“ASIAN

REPRESENTATION

SERIES“

If Asian Superstitions Were a Horror Movie – Wong Fu  Productions

By Sue Van Pham

Not many people know about Asian superstitions and all the scary legendary myths, but if they  were to be written as horror movies, I’m sure it will be much more appalling. Just recently Wong  Fu Productions came out with another masterpiece called, “If Asian Superstitions Were a Horror  Movie”. It is a short movie about various types of myths and superstitions that Asian parents told  their children and ended up haunting them to their adult life.  

It all begins when a guy doesn’t believe what his mom told him and he eventually turns on the  fan before he goes to bed. From that moment on, he starts having frantic nightmares that the fan  is moving and haunting him wherever he goes.  

After he wakes up from the nightmare he is terrified and probably regretful for not listening to  the wise words told from his mom. Besides turning on the fan before going to bed, the movie  also shows other types of myths that Asian believe were unlucky, such as whistling at night,  sleeping in front of the mirror or even going to bed with your hair still wet. Though not really  certain about the other myths, but one of them about sleeping with your hair still wet is not a  wise idea. From what I still remembered, my mom always told me that sleeping with wet hair  will give you a cold and a headache. After experiencing sleeping with my hair still damped, I  regretted not blow drying my hair thoroughly enough, because I had the worse headache from it.  

The fact that there are so many myths and superstitions that we often heard from our parents or  grandparents are probably just to scare us away from doing bad things or repeating bad  behaviors. Just like most parents wanting what is good for their children, Asian parents tend to  discipline their children and not extenuate what they want to teach them. Instead of teaching  children the easy way like the Western world does, Asian parents from the Eastern world prefer  to teach their children the hard ways. This is so because if Asian parents teach their children the  hard ways, they believe their children will grow up to be a strong individual and will likely be  able to face any obstacles that they might encounter through life.  

In other words, all those haunting myths or superstitions that Asian parents still tell their children  are for their own good. In fact, it may be the way that Asian parents want to teach their children  to not take anything for granted. Just like a lotus that blooms vividly from the muddy water.  Instead of extenuate the situation to their children; Asian parents tend to raise their children to  become a strong and fearless individual.