Week 6 - Spiritual Healing

Alyssa Vang - ASA 189B - Week 6 - Spiritual Food Healing

As I was reading Spiritual Healing Practices Among Rural Postpartum Thai Women, I found this article very intriguing because it reminded me of my own culture. We all come from the same area or similar area as Thai, Hmong, Lao, Vietnamese, Khmer and other groups and that means we as Asian will always have our own ways of healing ourself. When I started seeing how women were under stricter rule after pregnancy it made me feel kind of like home because when I have family members that recently gave birth they have to go on a chicken diet. This is where the women would have to cleanse their body and for us Hmong people we have to be on that chicken diet for a whole month, no cheating, no nothing. The chicken diet consists of boiled chicken with herbs like lemongrass and other herbs (that I don’t know what it’s called but it makes it extra delicious).  I know there are specific rules that you also have to abide by when you’re on a chicken diet. For example, I know you can only have salt and herbs in the chicken, so that mean no sauce or chili paste sauce to eat with it, I also know that you are not allowed to mix your rice and chicken with the broth; you have to eat it separately. I always wondered if this diet really made an impact when it comes to cleansing because before every hospital would just give you soups and the food they have but also a few years ago I saw an article talking about how hospitals are starting to use the chicken diet as an option for their postpartum pregnancy. I believe that having a child is wonderful and it’s something you and your lover created but why is it that it’s unclean of the women’s body for us to need this chicken diet? My mom told me that it flushed all the dead blood out but can’t you do that with other types of light food? And why does it have to be pressed on women that we are the ones with the unclean body??