Thais have this wonderful way of making lemonade when life delivers lemons.  The other day I was out taking photos with my 21 year old friend and photography student. We were just finishing up at a wat when a bird, perched on a wire above him, let go with a big dump that hit him on top of his head and down the front of his shirt.  His reaction was, “I lucky…bird shit on my head.”

Thais like to take these little annoyances that life dishes out and turn them into a positive.  It is refreshing to see, but I must admit I’ve not been able to adopt a similar outlook.  Maybe in time this too will change.

Awhile back I wrote about one of the many superstitions boys have.  This one had to do with clipping finger and toe nails, in the room, between 6pm and 6am.  The boy that told me about this said to do so would bring bad luck to the home.

Well, over a year later this same boy is at my place clipping his nails, after 6 in the evening.  So I asked him what the deal was.  The boy told me he no longer follows that belief, but still adheres to the practice of throwing the clippings out the window.  Princess is also in the room and exclaims he too believes in tossing the clippings out the window.  Why?  For good luck, of course!  The other boy then explains if you leave the clippings on the floor and a rat eats them, he will turn into a replica of you.  Well, we certainly can’t have that, now can we?

I do pride myself in having a room that’s rat free, but this doesn’t seem to have any influence on the boys’ behavior.  Over the years I have noticed every single boy makes a nice neat pile of his clippings, but always assumed they were just being neat and tidy.  Silly me!  That’s the last thing most boys are, so why would they make an exception for their nail clippings?  Now I know why!