CHANGING SEATS

When I was a child, I remember that my elders would chastise me if I were to occupy another seat when I was eating. One should be seated on the chair that one first sits on during a meal or so the belief goes. Why? It is believed that if one keeps changing seats then one might have be subjected to the curse of having to be married more than once. I think that this belief is peculiar to Malaysian Chinese with influence from Malay culture.

What triggered off my memory of this particular belief was during a meal break for a staff development course in my school today. Initially I was seated with a few of my male colleagues at one table but later got up to join my friend Kamariah at another table. That was when the Malay men teased me by saying that I should not do that as I might have to marry more than once. I turned and told them that I had been changing seats during meals for many, many years and assured them that it did not work as I have not even been married once.