Main Text:

Whenever you eat rice, don’t leave rice in the bowl; otherwise, every single rice from your bowl will be a zit on your face. 

Context:

Informant’s mom “made stuff up” so that she would finish rice. The informant also noted that she thinks that leaving rice in the bowl is bad overall (in China). In Japan rice is also sacred, so it’s bad to leave anything behind. Usually only said at home or around family. Half the bowl is fine because she’s not hungry, but if it’s not cleaned up after a meal this will be said

Thought: 

When asked about where this comes from the informant noted that she thinks that’s t’s fairly regular thing in Asian household to make up things to get children to clean their plates. She also noted that it is something she has seen with variations in media. The superficial value of this is to not waste food and to be economic with resources; however, the informant seemed aware of some deeper meaning or superstition that simply hasn’t been disclosed to her. There is likely some important commentary to be made on beauty standards, as this is the threat that was brought up (zits being seen as not beautiful), but the informant said that this was probably not an intentional thing, despite it bearing relevance on how she has interacted with the main text.