6 Bizarre Birthday Superstitions in Chinese Traditions You May Not Know

If you are born into a traditional Chinese family, you will be expected to follow many cultures and superstitions. It happens on important events like Chinese New year, wedding, birthdays and many more.

Birthday might seem to be a part and parcel of our life that happens once a year. But do you know that there are some traditional practices to follow too?

1. Do not celebrate more than once every year

The Chinese have 2 birth dates, the western and lunar one, so just choose one date to celebrate. They believed that the number of times you blow off the candles, the number of age increases.

2. Serve yourself with Auspicious food

Long noodles, also known as longevity noodle and red egg is always prepared for the birthday girl/boy. As the name mentioned, the long noodle is a blessing to wish the birthday girl or boy to have long life. The red egg symbolise new beginning after you remove the shell.

For those celebrating their 60th birthday, it is a common practice to send them peaches as a gift to bless them with longevity.

3. Choosing and Giving the Right Gift

There are many important rules in giving rules and just to name some:

• Gift must be wrapped in auspicious color like red to symbolize blessing. Avoid giving gift wrapped with black color as it symbolizes death.
• Do not give clock or watch as it represent paying the last respect to the dead
• Avoid giving shoes because it imply walking away from a relationship

If you are interested to know more about other gift giving superstitions, find out more – Chinese Gift Giving Superstitions

If you are still confused on what to give, you can always take the universal method. Give red packet (Hong Bao) that symbolize blessing with good fortune.

4. Birthday in the Ghost Month

If your birthday fall in the lunar 7th month, also known as ghost month, avoid celebration at night. It will be better to celebrate during the daytime.

5. Advanced or Belated Celebration?

Birthdays must be celebrated in advance or actual day to be sincere. If you are celebrating a late birthday, it feels like it has been two birthdays, increasing your age to two years more.

6. Chinese birthday ending with 9 is bad

According to some people, it is advised to avoid celebrating Chinese birthday ending with 9, for example, 9, 19, 29, 39, 49, 59 and so on. It is believed that they will meet with misfortune and might cause death.

Are you being raised up with these bizarre Chinese birthday traditions? If you have more birthday traditions and superstitions from cultures around the globe, please share them with us too.