Question concerning Hsiao-Kang's reluctance to sell watch

First of all, let me just say that Tsaï Ming-Liang is my favorite contemporary director and that What Time Is It There? is one of my favorite films; its stature has grown in my mind from qualified masterpiece to unqualified masterpiece in my many subsequent viewings.

With that out of the way, I have a question about Hsiao-Kang’s behavior in his first exchange with Shiang-chyi, the first scene on the skywalk, when she firsts asks to purchase his watch. “I can’t,” he replies – “It’d be bad luck to own my watch. Someone in my family just died. I’m in mourning. I can’t sell it to you.”

I had never had any questions before because the dialogue (or at least the English subtitle translations) seemed to make the situation clear: Hsiao-Kang is following a tradition and/or superstition that dictates that during a period of mourning (or possibly the 49-day period in which his father is supposed to be reborn – and perhaps the two are interchangeable), it would be bad luck for someone else to wear his watch.

Straightforward enough, but I’m currently in the process of writing an essay on the film, and specifically on the role of the displacement of the watch from Taipei to Paris and how this effects both Hsiao-Kang and the film’s relationship to time and the past, and I was looking for some more concrete explanation of Hsiao-Kang’s reluctance. I’ve browsed sections on funeral rites, mourning, and rebirth in dozens of books on Buddhism and Chinese Buddhism, and haven’t found anything to clarify this – perhaps I’m looking in the wrong place; perhaps Hsiao-Kang’s conduct is based more on popular superstition than Buddhist doctrine.

What is bad luck, exactly? The transference of any possessions from someone in mourning to someone who isn’t in mourning? The wearing of jewelry of someone who has just had a family member die? Or is there no clear rule, either in religious practice or superstition, and is his comment deliberately vague?

If anyone (preferably with a better knowledge of Taiwanese culture than me, at least) can help me out on this, I’d be much obliged, even if this help comes in the form of referring me to another source.

Thanks