FT13

FT13

friggatriskaidekaphobia 

Can anyone say this very fast, five times in a row, without getting their undies in a twist and their tongues cursing the cruel mind?

And what the hell is that? 

Guess what ……. It is simply called fear of Friday the 13th (named after Frigga, the goddess who gave her name to Friday).

And Guess what again?  Today is Friday the 13^th…..!  The day I chose to start CrocodileDhondy.

Strange but true that every year has at least one FT13, and the maximum any year ever had was three. Three times a year shivering as the sun rises, some just refuse to step out of bed, some refuse to light the gas stove ( for all you know it may go booooom) and some refuse to step out of their homes to go to work, or just for a bit of grocery shopping…. Let the darn family starve a bit, one day of no sausages and cheese won’t make them skinny will it?

Even funnier is the way the French look at it. In Paris, you can hire a quatorzieme, or a professional 14th guest, just so that you can remove the so-called bad luck brought by the number 13 as well as Friday the 13th.

But Friday the 13th may not be as unlucky as people think. Strangely a Dutch study in 2008 showed that fewer car accidents, fires and crimes occur on the such “ scary” days. Most likely that superstitious, would-be victims, make an effort to stay out of harm's way.  Shucks, just realised I’ve been stuck to my desk most of the day, and possibly saved some others from a loony driver on the road!

Even the stock market laughs it off, and according to CNBC, the US market has been up 80 times over the past 140 occasions when the 13th of a month landed on a Friday. Now how many shares did we buy today folks?

But we do love to paint all this nice and black don’t we?

Damn, Death and 13….. aaaah!  The best way to scare someone and turn them white! The DEAD-ly associations with the number 13 are the facts that there are 13 stairs leading to the gallows…. the blade of a guillotine falls from a height of 13 feet ……..and the noose used by a hangman has 13 knots.

While in the West mourns the number 13 and considers it unlucky for many people, this is not the case among many Chinese.  Simple maths the Chinese apply: The digit 1 when it is in the position of tens sounds like the word ‘definite’ (shi or 实) in Mandarin and dialects such as Cantonese; while the digit 3 sounds like life, living or birth (生). As a result, 13, which is pronounced as shisan in Mandarin, can mean ‘definitely vibrant’. 
I am not Nav-Loze Lee , and I haven’t done my Masters in the Chinese language from JNU. This came straight off some quick googling that helped get the fright outta me! 

So many buildings just make the 13^th floor disappear….so from the 12^th to the 14^th, you actually tread on thin air…airports have no Gate 13, trains have no compartment 13, and hotels don’t have rooms with the number 13…..! Are we really so obsessed with this number. 

Well the Italians seems to have managed it very simply….just change the bloody date : according to popular Italian culture, Friday the 17th—not the 13th—is considered a day of bad luck. in more ways than one the  Italians generally consider 13 to be a lucky number.

Well my Dad and Uncle were both born on the 13^th, so I’m not complaining, am i?

FT13: Sit back, pour a drink, and enjoy.