My pregnant friend invited us over for a bbq recently and I offered to bring her watermelon as a contribution. "Oh, no. I can't eat watermelon because of the baby." I suddenly remembered my own two pregnancies and all the restrictions our culture imposes for the sake of the child and mother. How quickly I forgot that watermelon is considered too "cool" for a pregnant woman's body and it is believed that it may have negative affects on the growing baby. In our culture, foods are considered to be either yin or yang, hot or cool, but this does not really encompass the entire meaning. "Hot" foods are considered to cause inflammation. For example, fried foods, coffee, and durian. "Cool" foods are often fresh fruit, melons, and vegetables, but foods that are too cool (such as my dad's vegetable juice elixir) can make some people light headed. To complicate things further, other foods are considered to be "boe" or have healing factors. These are good for pregnant women but not good for those with high blood pressure as they can cause headaches. Some such foods are red bean and meat and alcohol. Now the superstition comes into play. Homophones are regarded with great caution. Eat shrimp because the word for shrimp sounds like "laugh" and that's good. Don't eat strawberries on special occasions because it sounds like "lots of trouble." Then, there's just plain crazy. Don't eat that or your baby will look like it. A pregnant woman's diet therefore, is heavily scrutinized as our culture would believe the unchecked consumption of food as a jeopardy to the lives of two people. I was not allowed to eat watermelon (too cool). No snake or the baby will have scales (oh, darn). No watching scary movies or the baby will look like a monster (movies affect DNA?). No dark things either, even soy sauce. Apparently it would make my baby black. (It was the soy sauce, I swear!)
Don't eat something because its name sounds like something unfavourable. That makes total sense.
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