“Koreans have this thing where they tell you not to whistle at night otherwise snakes are gonna come and bite you. We say that if you keep whistling, the snake will keep following your whistling.”

Sung learned this superstition from his parents when he was about five years old. Although he learned it in his home in Los Angeles, CA, he says that it came from Korea. His family is from Seoul, so they know much of the stories from that area. The snakes could potentially have come from their prevalence in the rural areas of Korea, making this idea plausible. This superstition is usually told to children if they are whistling to make them behave and not be noisy at night. Parents do not want their children to disrupt the elders of the house or even neighbors. It is more geared towards children because adults would not believe this. As people get older, they drop this superstition because they know better and that it does not really happen. However, children, the passive bearers, will believe almost anything an adult tells them, just like the figure of Santa Clause. This is a magic superstition where an action might provoke an unwanted action.

Sung thinks that this superstition was created by elders in order to scare kids so that they would be quiet and not annoy people with their whistling. He is not quite sure what the origin of the story is, but he believes that it is all a lie and completely untrue.

I agree with Sung’s view on this superstition because whistling can be very annoying and disruptive to people that can hear it. It is difficult to make children stop doing something once they learn it. If parents just tell their kids to stop whistling for no reason besides that they are being noisy, they probably will not listen. However, if you scare the children with this superstition, they are more likely to be silent. Children are very gullible and believe most things that adults tell them, especially when they deal with scary creatures. As the monster in this superstition, snakes are very real to children. They are not some imaginary creature, but instead are actual reptiles that could hurt them. This superstition could be believed by children up until they get over their fear of snakes, so I am guessing around the age of twelve or so. I am not so sure if this superstition would work too well in American society now because snakes are not a big factor in a typical American household. Many Americans have nice homes that would prevent snakes from entering and attacking children. Living in a sheltered environment, children nowadays are less likely to believe in this superstition.

“When you are pregnant, they say that if you carry low and look like a watermelon, it’s going to be a girl, but if you carry high and round like a ball, it’s going to be a boy.”

My sister, Patti, heard this first from my other older sister, Jennifer, who already had a baby girl. When Patti started showing four years ago when she was twenty six, people started examining the size of her belly and would tell her that she was going to have a boy. Her stomach was very round and did not appear very low.  Patti says that it is a pretty universal conception amongst mothers. People would not bring this topic up unless they are talking about a pregnant woman. When someone becomes pregnant, she starts hearing about all these stories from other people who have already had kids. It even comes from strangers that talk to you because you are pregnant when you are out in public.

This belief is recorded in Popular Beliefs and Superstitions: A Compendium of American Folklore which is a compilation of Newbell Niles Puckett’s folklore collection. It states, “if a pregnant woman carries her baby high, it will be a boy,” but then it also states that “if a woman carries her baby low during pregnancy, it will be a boy.” These conflicting beliefs were collected from women living in Ohio. The same contradicting statements are documented for female babies as well. This demonstrates that many beliefs are held about determining a baby’s sex and that both of them could be both true and false. These statements are most likely all based off of observation, so to some degree, they have truth in them.

All mothers share the common lore of childbirth. With experience, they make observations and come up with conclusions about many different aspects of pregnancy. Using the belly’s size to determine the baby’s sex is only one of the many beliefs. Some women may encounter one type of belly that frequently results in a male baby, while others associate another type of belly with a female. It all depends on the person who is making the conclusions. If an expecting mother hears one type of belief and it ends up being true, then they will most likely share that with other expecting mothers. The odds of being correct are one to two, so there is a high possibility of being correct.

Annotation: Puckett, Newbell Niles. Popular Beliefs and Superstitions: A Compendium of American Folklore. Boston, Massachusetts: G.K. Hall and Company: 1981. p. 27.

“It’s Chinese tradition, after you born baby, you only drink hot or warm stuff. When your pregnant, everything is looser, your entire body. Your body is naturally hot inside. You cannot touch cold water because when you get old, it will hurt. Chinese people like to drink warm things because cold things are not natural. It’s like after you exercise you’re hot, and if you drink cold water, it’s not good. After I had Patti, our house flooded and I had to walk through cold water up to my knees. And now my knees always feel cold like in the bone. Chinese people say that you have to treat your body well your entire life because it’ll stay with you.

Another one of my friends said that her mother couldn’t help her after she had baby, so her dad came to help. Her dad didn’t know anything, so he let her eat ice cubes when she was hot. And after awhile she said her hand hurted a lot.”

My mother heard it when she was a little girl from her mother when they lived in Taiwan. She has a younger sister, so she saw this belief in practice when her mother did not touch anything cold after having a baby. She says that it is mainly passed down to females and men only know about it if they are fathers or husbands who hear about it from their wives. Women rarely overlook these beliefs when they are dealing with pregnant women because it is one of their biggest concerns. In China and Taiwan, women were in charge of cooking, cleaning, taking care of children and bearing children. However, men often do not remember these things because they are not responsible to know it. My mom says that is why her friend’s father let her eat ice cubes. Men have no idea what a woman’s body goes through after she has a baby.

My mom says that this belief is very old and it was probably created by women who have had bad experiences with cold water after delivering a baby. Chinese typically drink warm liquids because they feel that it is more in sync with the body’s natural temperature. Anything too cold will shock the body.  Since many generations of women lived in the same household for most of their lives, they passed on their knowledge and observations to younger generations. When a woman gave birth, her mother, mother-in-law, grandmother, and even aunts would come and help out with the new baby. When my sisters had their babies, my mom would go live with them for about a month to cook and give advice. Even though this practice is very old, my mother still partakes in it because it is how she grew up.

After women have children, their bodies are in a lot of stress because they have been carrying another human being in them for the last nine months. They should allow their bodies to recover by only eating and drinking soothing foods. They should not distress the body more because it has already been through a lot.

I am usually skeptical about practices that are not proven by science, but I still find logic in my mother’s belief. There might be some mental aspects to it, but I do not find any reason to doubt it. There is no harm in not drinking cold water for a month after having a baby if it may reduce the risk of future ailments. Our bodies are vulnerable to many things and we should do all we can to protect it. We only get one body in our lifetime, so we should take care of it. I will most likely follow my mom’s advice when I have children because I have seen what might happen if I do not as exemplified through my mom’s feelings in her leg. Even in western cultures, we drink warm things, such as tea and hot chocolate to make ourselves feel better. It warms us up inside because it helps return our bodies to its natural state and temperature.