its more or less the same all around the world among the Chinese...darling found this blog entry online (http://firyaooma.blogspot.com)while searching about confinement procedures and their basis...

quite funny!

CONFINEMENT

The people in the village down by the hill where we stay have no considerations whatsoever to babies' bed times. They're creating a ruckus of noise with trash cans and loud hollerings. Meanwhile, I think today's earlier post sucked because I was high and dry on proper topics. I thought of one now. Here goes.


This is inspired (really, this time) by a friend who is currently undergoing her one month confinement from the day of the birth of her baby girl on Mother's Day (how cool is that?). It got me to think about my confinement experience and generally, the whole traditional Chinese confinement can's and cannot's. I can only tell you my experience but I'm sure there are those who had less or more strictness, depending on your mother or your mother-in-law's requirements or meddling-for-your-own-good-they-tell-you.


The whole ritual of a confinement begins the moment that baby popped out of you and you've been sewn up and sent back to your room, in my case, it was 9pm-ish. My mom-in-law cooked up something that I seriously cannot recall because I was half conscious with the after effects of laughing gas. I vaguely recall tasting a bit of egg and pork and rice, I think. I had told the dear husband-who-didn't-faint-at-the-sight-of-blood, despite me thinking he would (am so proud of him), that I didn't want to eat because I was too tired (from the laughing gas) and wanted to just sleep.


"Eat a little bit, build up your strength", was his advice. So, I munched and swallowed with my eyes closed, lying in bed, being pampered to death but just wanting to doze off. Then he gave me something sweet to drink. I think it was some sort of longan drink that was freshly brewed or some red date (that drink, the bloody red date drink I shall never forget... explained later, kay?).


The moment I stepped back into the house, back from the hospital, that was when confinement truely started with a vengeance. I had witnessed my mom's care of my sister-in-law when she gave birth to Mom's first grandchild, and I knew (sort of) what to expect. Well, actually, I saw the time when she cooked that first meal, not everything else that came after that, so, actually... no, I had no idea what was coming my way.


"Go into the room and rest", alien words to me. Rest? I just came from a hospital, where I did nothing but rest, and its broad daylight (11am) and you want me to rest? How?


"Go and take a nap", she ordered. I put up my first of many objections. "I can't rest, mom... I'm not tired. How to nap? I'm not tired, can I take a bath instead? I seriously feel sticky and hot", I ventured onto thin ice that gave way under my feet.


"Bathe?! Are you mad?! You can't bathe! You can't bathe for at least.... how long ah, Catherine?" she hollered to the confinement lady for confirmation of how long I should stay clear away from cool, fresh, cleansing water.


"Twelve days.."


I balked. I had stepped into that twilight zone where my mother ain't my mother because no way my clean-freak mom would ever tolerate a speck of dust on anything, let alone, anyone. But, to my horror, my mom gave me that "you heard her" look and shoo-ed me into the bedroom, where I was to remain until the call for lunch, some far far-cannot-be-much-farther 2 hours away.


What do you think I did during that 2 hours? I took up a book and started reading. Then, sweating from that they-must-be-mad-jumper and tracksuit they made me wear, I switched on the fan to full blast. Then, I leaned back on my bed and thought I should be able to kill time getting to know another one of John Grisham's predictable and dry tales. Ten minutes into it, my monster... I mean... mom, walked in..


"You're reading?! You're supposed to be resting! Take a nap. You'll regret this if you don't listen to me, you'll see (somehow that last sentence sounded much more guilt-inducing in Teochew). And why is the fan flapping like it's going to fly off the ceiling!? Turn it down!"


By now, the confinement lady had walked in and added her fuel-to-fire, "Actually, it's better to switch on the air conditioning instead of the fan (Yay!). Switch it on at about 27 degrees (What?!). That should keep you warm and toasty (Toasty? Why would I want toasty?). The fan will make you 'jeep-hong' (masuk angin - ever wondered why there's no English translation to this?)" Those two cursed words. Those dreaded words that are supposed to haunt me for the rest of my life if I didn't listen to either of them, surfaced for the first time in the endless (to the power to infinity) times that they will surface for the rest of that month.


Did they see me sweat? Don't they see my long sleeved shirt sticking to my back. Oh, I spoke too soon. They did. Off I went to change the fifth shirt for the day, because if my shirt dries on my back, I will 'jeep hong'. I have lost count of how many layers of 'daki' accumulated (and permanently cemented themselves) on my skin, because I had also lost count of how many times I begged to bathe and was turned down like a non-bumiputera's application for FIC exemption (sorry, couldn't resist that).


Lunch was ginger pork in a bowl, cooked with ginger wine. I glanced at the kitchen floor and there was enough ginger to start commodity trading right there. I was to completely consume that hill of spicy roots, believe it or not. That, and a whole bottle of D.O.M. (which incidentally, was my diabetic grandfather's favourite drink because it was, to put it mildly, darn sweet).





Just re-read the paragraph just before this one, and exchange the word "lunch" with "dinner" or "breakfast", depending on what time of the day it was, and you have my entire menu for the month. Now, almost a year after that, I still gag at the thought of ginger wine pork. Blueh!


Now, back to my insistence that I bathe. I knew it was a battle of wills. By the third day, I told those two aliens-whom-I-don't-know-by-now, that either they let me bathe or I'm going to lock the room door and bathe anyway, with or without their consent. They finally backed down. Hovered together like some football jocks discussing tackle strategy, they finally looked back at me and said I could bathe (Halleluyah!), but only with some specially brewed water (huh?).


Okay, by now, I didn't care if I bathed in croc-infested water, I was grateful for the opportunity. The water took a few hours to brew. I waited. It took another couple of hours to cool down (Err, can't I mix it with cool water from the tap? No!).... okay, okay, you give, I take. I'll take it. About half a day later, I undressed and happily skipped into the bathroom. Mom was there, waiting.


"Cover yourself with the towel first! You'll catch a cold!" she yells as I start to wonder if the brownish looking water was merely a showcase for me to drool over. She puts the heated tap water straight to the red marker and blasted the steaming hot jets into the container to mix with the brownish, twiggish water (yes, there were twigs in there, from some unknown herb, I think). The water looked like it could scald. Then she said, "Squat down." (Double huh?)


"You'll catch a chill from the draft" (What draft mom?? The windows are air tight!) I obliged. I was so close to my goal, I was in no position to argue, even with the realisation that my mom was going to bathe me for the first time since I was... maybe four, I seriously don't recall.


By the way, I am fully aware that some confinement advice stipulates that you do not squat at all, but this wasn't one of the 'pantangs' of my mother's. She bathed me with perhaps, three splashes of water. "Okay, you're done. Quick! Dry yourself and put on something warm".


"Mom, I need to wash my hair. It's itchy and oily." (That look I got from that remark, I dare not describe. It was a look that I got when I was seven and she had just caught me stealing a twenty sen coin from her little photo-film container... you know, those little black short cylinders? Just believe me when I say its one fearful look, okay?)


I didn't get to wash my hair until day five. By then, I knew what it felt like to have overnight spagetti bolognese on my head. And yes, my mom washed my hair with three splashes and a drop of shampoo. Splash one to wet the hair, a quick drop and frassling with the fingers and two quick splashes to supposedly wash away the shampoo residue (which I think died from all the dirt attacking it the moment it hit my head anyway).


I was told I got it easy. I was told there are worse stories. I do not want to know.




P.S. Oh, I forgot. The red date drink. That was my only drinkable "water" for that whole 30 days. Under no circumstances was I allowed a drop of H2O. None. Naddah. Zilch.