Wednesday, July 02, 2014

Crow's beak 乌鸦嘴

I'm usually not superstitious but there is one thing I do believe is the existence of crow's beak in Chinese culture, equivalent to jinx in English.

Crow's beak, or  乌鸦嘴 in Mandarin refers to someone who says something bad and that bad thing would happen, or in my case, someone who says nice thing about something, but thing turns out bad.

I remember my mother told me a scene when my sister was born. She was a crying baby, she cried so much that everyone was so tired of her cries. One day, unexpectedly, she was quiet and just played peacefully in her sarong cradle. Someone came and commented : "Look at her, she doesn't cry today, she is such a nice girl!" And that ended the peaceful moment. She was even crankier than before.

I have told hubby many times about this superstitious. Of course he doesn't believe it. He continues to make comment about how nice Aelig behaves or how nice things turn out. I usually keep my mouth shut. Sometimes things turned out bad but sometimes not.

The first few days when Awena was in the maternity ward, he made those kind of comments again.
"Look, she sleeps the whole day! She is a lot easier than Aelig!"
"See, she is sleeping again!"
"Ah, we hardly hear her!" Then he proceeded to pick up the baby as when he was there she was sleeping most of the time.

I sealed my lips and didn't want to response. It sounded stupid, but if you had baby like Aelig, you would wish to not repeat the same sleeping drama for your second kid.

So how does Awena turn out?
Starting from the second or third night she was a crying baby.
The first night she was home, she slept in our room. Husband's reply the second morning after my question of how was your night : hell.
Yes, she has set up her own rule : no nipple = no sleeping at night. The second day she was home I thought about giving up breastfeeding.
Sometimes I just let her cry after making sure that she is fed, her diaper is clean, she burped. She could cry from her hung for a good 30 minutes.

So, don't blame me if I don't praise your kids or just shut up when you ask me how my kids behave. I would prefer to look stupid than extending the sleeping deprived phase.

2 comments:

  1. I fully agree with you. I'm becoming very superstitious nowadays. And also, if I say that some kids misbehaved, my daughter will do the same thing to remind me not to talk about others....

    I should keep my mouth shut.....

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  2. Ya, I am very careful about praising other people's children because I am not sure how the parents would take it.

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