Friday, 10 May 2013

Myths, Ancient to Modern Time

I used to be one of those people who feel dizzy before exam; the world seems to keep it pace to move. Before I knew it, I failed!

According to Judith Burns’ article “One in three studentswears 'lucky exam underwear'”, there are polls, meaning to say students’ faithfully personal items along with revision tactics. They believe those stuffs and methods could help them to do their exams well.

It wouldn’t surprise me that most of Thais rely on superstitious. But people from the other sides of the world also believe in it too, especially about taking exam. Examination is a significant part in student’s lives, undeniably. I’m still wondering, where lucky pants actually come from?

The decisions students made base on superstitious belief. Might it also develop to their lucky and unlucky results? Zero to one hundred percent chances is totally different. If I had worn my lucky gems on that day, I would have passed the astronomy exam in high school. It is possible that lucky items, attractively persuasive, could help me to accomplish at that time. At least, it could cheer me up when I literally invent my answers. The fact is that it can be only 2 outcomes, either pass or fail. Regrettably, I got the latter. So did half of my classmates; some even drank oily fish instead of rice during a week before exam, some hold popular amulets, such as Jatukam Ramathep when they took exam.

Another example, a black cat commonly represents bad luck, followed by loads of myths. On the contrary, the black cat better not cross the road in front of my car on the exam day because that day will be its last day to cross the road. Obviously, bad luck seems to pass on the poor cat rather than me (but I hope this will never happen). My point is that superstitions are used to trick people, warning that something either bad or good could happen to someone. Might it somewhat give me illusion control? Like when Thais hear lizard’s voice, they better not leave home; something bad would happen if they do so. However, it is an old saying. These days that sort of animal increases even more and would be in anywhere. All things considered, it looks like to remind one to check before he/she go out rather than worry about odd sound.

Notwithstanding the fact that we live in the world of science and technology today, anthropology provides us the useful reasons about folk tales as human studies. But some of the activities labeled magic still sound interesting until now. Do they stray away from mainstream? Most of myths have neither practical way investigating nor evidence to support. Can I count organic veggie assembled the healthy angle myth as magic superstition?   

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Reference
Burns, J. (2013, May 9). One in three students wears 'lucky exam underwear. BBC News UK. Retrieved May 10, 2013 from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-22465114
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5 comments:

  1. Peace10 May 2013 at 11:12

    I think that the 'lucky exam underwear' is one of the symbols that people hold in order to release their stress or fear. When they are holding concrete objectives in their hands, their minds will hold abstract believe. There is a saying that "where there is faith, there is hope."

    However, I think that whatever may come, it is based on what they have done in the past. They cannot get good grades from just wearing or holding the lucky stuff, but they have to study or make it comes true.

    Moving on to the reason why they use pants, I think that because they can be unisex so that everyone can wear as well as they will not cause any fraud problem because they seem normal.

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  2. Peter.AUA11 May 2013 at 13:48

    What a fascinating article. And thank you to Sorn, without whose post here I probably would have missed it. As you've doubtless guessed, the first thing I did was read the full story on the BBC News. I didn’t have any special exam underwear when I was a student taking exams, and if my friends did, they kept it secret. I wasn't very big on revision, either, but I did follow Wilson's advice to get a good night's sleep.

    But maybe I do have some amulet type beliefs. In my case, these tend to be food related. For example, I am prone to imbuing garlic with health benefits that in my more critical moments I'm sure it could not really have - it probably is beneficial, but not the guarantee of permanent, perfect health that I treat it as. It totally failed to protect me from the acute food poisoning on Thursday evening that sees me writing this from a hospital bed. But I'm optimistic that I'll be able to check out in time to meet my 8:00 PM deadline this evening.

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    Replies
    1. Peter.AUA12 May 2013 at 20:45

      Interestingly, my recent adventures in hospital also corrected a misunderstanding I've probably had forever. I'd assumed that if you had severe food poisoning it would be sensible to avoid, heavy, rich food like pork steak and hearty macaroni soup, in favour of light, refreshing fruits and perhaps some vegetables. This certainly sounds reasonable to me, and is what I'd done, with some watermelon and orange before giving in and rushing off to seek more expert opinion than my own.

      As the ancillary staff bought me first the macaroni soup for breakfast and the tasty pork steak for lunch, they also explicitly emphasised that I should not eat any fruit or vegetables. It seems that the facts are that my opinion was exactly wrong. I'm glad it was corrected before I'd managed to do myself any more serious harm.

      I always try to find opposing views to things I believe because that's the best way to check that those beliefs are strongly founded, but some things seem so "obvious" that I never question them - and as I've just learnt, this can be positively dangerous.

      Happily, after no fruit or veggies and a healthy amount of wonderfully unnatural drugs for a couple of days, I'm now feeling quite well. And I've just had some tasty pork lasagna for dinner - exactly what the doctor might have prescribed.

      And as a bonus, I've lost more than 3 kilos and a full inch or more from my waist, although the cost was a bit steep.

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    2. Peter.AUA12 May 2013 at 22:14

      But now I'm having a second thought. The doctors and other members of staff at Bangkok Christian Hospital are not primary sources, or probably even secondary, so I wondered if they are right about the danger of fruit in recovery from food poisoning.

      My own initial Googling research turned up nothing better than that fibre was to be avoided, which I guess would rule out most fruit and vegetables.

      Then I tried again, with better success. The most reliable and useful sounding search entry was from the MedlinePlus website, which is run by the US National Institutes of Health, and cites primary sources as well as listing well qualified editors for every page update. On the diarrhoea page, they do advise that "you should ... avoid fruits and vegetables that can cause gas" (Kaneshiro, 2012, Things You Should Avoid sect.), whilst also noting that improperly washed raw fruit and vegetables are a common source of food poisoning (Vorvik & Longstreth, 2011, Causes sect.).

      I feel much happier with these solid looking secondary sources, which cite their primary sources. Of course, if I needed these facts about fruit for any more serious piece of writing, I would follow up the cited primary sources, which I strongly suspect would get me back to journal articles, which are the backbone of academic discussion.

      But now, I'm having a banana and going to bed. (It's OK, bananas are explicitly mentioned as one of the OK fruits, so I can safely indulge this craving, whilst trying not to think of the grapes and cherries that kept pushing themselves at me in Tops this afternoon - probably two of the worst offenders.

      Reference
      Kanashiro, N. K. (2012, May 5). When you or your child has diarrhea. MedlinePlus. Retrieved May 12, 2013 from http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/patientinstructions/000121.htm

      Vorvik, L. J., & Longstreth, G. F. (2011, January 10). Food poisoning. MedlinePlus. Retrieved May 12, 2013 from http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/001652.htm

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    3. Peter.AUA12 May 2013 at 22:19

      The final Google search string I used was
      "fruit after food poisoning MedlinePlus", having previously tried, in reverse order,
      "fruit after food poisoning" (an entry here gave me MedlinePlus)
      "can i eat fruit after food poisoning" (useless, really)
      "food poisoning avoid fruit" (a start, but not satisfying. I wasn't happy.)
      and a couple of others that got wiped.

      Googling is a useful skill to practice.

      Delete

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