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Postpartum Care of Taiwanese and Chinese Immigrant Women City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works All Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects 2-2017 Retelling an Old Wife’s Tale: Postpartum Care of Taiwanese and Chinese Immigrant Women Kuan-Yi Chen The Graduate Center, City University of New York How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/1872 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] RETELLING AN OLD WIFE’S TALE: POSTPARTUM CARE OF TAIWANESE AND CHINESE IMMIGRANT WOMEN by KUAN-YI CHEN A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty in Sociology in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, The City University of New York 2017 © 2017 Kuan-Yi Chen All Rights Reserved ii Retelling an old wife’s tale: Postpartum care of Taiwanese and Chinese immigrant women by Kuan-Yi Chen This manuscript has been read and accepted for the Graduate Faculty in Sociology in satisfaction of the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy ______________________ _____________________________________ Date Barbara Katz Rothman Chair of Examining Committee ______________________ _____________________________________ Date Philip Kasinitz Executive Officer Supervisory Committee: Barbara Katz Rothman Margaret M. Chin Robert Courtney Smith THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK iii ABSTRACT Retelling an old wife’s tale: Postpartum care of Taiwanese and Chinese immigrant women by Kuan-Yi Chen Advisor: Barbara Katz Rothman The focus of this dissertation is the Chinese postpartum tradition zuoyuezi, often translated into English as doing-the-month. Having its roots in ancient China, this set of practices has maintained its salience today in Taiwan, China, and among first generation immigrant women in the U.S. Women not only continue to perform zuoyuezi at home, many also rely on emerging forms of commodified zuoyuezi care. While immigrant women’s postpartum wellbeing and care has been the focus of scholarly research in health related fields, studies in the social sciences addressing immigrant women’s postpartum practices and the care relations engendered remain scant. In this qualitative project, I consider zuoyuezi as a cultural model of care, where women interact with caregivers as well as discourses and ideologies surrounding the postpartum body, health, gender, and family. Drawing on qualitative interviews with twenty-seven class-privileged women with experience doing the month and two care workers, as well as discourse analysis of popular zuoyuezi advice books, this dissertation aims to evaluate the social cost and benefits of zuoyuezi. I trace the contour of expert knowledge on zuoyuezi, and explore the factors that iv influence immigrant women’s understanding of zuoyuezi norms. I also discuss the ways in which women forge care relations with various caregivers, be they family members or paid care workers, as they negotiate domains of power relations in family and commodified care. I argue that zuoyuezi is no longer a tradition with antiquated prescriptions and proscriptions. Women in fact draw on zuoyuezi norms to manage perceived health risks as constructed by popular expert discourses, to maintain the consistency of one’s positions within the family, and to respond to social and embodied contingencies that arise in their postpartum period. I also demonstrate that zuoyuezi as a model of care is situated in a field of tensions where discourses surrounding the practices increasingly find legitimacy through espousing dominant scientific knowledge and the languages of consumerism; where filial norms continue to present struggles in the formation of intergenerational care relations; and where commodification produces precarity of care and hidden cost for the workers. Considerations to address these tensions are discussed. v ACKNOWLEDGMENT This dissertation would not have been born without the support of many. I can not appreciate enough the gentle yet firm encouragement from my advisor Barbara Katz Rothman. I will remember our morning meetings in Barbara’s living room where delicious breakfast and constructive feedback were both on the table. I also thank my committee members Robert Smith and Margaret Chin for commenting on the drafts and suggesting future directions I could take with this project. It has been quite a mind-opening learning experience to have them on my committee, and I feel very fortunate to have the opportunities to take classes with them. I would also like to thank my family, biological and chosen. Throughout this journey my parents and my brother showed their support by sharing light-hearted jokes and articles of the ‘heathy food to eat’ variety. My parents worry for me a lot yet expressed nothing but understanding. I am grateful for their unconditional love. They gave me the perseverance and hope to finish my dissertation. It was my partner and my cats who went through the everyday emotional ups and downs of dissertation writing with me. I don’t know how they did it, but they did it so steadfastly and patiently. I am also fortunate to have numerous friends who listened, cooked, sat down with me to write, and gave advices. Lastly I thank all the women who agreed to spend time with me to share their experience and thoughts. This dissertation would not have been possible without their contribution. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER I Introduction 1 CHAPTER II No longer an old wife’s tale: popular zuoyuezi discourses 40 CHAPTER III More than a tradition: women’s perception of zuoyuezi 72 CHAPTER IV Making kin care work 100 CHAPTER V Consuming paid care 145 CHAPTER VI Tying up and looking ahead 187 APPENDIX A Popular advice books on zuoyuezi 202 APPENDIX B List of respondents 203 BIBLIOGRAPHY 204 vii CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION In Chinese medical and folk belief, the elaborate set of practices associated with the postpartum period is demonstrative of its cultural significance. Literature on courtly etiquette and medicine began prescribing an appropriate approach to organize the postpartum period as far back as 200 B.C (Huang 2006). Whether carried to term or not, pregnancy and childbirth are considered to create stress on reproductive organ functions and result in the overall weakening of a woman’s bodily integrity (Callister 2003 et al; Leung et al 2005; Huang 2006; Chen 2008).1 In order to restore the imbalance of energy and improve bodily constitution, women are instructed to follow a set of practices involving various recommendations and restrictions on diet and activities. This set of practices is referred to as zuoyuezi in Mandarin Chinese, which means “doing the month.”2 The diet prescribed during zuoyuezi generally includes a set of recommendations and restrictions that serves multiple purposes, including: to facilitate a complete vaginal discharge process; to nourish the reproductive organs; to restore energy balance; and to stimulate breastmilk production. Raw food and uncooked vegetables should be avoided, and water and salt consumption should be limited. Zuoyuezi also involves restrictions on physical activities that focus on rest and recuperation. Going outdoors, hair-washing, and bathing, to name a few, are discouraged in order to protect the postpartum body from external health threats. Non-compliance of the prescriptions and proscriptions is said to result in negative health 1 In some parts of China and in Taiwan, miscarriages are sometimes referred to as hsiao-chan, which means “minor birth.” 2 There are variations in the transliteration of zuoyuezi depending on the regional usage among linguistic subgroups. Some other examples include: tso-yuei-tze, zou-wa, pei-yue, ue-lai. I will use zuoyuezi to represent all variations since it seems to be most commonly used in English language publications on these practices. 1 consequences (Pillsbury 1978). The Chinese postpartum practices, then, are not just about baby care, but also involve care for the birthing woman’s health and wellbeing. Today, this set of practices for the postpartum period is still widely performed in Taiwan and China (Cheung et al 2006; Raven et al 2007; Lin 2009; Holroyd et al 2011). While many women carry out zuoyuezi with the help of family caregivers at home, recent decades have also seen the emergence of commercialized arrangements such as zuoyuezi care workers, postpartum meal services, or zuoyuezi centers. As zuoyuezi undergoes transformations in Taiwan and China, many first generation female immigrants to the US also continue to follow zuoyuezi practices. In the US, popular media responses to zuoyuezi tend to follow two main narratives. One takes the “spectacle of consumption” approach that highlights the extreme commodification of postpartum care as a status symbol in Asia. For example, a New York Times article titled “A Tradition for New Mothers in China, Now $27,000 a Month” describes center-based zuoyuezi care as an “opulent sequestration” (Levin 2015). TIME Magazine opens its feature article, “Wealthy Asian Moms ‘Sit the Month’ in Style,” with a vignette of a luxurious, well-designed space where women do the month with fantastic views and latest technologies (Brenhouse 2011). The other group takes the “immigrant cultural advantage” approach, which regards postpartum traditions brought to the US by immigrants as time-tested models for maternal and infant care vis-à-vis the paucity of a postpartum care culture in the US (Kolker 2011). A Daily Beast article, also by Brenhouse (2013), compares the postpartum experiences of American-born middle class women with their immigrant counterparts, including women who do the month. She concludes the article with a plea: “the postnatal period ought to be a formal, protected, well-monitored term and … any woman who does not adequately and restfully observe it is putting herself and her infant at risk.” 2 Indeed, the postpartum period is an emotionally and physically charged transitional stage for a woman.
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