The Household COO

From the Baby Blog:

A few days before, the hubby and I bought a chest of drawers to store Gavin’s belongings from IKEA. Then yesterday, Gavin’s Cot and Mattress. I would post some pictures, but all you will see are boxes. My in laws got wind that we were receiving the goods and warned us not to install the cot or set up the drawers until after Gavin is born.

The reason behind this is because of the superstition that the assembling of furniture in the house is bad for the unborn baby and may cause damage to the baby in the womb. I guess this is akin to the belief that one shouldn’t paint or hammer nails into the wall when there is a pregnant woman in the house. Frankly, I don’t buy any of these superstitions, but it appears to be three against one so I guess as long as the cot and drawers are ready for use when I get home from the hospital, that’ll be good enough for me.

My MIL has been saying, “If you can follow these beliefs without too much inconvenience, then just do it - that’s what I think.”

Well, the inconvenience is not to me, but to the hubby who will now have to install the cot himself instead of the delivery guy who was going to do it for us. Since the hubby seems quite content to assemble the cot himself, who am I to argue? There’s no skin off my nose either way…

Yesterday was the first day of “Spring” according to the Chinese Lunar Calendar. I’m not sure what this festival is called, but I was given the impression it is something akin to the “Spring Harvest Festival”. For a typical Hokkien family, it is another one of those days of worship where food is prepared for the gods and the doors are opened for their entry into the house.

The celebration seems to be more relevant for the family and less related to the business because we didn’t need to do anything at the factory. Aside from the usual food offering, there is a special dish that needs to be prepared called, “Tong Yuin”. It is basically little coloured balls made of glutinous rice flour served with sugar syrup.

The night before the first day of Spring, both hubby and wife need to prepare twelve glutinous rice flour balls each in white and pink and these will be made larger than the others. So basically hubby will prepare twelve pink balls, while the wife will prepare twelve white ones. Since this year is a Chinese leap year (meaning there are thirteen months instead of the usual twelve), we had to make thirteen balls - each ball representing one month.

The rest of the dough is used to make smaller balls which is then cooked and eaten on the first day of Spring. Both hubby and wife have to eat from the same bowl to ensure that they have long lasting happiness and love in their marriage. I think my MIL mentioned something about the roundness of the balls representing continuity or something along those lines.

This year, we had to eat at least three balls each because each ball represents a single member of our family. Since Gavin is on the way, we’re now a family of three. Below is a picture of what the stuff looks like after it has been cooked.

Here’s what we had to eat:

The taste is not unpleasant and the syrup just tastes like sugar water. I found it a bit sweet for my liking and I certainly wouldn’t want to eat the whole pot.

I think my MIL was extremely surprised to hear that I didn’t know about this festival especially since I come from a Hokkien family. The only “Tong Yuin” I’ve ever known about are the ones with sesame paste inside that we eat for dessert. I had no idea there was a festive significance to this dish.

My MIL also told me as we were preparing the glutinous rice balls that this dish was sometimes prepared to predict the sex of the unborn baby.

Last Saturday, I attended M & S’s wedding while I was 8 months pregnant. Of course, at the time, I didn’t know it was a bad thing to do. According to the Chinese beliefs, a pregnant woman isn’t allowed to attend weddings. The reason behind this is because both weddings and pregnancy are such good news, the pregnant woman could take away some of the “goodness” of the wedding just by being present - or something along those lines.

Well, M and S are hardly the superstitious type and neither am I. During my wedding, my matron of honour was pregnant when she assisted me at my wedding and surely that’s got to be worse than having a pregnant woman present as a guest. I vaguely recall getting the hint that all was not great with the fact that I’d chosen a pregnant woman but the tones were quite subtle so I chose to ignore it. CS is one of my closest friends in this region and there was no way I was going to have my wedding without her.

Sometime in May this year was a deity’s birthday. I’m thinking its probably the goddess of mercy since that is the goddess that my MIL worships. I’d tell you more but I don’t think even the hubby knew whose birthday we were celebrating. We held a birthday celebration at the factory with the usual theme of food offerings, burning of shiny paper, and lighting of firecrackers.

I’ve always thought of firecrackers as a means to scare away evil spirits - at least that’s what it means during Chinese New Year. During this case, I’m wondering if it’s meant to be something akin to a fanfare because I’m not sure why a goddess would need to scare away evil spirits on her birthday.

The pictures are probably starting to look fairly repetitive because it’s usually based around the same themes. All I can say is that it’s a lot of work preparing for each of these events. My MIL will be in the kitchen for at least two whole days before the day cooking up a storm. As the daughter in law, I’m supposed to help out but mostly I end up observing because I haven’t a clue how to make any of this stuff. Occasionally, if I’m deemed worthy, I might get to roll out the dough…

Although it’s never been officially requested, I sort of get the impression I’m supposed to carry on this tradition after my MIL is no longer able to perform them. I presume that’s why I’m required to observe these rituals even though I don’t take any part of it. I’ve also caught a couple of subtle hints from my MIL during her cooking storms when she’s said, “Of course you can buy the food, but I prefer to make them because I enjoy the cooking.”

I suppose you could say that this statement is open to interpretation because she might mean that some people buy the food instead of spending the time in the kitchen preparing it. Alternatively, it could mean that in future, I could choose to buy the food instead of preparing it myself. Whatever the case, I’m not sure I’m at all comfortable about the idea of having to take on the responsibilities of conducting rituals of a religion I don’t believe in. I feel at times I’ve already overstepped my boundaries by being a party to them.

At the commencement of a new year, according to the Chinese Lunar Calendar, a ceremony officiating the start of the year at the place of business ensures a fruitful year ahead.

This is one of the more interesting ceremonies to be a part of because of the lion dance. The usual tribute is paid to the gods by the offering of incense sticks and pouring of tea at the altars. It is then followed by a traditional lion dance where the lions will also pay tribute to the gods by offering “gold” in the form of mandarin oranges.

The reason behind the use of mandarin oranges is because the name of mandarin in Chinese sounds very similar to the word “gold”. By offering these oranges, it represents the offering of gold.

The lions then dance around the factory, blessing it by laying out mandarin oranges on each significant part of the factory, namely, the machines and the office. Then they bless the main entrance before commencing a final dance that displays the agility and skills of the lion dancers. They leap precariously from pole to pole to reach their just rewards, providing a spectacular dance performance for all to see.

The festivities end in the usual manner - the consumption of food. During Chinese New Year, a special dish called “Yee Sang” is very popular. A variety of ingredients including, fish, crackers, ginger and radish are mixed together with a plum sauce. The action of mixing the ingredients is called “loh” and the higher you “loh” the ingredients, the better will be your chances of prosperity or receiving your desires during the year.

Occasionally, just occasionally, I still think about the other paths I might have taken in life - the solitary roads that might have led me to a different world from the one that I exist in currently. People talk about not having regrets and honestly, I don’t have any. I only have to think of the little one inside my belly to bring me back to the path that I am on and I don’t regret for a minute being who I am and where I am.

What I refer to on those “occasions” of wondering is just an expression of my innate curiousity about how life might have been had I followed a different path. It is merely a reflection of my childhood habits when I would read those “Choose Your Own Adventure” books until I had followed every adventure to its end. Sometimes, when I find myself in a large park or garden, I would take every trail just to see where it led to. When I am at a buffet or an ice cream parlour, the same goes with all the different flavours - I never wanted to leave without having tasted as many varieties as I could.

It was more a desire to experience as much of life as I could in my short existence on this beautiful planet rather than a fear of loss of what I might be missing out. Hence when I reflect, it is not a reflection of regret, because the path I am on is just exciting. It is one that I wouldn’t want to miss for the world. I’ve come to a point in life where it is no longer possible to follow every adventure to its end, but that doesn’t mean that the adventure has ended. On the contrary, it seems there are now even more adventures to embark on - far too many than any one person could ever experience in one lifetime.

Perhaps the acceptance of this fact lessens the moments of reflections. My “occasions” are now usually limited to the times when I encounter another who holds the same aspirations I once had in my past. Whilst I don’t feel regret having taken the path that I have, I feel a sense of bonding and understanding for those individuals. I can identify with their anguish of being denied the chance to pursue their dreams.

For me, I was given a choice and I chose this path. For them, they are deterred from the paths they might have preferred. This I fear will only create resentment and regret because they were stripped of the autonomy of choice.

In discovering this understanding inside of me, I have come to realise that both the hubby and I live with very differing schools of thought. As different as we are, we have managed to find some middle ground that we can both walk upon in harmony. What I forsee is that our differences may arise yet again when our children are grown and it is time for them to chart their own course.

Part II - On Raising Children

After all the debates on this topic, I’m finally going to have a confinement lady. I figure that this is one of those things where it is just easier to accept and endure it than to have to listen to the constant nagging that I don’t know how to take care of myself postnatally.

On the request of my MIL, I borrowed the confinement cookbook that my aunt used when she nursed my cousin in Australia after the delivery of the baby. After flicking through the book, I have noticed a discernible lack of beef dishes and I’m wondering if that has something to do with religious connotations of beef or a confinement belief that beef is bad for new mothers. I did see one or two beef dishes in another confinement cookbook while browsing through MPH so perhaps beef has been omitted from this particularly cookbook for religious reasons.

Some of the dishes look okay, but I have serious reservations over the ones containing pig spareparts (liver, kidneys, trotters, tripe and offals) and fish maw. The book also encourages the consumption of ginger, to which my MIL has agreed that I don’t have to eat it as long as I allowed my food to be cooked with it.

The cook book also contains a short but interesting segment about the purpose of the confinement period. After pregnancy, the mother’s uterus has expanded from the size of a pear to the size of a large winter melon. The main function of the confinement period, therefore, is to nurture the new mother’s body back to its prenatal form. The belief is that if the mother does not take care during this time, she will be predisposing herself to ailments that will surface later on in life.

Historically, it has always been the duty of the MIL to take care of the new mother. Part of the reason MILs were keen for their DILs to recover quickly was so that they could conceive again and possibly add another name to the ancestral line. There is also a traditional belief that new mothers were not allowed to come into contact with their own parents because of the “stale blood” and “evil wind” inside their bodies which would bring bad luck to her family. Funny, if that were the case, then wouldn’t she also be bad luck to her in laws?

In some instances, families will employ a “pui-yuet” (meaning companion for a month) or confinement lady to look after the new mother and baby. Pui-yuets are usually middle-aged women who have a great deal of knowledge on postnatal matters through her own experiences.

Some of the strict confinement rules were briefly listed by the author based on her own confinement experience. She wasn’t allowed to wash her hair during the confinement period and she could only mop her body on certain days. She was not allowed to read or watch television because it would strain her eyes. The strict diet was enforced to help her remove the “stale blood” and “wind” from her system. She had to endure body binding and was made to rest as and when the pui-yuet commanded. She and her husband were also banned from having sex for 100 days after birth.

The author saw the merits of having a confinement lady because she was able to slip back into her pre-pregnancy clothes immediately after the confinement period. After glancing through the sample menu of what she was made to eat during her confinement period, I’m not particularly surprised. I think I would barely have been able to stomach half of what she was made to eat!

Okay, I know I’m being nasty and cynical but I admit, I am a sceptic when someone talks to me of “stale blood” and “wind”. I can already feel my eyes rolling to the back of my head and a sigh catching in my throat. I’m disinclined to believe things such as bathing a baby or touching water during the confinement period causing rheumatism later on in life. If there are people who believe this, it is their choice. I do not dictate what you should believe in. All I ask is that you do not dictate what I believe in.

Since this is one of those arguments one can never win, I shall employ a tactic recommended by Big Big Planet called TINROWA. Even though that tactic was recommended for internet arguments, I think it applies equally well for such instances.