“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.

“If your dress rehearsal sucks, then your show will be good. But if your dress rehearsal is amazing, then your show is going to suck.”

Sydney participated in musical theater in high school and was exposed to a plethora of superstitions on having a good show. She learned this specific superstition while preparing for one of her shows. Although she does not remember hearing this superstition from any specific person, she said that multiple people probably spoke to her of it. Sydney said that people do not necessarily emphasize this superstition (ie: they do not say it in class), but they do begin to mention it often as time draws closer to the opening nights of the show.

Only people in theater tend to know about this superstition. Sydney told me that it is commonly used after a particularly terrible dress rehearsal. People are scared of performing poorly. She says that another context she hears this superstition is after the first run of the show (ie: opening night). Someone would be talking to the director and telling them what a great show they put on, to which the director would respond with comments about how nervous he/she felt after seeing the poor performance at the dress rehearsal, but that it all turned out okay in the end. Then the superstition would be dropped into the conversation, making it known that a bad dress rehearsal usually means a good show. If the dress rehearsal had gone well, then it would be cause for more worry.

Sydney made comments on how the superstition probably had some validity, though was not necessarily true. She said that when actors have a bad dress rehearsal, many of the kinks are found and able to be corrected. Thus, when actors make a lot of mistakes during dress rehearsal, they can fix things before the actual show. Sydney also noted that if the dress rehearsal is excellent, then there is less room for improvement. Many things end up going wrong during the show that were not anticipated because they were not caught during the dress rehearsal. With these reasons in mind, she says that there is probably a correlation between the two factors, but the statement as a whole is not necessarily true.

This superstition falls under the sign category, where people look for signs from the universe to predict a good or bad outcome. However, instead of looking at tealeaves or reading palms, participants in musical theater look to the dress rehearsal as a predictor of success. At first the superstition seems illogical. If the dress rehearsal runs smoothly, then the show should also follow suit. However, I think that this superstition works by quelling the fears of the participants. Although Sydney had a more logical way of approaching the superstition, she said that many of her peers looked to the dress rehearsal as a concrete indicator of the show’s success. I think that people have a need to attribute their fears and anxiety. If the dress rehearsal goes poorly, the saying becomes a way of coping with the additional pressure added to making a good show. It downplays the feelings of tension by writing them off with illogical reasoning.

This superstition also seems to work like a jinx, where it is almost bad luck to have the play turn out well before the actual opening night. It runs parallel to many other theater superstitions. For example, people do not wish good luck to participants for fear of jinxing them. Instead, people would rather hear “break a leg.” The opposite result of what is desired is spoken or acted in order to avoid negative results.