FOUR - There are all kinds of mothers

Special to the Kemptville Advance

May 2004

  Mothers’ Day in Taiwan is a very big deal.  As in North America, the day provides a huge marketing opportunity and advertising is prevalent everywhere, urging consumers to honour their mother by buying her flowers, an expensive face cream, or a trip to Thailand for the weekend. But being a wife and mother is an altogether different experience in Taiwan.

  The day may have originated in the United States, but the Chinese have embraced it as it fits into their family ideal of filial piety and respect for the elderly.

  The schools not only have their students producing handmade cards and gifts for their mothers; many of them also spend weeks planning special Mothers’ Day festivals. 

  My school in particular has been practicing choreographed musical routines (I taught them the Macarena) that students can perform for their mothers.  We have carnival games and prizes planned for our celebration and we will hold our party in the nearby park.

  Honouring Mother is a very strong tradition here in Taiwan, beginning from the day the pregnancy is announced.  The expectant mother is said to ‘have happiness’ and she is protected from any undue stress or strain throughout her pregnancy. 

  The pregnant woman is advised to read good poetry and to listen to calming music.  She is not to gossip, laugh loudly, sit on a crooked mat or look at clashing colors.  Everything she does, every word she speaks and even every thought that crosses her mind is believed to have a profound effect on the developing fetus.  The pregnant woman will take Chinese medicine believed to produce a healthy fetus and she will avoid eating food that hasn’t been properly chopped up, as this means her child will be a careless person. Most of her foods will be light colored, as this is said to produce a fair-skinned child (most desirable in the Asian culture of skin bleaches and fading creams).

  Sex is forbidden during pregnancy, according to ancient Chinese tradition. 

 For a full month after the birth, mothers holding to ancient Chinese beliefs will allow their mother (or better yet, mother-in-law) to move in and care for them.  The new mother will not shower or immerse herself in bath water for the first month (known as ‘zuoyuezi’) as it is believed that doing so will cause her to take a chill into her joints that have been opened during childbirth. Being exposed to cold, wind, dampness or pollution at this time is said to have an adverse affect on health in later life, possibly leading to arthritis in the joints.

  She is supposed to spend most of her time in bed during that first month, with her feet up, resting.

  She will eat mainly organ meats that are rich in essential nutrients such as iron, and drink nothing but tepid rice wine, to keep her body warm.

  Although she will be expected to do some of the caring for her newborn child, her main priority is to take care of herself for the first month and to recover completely from her experience, so that she will be a strong and able mother.

  If there is no one to look after the new mother, she can check herself into one of many special facilities that are designed for this purpose.

  My Taiwanese friend Marie, who is due to give birth to her first child in May, is quite enjoying her pregnancy, now that the morning sickness has passed, and says that she will follow all of the ancient Chinese traditions.  She will move from Taipei to her hometown of Tainan for the month following the birth, and her mother will care for her. 

 As she explained to me, following these practices is a sentimental tradition for many, even if modern medical research has proven that some of the concerns are unfounded and women can recover much more quickly after childbirth.

  She looks upon it as an opportunity to celebrate and to learn all about motherhood with her own mother at her side.

  As Tammy, another Taiwanese mother related to me, when her mother-in-law fed her organ meat for the eighth meal in a row, she was grateful for the hungry dog sitting at her feet under the table. 

  In preparation for her two-week checkup at the doctor’s office, she decided she would give her hair a quick rinse when her caregiver wasn’t home.  On her way out the door, her mother-in-law caught a whiff of shampoo and said, “Where do you think you are going, young lady?  You smell too good.  You washed. You are not a good mother. Get back into bed.”

  When out in public, a young father is the one most often found to be carrying the infant.  This is a sign of pride, but it is also to relieve the mother of the burden of carrying her child.

  Most children are sent to school by the age of two and mothers return to work full time.  Some of these young ones are in school from eight in the morning until eight at night. 

  They think that they are doing the best for their children, by introducing them to education at such a young age.  In such a highly populated and competitive society, they feel that they are giving their children a head start.

  It is the only way that they know, and it seems to work for them, somehow.

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My first Mother’s Day as a single mom was in 2000, after 13 years of marriage to an Eastern European man twelve years older than me. There are a whole lot of reasons why it didn’t work out, like our age at marriage in 1987 (I was 19, he 31), our individual expectations (at opposite ends of the pole) and our separate experiences in upbringing. We did have three beautiful daughters together, and I was lucky to be able to stay home with them during that time, even if it meant running a paper route at 3 in the morning and taking in up to 5 children in a home daycare, to make ends meet. When I left my husband I moved back to my hometown of Kemptville, Ontario, where I felt safe and was close to family. I thought my children would be happy there, because I had been.

It was very difficult for the girls. The summer was fine – lots going on at the town pool, fun on the boat with grandma and grandpa – but when school started in the fall, they were missing their friends back in Barrhaven. In a few short months, my eldest moved back to live with her Dad and his new girlfriend. By Christmas, the second was gone. That left just me and the youngest, who slipped into a quiet sadness, missing her sisters like she was missing part of herself. I commuted to one contract administrative job after another, trying to keep my head above water financially, and I borrowed money from my parents every month to help pay my bills. Dad proudly presented me with one second-hand car and when that one died, another.

Eventually I talked my way into a job at The Kemptville Advance. With no post-secondary education to speak of, I had to prove my reporting, interviewing and writing abilities to the editor, Ann-Marie Crawford.

On the day of my job interview I stepped into the old building on Prescott Street and immediately noticed a haze in the air, caused by decades of cigarette smoke and stacks of old newspapers. I was led up a narrow, rickety set of stairs, down a skinny hallway lined with more piles of papers and ushered into Ann-Marie’s office at the back of the building. There she sat, behind her desk. My memory is of a beautiful, cynical woman with a halo of shoulder-length, curly dark blonde hair. She wore tiny butterfly clips scattered through the curls. At first I thought it was a joke. My eight-year-old had the same hair clips. But no, that was Ann-Marie.

I took in the “Daytona Bike Week” t-shirt she was wearing before I sat down. It soon became apparent that she was a former student of my father’s, and perhaps was hoping I had inherited his smarts. Ha. Dad used to tell me, “honey, you’re smart in ways that will get you absolutely nowhere in the world.” All I knew for sure was that I loved Kemptville, and I loved to write. That’s what I had to offer. I presented this passionately, and after a moment of staring silence, she told me I could start on next week’s issue. Ann-Marie made me promise to show her everything I wrote before handing it in to be printed. Then she showed me to my desk.

Bronze curtains, aged by the sun, torn and fading hung from the ceiling to the floor. More bundles of newspapers lined the walls of the large room and formed cubicles around the desks, which were also separated by extremely dusty, upholstered room dividers. One of these temporary walls was covered in business cards and notes.

“Wow! Quite the fire hazard in here!” I joked. Ann looked at me and snorted. “Oh, you’re going to be a problem, aren’t you?” she said. I made a mental note to keep my comments to myself going forward.
As Ann-Marie left the room she pointed at one of the faded cards on the wall. “Read this one,” she said.

The card was the one I had written in my own careful hand in 1987, thanking the Advance for sponsoring me in The Miss Eastern Ontario Pageant. The woman kept everything.

Over the next few months Ann-Marie taught me everything I needed to know about writing for a community newspaper. She passed on her own beliefs along with her teachings. I felt it was a gift, and I continue to be extremely grateful for her time and attention. Many of her lessons still pass through my mind today when I sit down to write.

In September 2002 we lost Ann-Marie Crawford. A combination of stress and a heart condition took her, in her mid-forties. She left behind teenaged children, extended family, many close friends and coworkers and a husband who roamed silently from one end of the old building to the other, in the spaces her energy used to fill.

I often stole an afternoon nap, Asian style, in the heat of the day. As I started to wake, I could feel the dampness in the bed sheets. The remnants of my dream were fading and I kept my eyes shut tight to hang onto them just a moment longer. The smell of her freshly-washed hair was so real; I imagined I could feel her damp curls on my arm as she lay beside me. “Open yours eyes, Mommy. Look at me.” My youngest would never go down for her nap without my help. It was as though she didn’t want to risk missing out on any of the fun and excitement that her older sisters generated around her on a daily basis. They entertained and watched over each other. A trio of best friends and beloved sisters – sometimes at war, usually tucked perfectly together in one corner of a couch or bed, reading to each other or role playing some theatrical production of their own making. And now they were pretty much raising each other. That life was a whole world away. A few tears squeezed out over my lashes before I opened my eyes.