“ASIAN
REPRESENTATION
SERIES“
If Asian Superstitions Were a Horror Movie – Wong Fu Productions
By Sue Van Phan
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.