people. They consider so many different things. For example,on the first and fifteenth day of each lunar month do not wash your hair. In the early morningpeople should not cry (usually very young children cry more easily and you cannot stop themvery easily, so you have no choice). Never let the end of a broom handle hit you whilesomeone is sweeping the floor as these things will bring you bad luck.Chinese people are often more superstitious thanother people. We are like this because of our history.China has one of the longest histories andcivilisation. Because of this long history a tremendousamount of knowledge has been gathered andwritten down and recorded. The culture and people havecontinually used this knowledge.All kinds of information about how to learn to live inthe world was written down. How people should survive indifferent areas and live on different types of land. Each landhas its own energy, like different temperatures, water,landscapes, weather, foods etc. Our ancestors learnt howto live in these areas, in the beginning they learnt how tosurvive and later they learnt how to live more comfortably.This knowledge they passed onto their offspring and eachfollowing generation passed it onto the next generation, sothe children could survive. In the beginning knowledge waspassed down by word of mouth, they would be taught andthe tools would be passed onto the children. So eachgeneration would get a better life.However, many skills would be lost as well. Forexample someone might have found a way to live in a coldplace without having to wear lots of clothes, but if theyhad no children or friends or something happened tohim he could not pass on the knowledge, then itwould be lost.So the best thing is to write it down now we can get outour camcorders and video it to keep it as original as possible,but in those days many people could not write and so had topass the knowledge on by word of mouth. So it was moredifficult to keep the knowledge and skill and it could easily belost. Also if someone tells you something without you writing itdown, then there is more chance that you will make a mistakeand remember it wrongly.So today we have many written contracts, especially inbusiness and any dealings with people you do not know toavoid such mistakes. (Of course, today you even find peoplewho will make contracts with their families and friends becausethey do not trust them.) When skills and cultural knowledgehave been written down, then the following generations willbe more comfortable and can use it for their lives and makeless mistakes.Also China was the first countryto invent paper and printing andso the people were ableto pass on moreChinese Superstitionand PhilosophyQi Magazine 11