Tag Archives: pregnancy

Confinement for New Mothers

Nationality: Singaporean
Age: 84
Occupation: Retired
Residence: Singapore
Performance Date: 04/12/2021
Primary Language: Chinese
Language: Malay, Hokkein

Context

Confinement is still a common practice in Singapore. It is when a woman who had just given birth must do nothing but rest for at least a month. My grandmother often brings up the lack of her confinement period to reference her now unhealthy state. The interview takes place as I get my grandmother to recount my mother’s confinement period.

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Performance

The following is translated and transcribed from a conversation between me, (M), and my grandmother, the interviewee (I).

M: What did you do when my Ma was pregnant with me?

I: Your mother had to stay at home. She couldn’t leave the house and must stay in bed.

M: Why did she have to do that?

I: After you give birth. A lot of your energy is taken away from you. And you lose a lot of important nutrients. So, you must stay at home and drink herbal drink. It is called zuo yue zi. Your mother had to be at home and lie on the bed for one month.

Translation: Zuo Ye Zi literally means Sitting The Moon, or sitting on the moon. Referring to how mothers who had just given birth must do nothing but sit and rest.

M: Did you also have to do confinement when you gave birth to my mom?

I: At that time I was too poor to afford a confinement lady. And I’m not lucky like your mother, my mother has passed away already so I couldn’t do confinement properly. I only did about ten days for each child then I had to go back to work. That’s why I’m so sick now,  I have very bad immune system. So when your mother gave birth, I made sure that she did at least one month, I wanted her to do more but she didn’t want to. I was already quite lenient with her.

M: What would have been a stricter confinement period?

I: I wouldn’t have let her shower if I could. When you shower you take away all the energy that is helping to rebuild your body. But she insisted on getting to shower, so I let her shower with warm water. And she only drank half of the tea I made for her, she didn’t finish it all. She won’t be very healthy when she is older. But I tried my best.

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Analysis

This is an old wives tale of why women must be pampered and taken care of after they had just given birth. This belief comes from Ancient China where women of rich families had the luxury to stay in bed and care for their health, and in many ways flaunt that they did not need to do any work after they had given birth. Today, many Chinese people in Singapore still believe in confinement, though not to the same extreme extend of the woman never being able to leave the bed, but rather that the woman should be able to just rest at home for a month without doing anything. I think that on a personal level for my grandmother, she uses this belief to explain her sickness right now. Though there are many medical explanations such as her old age, and just generally her immune system perhaps is not as strong as other people her age, she uses the fact that she wasn’t given the proper care when she was a young mother for her illness now. I think this gives her a sense of comfort because she can put the blame on something else, and pinpoint a reason for her illness rather than just accept that in a world of chaos, perhaps she was just unlucky in health. I believe that it is also a way in which she shows care for her daughters. Due to traditional beliefs, a lot of the love and care went to my grandmother’s two sons, and not much to her daughters. And it is perhaps through taking care of her daughters through confinement that she is able to show them that she loves and cares for them deeply.

Fish dreams

Nationality: United States
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Ithaca, NY
Performance Date: 04/17/2021
Primary Language: English

BACKGROUND: My informant, NN, is a student from the US. The following piece is a belief that was told to NN by her mother, who is of Jamaican descent. This belief struck NN just because of its seeming randomness.

CONTEXT: This piece is from a text conversation with my friend to discuss Jamaican beliefs.

NN: There’s a lot of weird ones. Like the whole if your mom dreams of a fish you’re pregnant.

Me: Do you have any idea if there’s a story behind that?

NN: Not really but my sister got pregnant and my mom hasn’t said anything so

THOUGHTS: This belief really strikes me because of how disconnected I perceive the two elements to be. Other cultures may associate fish with fertility so perhaps that is where the two things intersect. One thing that I’ve heard pretty consistently is that the phases of the moon affect fertility in women. In a similar vein, the phases of the moon also affect the tide and the oceans on Earth. Perhaps through the association of the moon, menstruation, water, and fish are where this belief derives.

Scissors on the bed during pregnancy

Nationality: United States
Age: 50
Occupation: Lawyer
Residence: Houston, TX
Performance Date: 4/29/20
Primary Language: English
Language: chinese

HK: When I was pregnant my mother in law said that I shouldn’t have scissors on the bed because then that will make you have a miscarriage. So don’t cut anything on the bed, don’t put anything that can cut on the bed. Related but not the same, it also means no remodeling, no hammering, no knocking down walls or anything. 

MW: And what did you think of this?

HK: Well…you don’t wanna believe it but when they tell you stupid shit like that…it’s like walking under a ladder. You know nothing’s gonna happen probably, but now you wonder about it. And then it leaves this little scab in your heart when you do do it, because now you’re like, ah, well, what’s gonna happen to me? It just always makes you wonder, you know? So annoying.

Context:

The informant, HK, was born in New York but has parents who are from China. She married and has three children. This story was collected over a Zoom call when she was talking to my mom.

Thoughts:

The “little scab on your heart” that the informant mentioned is interesting because it makes me think that that must be how superstitions get perpetuated. While people might not believe on an intellectual level that it will happen, if you do it it will still stick with you, like a residual fear that clings to your mind; so because of that, it’s easier to just not do it in the first place. I think that’s important to realize, because sometimes the negative effect of the superstition might just come from your own guilt (or at least be related to it).

High stomach means you’ll have a boy

Nationality: American
Age: 54
Occupation: entrepreneur
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: April 27
Primary Language: English

Conversation between me and the informant explaining this belief which she called an old wives’ tale:

Informant: When you’re pregnant, and your stomach is high, you’re gonna have a boy. If it’s low, you’re gonna have a girl. That’s bs, not true at all.

Me: Where did you learn it?

Informant: I dont know…old ladies. People believe it, I guess.

Context and Background: The informant is my mom. She is a white baby boomer from the East Coast, who comes from a very traditional, conservative family. She is very independent and feminist. She brought this up when I asked her about any interesting folklore she knew.

Thoughts:

I think people have a lot to say about babies and pregnancy reveals, but really there is a 50/50 percent chance that you get it right. I think it’s kind of like astrology, where you attribute any coincidences to having truth value, and anytime it doesn’t work out, you essentially consider it to be an exception to a rule. This seems like BS to me, and I don’t know why people would believe it, unless if they didn’t have ultrasounds.

Rubbing the belly of a pregnant woman to absolve it of “El mal de ojo” or bad energy

Nationality: Mexican
Age: 54
Occupation: Health Care Executive
Residence: San Diego
Performance Date: 4/18/2020
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

Main Piece

Informant: This one is weird because strangers can just come up to you and ask to rub your belly. It happened to me. If a woman has an impure thought or is envious when they see a pregnant woman, usually it is about them not being able to have a child, they ask the pregnant woman if they can rub their stomach so that their child doesn’t have “Mal de Ojo” or any bad energy. The Mal De Ojo is between the woman to woman, but the baby is caught in the middle, so they rub the stomach to absolve the baby if that makes sense. I have never seen a man do it, that would be kind of..weird. Oh! And the woman rarely discloses why she rubbed the belly, it is more about absolving their conscience so when it happens you just kind of let them rub it so your baby can get cleansed. It is very odd, it is kind of scary because you find out these women are having bad thoughts about you. It is even scarier to think about the ones who don’t rub the stomachs and just let the bad energy impact the baby.  

Interviewer: Did this ever happen to you?

Informant: One time. The person didn’t even know I was pregnant because I wasn’t showing. I just think she was talking ill of me and found out I was pregnant and rubbed my stomach. She probably thought I was just getting fat haha haha. She was an acquaintance of my ex-husband’s family, so that explains a lot haha. 

Interviewer: Can you explain more about El Mal de Ojo?

Informant: It is interpreted as an evil eye. In the sense of pregnancy the evil is are the ill thoughts of the woman, only she knows why. To try and remedy their conscience they rub the stomach, and disclose if they may “ay no lo quiero dar el mal de ojo, me permites?” (“I don’t want to give the baby the evil eye, may I?”) You do it in an apologetic way, to secure the baby and to get forgiveness for having those bad thoughts. I think its humanity. I think it is an immediate remedy to perhaps absolve an ll thought. People have ill thoughts all of the time- jealousy, comparison. So they do it to apologize in a way, and to save the baby from these ill thoughts, because they don’t deserve that. 

Background:

The informant is my mother, a Mexican woman who is first-generation and the oldest of 3, who was born and raised in San Ysidro,CA  a border town just north of Tijuana, Mexico. Influenced by memories and conversations with her great great grandmother, many of her practices, customs, and beliefs were passed down from her maternal side of Mexican customs. Fluent in both English and Spanish, the informant has always felt conflicted about her culture as she wanted to fit in with American customs but wanted to preserve her Mexican heritage and traditions. The informant had her first child when she was 18, and worked her way as a single mother with two kids to attain her Master’s Degree and is now the Executive Vice President at a non-profit health clinic that serves the community she was raised in.

Context

My whole life I have heard of this premonition, and saw it for the first time when my sister was pregnant and a stranger at a store came up to her and asked to rub her stomach. With that story in mind, I asked the informant more about it and she explained. 

Analysis

This is a very interesting form of folk magic, superstition, and protection. At the end of the day, this practice stems from a belief of magic harming the baby just from a glance. However, I think it is interesting that the act of this practice requires someone to admit that they were sending bad energy in the first place. However, as the informant describes it is more to protect the baby who doesn’t deserve to be impacted by that bad energy. This demonstrates the link of witchcraft to women, and is also a form of superstition present in Mexican communities.