Everywhere supertitions and proverbs were rife. Each country seems to have it's own versions of auspicious omens, charms and lucky numbers. In Vietnam it was 3, Hong Kong 8 and so on. The daft things that we have about astrology they take very seriously, as they do with their year of birth - dog, rat, monkey etc.
I used to have a Thai co-worker who was going to buy a house, but decided not to after conferring with her mother. As it turns out, their family astrologer said that it was a bad time to buy. In talking to her, her family isn't the exception. They are the norm.
With a little chuckle, she let me know that Western cultural norms seem just as weird in Asia as house buying astrologers are in Western cultures.
I think you are correct when you say that human cultures just need something to believe in, something to blame. Our human adaptations which gave us the ability to make useful associations also comes with the less common ability to make false associations, or so it would appear.