As we grew older, my siblings and I integrated the superstitions we learned in school with the ones we learned at home.

We were conditioned like most Americans to pick up pennies for luck. But we were also taught like many Chinese Americans to disdain nickels. It was rude to give somebody a nickel; it was ominous to get one. Nickels, our mother said, were the coins tossed into people’s graves when they died. They were associated with loss and sorrow.

We were taught not to give clocks -- a reminder that time was running out -- or knives or scissors – anything that could cut away luck – as birthday or wedding presents.

We were instructed not to wash our hair on holidays for fear that we would wash away good tidings. At the conclusion of a meal, we were told to say we were "full," not "finished." People were "finished" eating, our mother said, when they were dead.

We were taught like most Americans to avoid the number 13. But we were also conditioned as Chinese Americans to avoid the number 4. Its pronunciation sounded like the word for death. We appreciated the lucky number 7. But we were also taught to value 8 and 9. The pronunciation for 8 rhymed with the word for fortune; the one for 9 sounded like the word for posterity.

Checking into a hotel in Southern California last summer, my brother Eric and I spent more than 15 minutes trying to secure a room on the seventh, eighth or ninth floor. When the woman behind the counter told us the only rooms available were ones on the fourth floor, we gasped.

We needed a place to stay. We couldn’t walk away. But how could we ignore the ominous number four? How could we ignore what our mother had told us, what our culture had told us?

When the woman offered us Room 432, we did some quick math. We added 4, 3 and 2 to get 9. Nine: posterity. That could work, we thought, relieved. We convinced ourselves that a room on the fourth floor might not be so bad after all. We talked ourselves into taking it.

That day, we realized we could shift and shape our beliefs to fit our needs. Since superstitions were irrational by definition, we could be irrational, too, mixing and matching them as we pleased. Some were personal, others cultural. Since the lines were often blurred, we could combine one thing with another and another. We could adapt.

CHRISTINA ENG (LNF/ UO 2002), a former Oakland Tribune arts reporter, now writes freelance from her Bay Area home.