商務禮節美語第203期:Superstitions Etiquette 迷信禮節(上)

來自中國的僱員Sue跟男同事Pete和女同事Julie一起去吃飯。
Pete: Hey Sue! Don't walk under that 's bad luck!
Sue: Julie, Is he serious?
Julie: Kind of. There is an old tradition in the West that says it's bad luck.
S: You mean a superstition?
J: Yes, I guess it is a superstition.
S: But, 're from the UK and Pete is American! I thought Western people weren't superstitious!
P: Actually, many of us are. In America we have a whole bunch of superstitions.
Pete警告Sue不要從梯子下面走，It's bad luck. 會帶來壞運氣。 Superstition迷信。Julie是英國人，Pete是美國人，原來，西方人也迷信。
S: Wow...I always thought Westerners considered superstitions old-fashioned. My family is Chinese; almost all of us are very superstitious.
J: Well, I think the superstitions might be different, but pretty much every country in the world has them.
S: Is the number "four" unlucky in the West?
J: No...I don't think so.
P: . Why is the number "four" bad?
S: In Chinese the pronunciation of the "four" sounds a lot like the word for "death."
P: Oh, I can see why that would be bad.
Sue原以爲，西方人覺得迷信是old-fashioned, 守舊過時的，只有中國人迷信，沒想到，其實西方人也迷信，但是東西方迷信的內容不同。
J: We might be OK with the number "four" but some Western people think "thirteen" is an unlucky number.
P: That's true. Some buildings will skip the thirteenth floor or call it "12A" or something.
S: Ha! That's funny! In many Chinese places they do exactly the same thing with the fourth floor! But why is thirteen unlucky?
J: Well, it's not too clear how that it probably has something to do with twelve being a lucky number.
西方人不忌諱“四”，但是忌諱“十三”，很多大樓因此沒有十三層，用12A來代替。Sue說，中國也有類似做法。不過，在西方文化裏，“十三”爲什麼不吉利呢？Julie說，大概是因爲“十三”前面的“十二”是一個lucky number,特別吉利的數字。
J: Twelve is a number featured in many stories and legends and so it's kind of considered to be a good number.
S: But thirteen is not?
P: the most unlucky day of all is if a Friday falls on the 13th of a month. That's considered to be a super unlucky day.
S: Yeah. I saw a horror movie called "Friday the 13" once!
J: Yeah! That's a great horror movie!
在西方，很多傳說和故事裏，十二都是吉祥數字，可十三卻代表着厄運，如果哪個月的十三號正好又是星期五的話，一定要小心。