List of Misconceptions I Had As A Kid¶

2026-03-10

1. Woodium¶

When I was in kindergarten, I read a book that said everything was made of elements, so I looked around my kitchen. Aluminum pots and iron woks made sense because they are indeed on the periodic table. There was, however, no such element as Woodium (or Plasticum, or Glassium). It never crossed my mind until maybe sixth grade that wood and plastic were made of organic molecules, so mostly carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, and glass was silicon oxide.

2. Sea water¶

I did not understand how someone can die of thirst on the sea, like, look around you buddy, water is water. I don't care if it's "too salty", you need to toughen up. You survive as long as you chug enough H2O molecules in your body.

It was not until high school when we learned about osmosis that I realized it is the water-to-salt ratio in your body that matters. If you drink water mixed with too much salt, it wicks water out of your system and makes you thirstier. And if you keep drinking water with no salt, you can get sick from too much water.

It's ridiculous I kept this misconception for this long. The middle school textbook just said it was "too salty to drink" and offered no explanation. If I had asked my mom, she would definitely explain that to me (she is a nurse and often works with saline solutions), but I did not.

3. Car blinker stalks¶

Kindergarten me thought both stalks behind the steering wheel were for blinkers. Like if you wanna go left you push the left stalk, if you wanna go right you push the right stalk. It took me years of observation to figure out that only the left stalk is for blinkers, and it can be pushed both ways (and more as I learned to drive).

4. Car handbrake¶

Once my dad parked his car on a slope and told me that he engaged the handbrake so the car doesn't roll away. The handbrake was a lever in the center console. I assumed it was attached to a physical rod that was extended to touch the ground like a foot, poking against the ground to keep the car still. In reality it's just a mechanical linkage to engage some disc brakes in the wheels or something.

5. Teresa Teng and Maggie Cheung died from ingesting dessicant¶

This is one of many lies my mother and grandmother told me. To deter me from ingesting the "do not eat" packets, they pointed to photos of Teresa Teng (邓丽君) and Maggie Cheung (张曼玉) and told me they died from them. The worst part of this was that Cheung was, and still is, alive, just not active. They faked her death for the majority of my childhood and laughed their ass off when they mentioned Cheung and I asked, "wait, she's not dead?"

6. West & East Germany Mixup¶

We had an old book from the 80s that still had references to West Germany and East Germany. I vividly recall a foggy evening on the balcony with my grandpa, as I was sharing interesting findings, I confidently said the "Democratic" Republic was West Germany and "Federal" Republic was East Germany, because the US, UK and France were known for "Democracy", and "Federal" sounds like a word for some central power. I was 90% sure I was right. He never corrected me, despite having lived over a good chunk of the cold war. Either he didn't want to embarrass me, or he wasn't paying attention.