吻仔魚的天空

The world of Ryan

• Birth

My name is Ryan , born in New York, and my parents are both from Taiwan, my father is from North of Taiwan and my mother is from South of Taiwan.   My grandmother came to New York to help my mother for one month after I born.  That is called postpartum care, but my mother used to joking to translate direction from Chinese : Sit Moon Son.  that means she had to stay there for one month for her lovely son.  Well, here you go, you find the first thing different than Western culture.  I was born in west part but need to follow and learn so many Eastern custom.  My mother told me, when she was in the period of "sit moon son", there is lot of thing she cannot do. For example, need to eat the chicken cooked with alcohol, and her family delivered 12 bottles of rice wine for her, but eventually she decided not, because she needed to feed me with her own.  According to the tradition, women cannot wash her hair during the time, because the cold water might make her sick that she can only clean her hair with ginger, and she cannot stay outside for long time, cannot cry, eat more sugar, less vegetable, because sugar is warm food, and vegetable is cold food.  After the postpartum care finished, my grandmother and our family go to many places for sightseeing.  One of them is the Twin Tower, we were smile and very happy taking picture together, but next year the Twin Tower was destroyed. The picture recording the memory we all had.

There are a lot of Chinese cultures, after 4 months the baby born, the family need to prepare a party called Collecting Saliva. The families from both side will join the party, they will prepare many Chinese biscuits to contribute to the ancestors, and new clothes for the baby, and the most important thing is to prepare a dozen cookies with a hole in the middle, to hang the cookies on the baby’s neck.  The grandparents will give very good bless to the baby, to wish the baby not to drip saliva all the time, get prepare to be a good boy or girl.   And another important festival for baby is called Grasping.  Grasping happens after one year the baby born, it’s a prediction of the baby’s future.   They prepare many different stuff to let the baby to choose, for example , computer, pen, microphone, calculator, installments, chicken leg, green onion, medical earpiece, etc. which means the baby will become an engineer, a writer, a singer, a businessman, a musician, or a doctor.  Green onion means will be very smart, and if he picks up a chicken leg, means he will never worry about money in his entire life.