Met up with my friend Daphne yesterday for lunch and we were talking about buying the necessary items for Bebe (babycot, wardrobe etc etc). Daphne told me that she rushed to get the shop to deliver the items when she was preggers with her girl last year as her mum told her to do so before the Seventh Lunar Month, aka Hungry Ghost Festival. She added that it is a kind of superstition among the older folks that we should not move things around the house during that month.
After lunch, i had an uneasy feeling coz the Seventh Lunar Month falls on 1 Aug and i've originally scheduled the delivery of the furniture for Bebe on 16 Aug. Well, if i had not heard from Daphne about the Seventh Month thingy, i would have been happy to receive all the stuff on 16 Aug. I was even telling myself that it's ok, i won't be too superstitious and everything will be fine. But after knowing about this age-old tradition (which was not even on my radar screen), i don't want to have the nagging thought/anxiety or even regret that 'I should have arranged for delivery before 1 Aug'. It's the 'don't want to take a chance' mentality especially when this is a standard practice for centuries. I've even tried throwing a coin (head for 'ok to deliver on 16 Aug'/tail for 'must deliver before 1 Aug') . The result was 'tail'! Hence I made a frantic call to the shop and managed to arrange for Bebe's stuff to come in tomorrow afternoon. And since i can't be present and Chee Meng can't take time off work coz it's so last minute, I managed to get Mum to help receive the goods. Thank god for her help!! Phew!
Sometimes i tell myself that i should not be too superstitious but somehow, i cannot fight the psychological power of all these old-wives tales and age-old advice. There is always this fear of the unknown and the play-safe approach would be to follow what has been done in the past and throw rationality aside. Of course, the challenge comes when the advice is totally irrational but practiced over the generations - how can we resist it then? By logic, by sheer determination to ignore it or just simply succumb to it? Luckily the delivery of the furniture is not too much of a challenge to rational thinking and can be easily resolved.
Otherwise, it will be another big dilemma...
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