Tag: Asia

Chinese postpartum confinement, called ‘zuo yue zi,’ is gaining Western appeal | CNN

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Hong Kong
CNN
 — 

You cannot carry heavy things. You should sleep more. No working. No household chores.

And the list goes on as Carol Chan explained her postpartum instructions for new mom Taylor Richard.

Chan is a “pui yuet,” also called a confinement nanny, who lives with families after a baby is born. She prepares meals and herbal medicines, takes care of the baby and provides guidance on being a new mother.

Richard, a content creator from Canada, traveled to Hong Kong to become a model and fell in love with her husband, Tom, there. They married in November 2018, and Richard gave birth to their son, Levi, in March 2022.

Richard decided to hire Chan, who lived with the family for a month and spent an additional month helping out.

Richard vlogged about her experience with Chan on her YouTube channel, and that video went viral with 2.9 million views. The reaction was mostly admiration and praise from Richard’s primarily Western followers.

The concept of Chinese confinement — “zuo yue zi,” or “sitting the month”— is when a new mother stays at home for one month to allow her body to rest after giving birth.

During that time, the pui yuet makes dishes catering to the mother’s physical needs and helps her with milk production and other concerns. The pui yuet also cares for the mother with massage, body wraps and lessons on how to take care of the new baby.

Richard and Chan declined to share the cost of Chan’s services. Few entities track the pricing of nannies in Hong Kong on a consistent basis because most negotiations are directly between clients and the nannies.

The estimated cost for a pui yuet in Hong Kong ranges from 63,800 Hong Kong dollars (US $8,100) to 268,000 Hong Kong dollars (US $34,100) for 26 to 30 nights for a live-in nanny, according to a 2021 survey by the Consumer Council, a statutory body in Hong Kong dedicated to protecting consumer rights. The council, which surveyed 19 companies or organizations that provide postnatal care, also reported that the cost of a pui yuet working eight hours a day for 26 days ranges from 21,000 Hong Kong dollars (US $2,600) to 34,000 Hong Kong dollars (US $4,300).

This tradition isn’t without criticism, and some have questioned whether the traditional methods of confinement in the Chinese community are too extreme and may be dangerous. In 2015, a new mother in Shanghai following the custom died of heatstroke after wrapping herself in a quilt and turning off the air conditioner, state media reported.

Chan has gotten calls from the US and UK to be a pui yuet after a YouTube video about her went viral.

In recent years, some people have adapted the tradition to more modern ways, taking advantage of available technology. It’s important to turn the air conditioner on when the weather is hot, Chan said, or else you could get sick. The traditional practice had been to avoid anything cold regardless of the weather.

Richard, now 34, said she loved the time she spent with Chan.

“It meant everything! My husband and I both don’t have any family members in Hong Kong, and as new parents we were pretty clueless,” she said via email. “Having someone take care of my body and gently guide me through my transition into motherhood made for a very positive beginning of my baby’s life. I’m forever grateful for Carol!”

Richard was the first Western mother whom Chan cared for in her 12-year career. But since Richard’s YouTube video went viral, Chan said she’s gotten calls from Westerners asking for her services from as far away as the United States and United Kingdom. She’s now headed to Vancouver, British Columbia, in July to work as a pui yuet for a family there for a month.

The kind of care Richard received is expensive, whether the new parents live in Hong Kong or elsewhere. One US location, Boram Postnatal Retreat, opened last year in New York City.

“It was very challenging to get the concept received by others,” cofounder Boram Nam told CNN. “It was a lot about the education process — information is abundant up to until you give birth, and the spotlight completely shifts over to the baby — so we get into that discussion, and people get it.”

Cofounder Boram Nam opened Boram Postnatal Retreat last year in New York for new mothers.

But her program comes with a hefty price tag, starting at three nights for $2700.

“This is the price we do need to charge for the level of service that we provide within the guidelines of what postpartum care looks like in the US,” said Nam, adding that she hopes eventually to get services covered by insurance. “We want to make sure this can be accessible by others, by more women, a more diverse group of people.”

Mandy Major, owner of Major Care, a virtual postpartum doula service based in the US, has noticed a lack of postpartum education in her country.

“We have a lack of systematic postpartum here within our health care system,” Major said. “We have a go-go, hyper-productive, hyper-independent culture, but we also don’t have paid leave.”

Richard’s mostly Western followers on YouTube noted that pressure, commenting on the luxury of taking a month off to spend time recovering and connecting with their babies.

“As an American woman who has given birth 4 times and been booted immediately out of the hospital expected to figure it all out on my own, I can undoubtedly say had this been an option, it may have changed my whole mothering experiences!!” one person said.

“I returned to work 2 weeks postpartum in America,” another mother wrote. “I never felt that I was able to fully bond with my child.”

The month of confinement came to an end for Richard last April. In Richard’s YouTube video, Chan holds Levi one last time and passes him back to his mother as she put her shoes on to leave.

Richard’s eyes begin to fill with tears, surprising herself at her emotional reaction.

“I feel like I’m losing a family member,” she says as the door slowly closes behind Chan, according to the video.

Even after the confinement experience, Chan remains close with Richard’s family, stopping by for lunch occasionally and still giving baby advice.

“If I have another baby, I would love to have it in Canada with my family, but I want Carol to come with me if I do!” Richard said in a video chat later, smiling. “I can’t imagine going through this again without her.”

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Japanese company puts whale meat on sale in vending machines

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Two vending machines selling whale meat were unveiled in Tokyo on January 24 as part of the whaling industry’s campaign to try and increase consumption, which is on the decline in Japan. However, animal rights defenders, including our Observers, are angry that whalers are back in Japanese waters after the government lifted a ban on whaling in 2019.

Vending machines in Japan’s capital of Tokyo are offering whale sashimi, whale steak and canned whale for sale. 

There are many different ways to eat whale meat on display in the new “Kujira Store” ((kujira means whale in Japanese) vending machines unveiled on January 24. Lots of people have been circulating images of the machines and the whale meat products inside on social media. 

These are cans of whale meat for sale in a vending machine unveiled in Yokohama. © @HuyunanoniSWDC / Twitter

These are cans of whale meat for sale in a vending machine unveiled in Yokohama.
These are cans of whale meat for sale in a vending machine unveiled in Yokohama. © HuyunanoniSWDC / Twitter

For the past few years, the sale of whale meat has been losing steam in Japan. Considered both cruel and a threat to the survival of several endangered species, whale hunting was banned internationally for more than 30 years after a historic campaign launched by the NGO Greenpeace back in 1986. However, in 2019, Japan withdrew from the International Whaling Commission (IWC) and relaunched commercial whaling in its waters.

That said, the Japanese didn’t actually stop whaling during those thirty years. In 2014, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) found that Japan had massacred nearly 900 whales a year under the guise of “scientific missions” in Antarctica. When it left the IWC, Japan did agree to limit whaling to within about 200 marine miles (370 km) from its shores, an area that is part of its economic zone.

The Japanese company Kyodo Senpaku, the main actor in the sector, is behind these new vending machines. They are thrilled about their newest bid to increase consumption – in fact, their spokesperson said that sales had already “surpassed expectations.”

They say they are planning on opening a total of a hundred vending machines.


This shows a Kujira Store vending machine in Yokohama.

‘Younger generations rather prefer “live” whales over whale meat’

Nanami Kurasawa is part of the Iruka & Kujira Action Network, a Japanese group dedicated to defending whales. She is angry about the installation of these vending machines, even if she doesn’t think that they will turn the public into big fans of whale meat overnight.

It’s one of the efforts for the whaling company to continue their industry, but I think it will not increase whale meat demand. In Japan, the whaling issue isn’t a popular topic […] people have been less interested in the issue. But younger generations rather prefer ‘live’ whales over whale meat.

In 2021, Japanese people ate 1,000 tonnes of whale meat, compared to an estimated 233,000 tonnes a year back in 1962, according to the Ministry of Agriculture, Forests and Fishing. Back then, people in Japan ate more whale meat than beef or chicken. 

‘Desperate’ attempts by the whaling industry 

From whale stuffed animals to sashimi recipes, Japan’s whaling industry is pulling out all the stops to attract consumers. 

Our Observer says the main argument levied by people promoting the consumption of whale meat – that it is an important tradition in Japanese culture – is all wrong. 

The whaling discussion is mostly among those who are against the anti-whaling community, the people who believe that ‘foreign people are trying to stop our culture and it’s discrimination against Japanese people’. The government insists that whales are one of the fishery resources. They say it’s our tradition to use all marine life. Whales are under the management of the Fisheries Agency, not the ministry of the environment. Their main purpose is to promote the fishing industry, and it doesn’t care about the environment or biodiversity. So along with many environmental and nature protection groups, we have been pressuring the ministry of the environment to conserve and manage whales like other mammals. But it hasn’t been easy until now. 


This is a “vlog” promoting the new vending machines in Tokyo.

‘A whole generation of Japanese people grew up eating whale meat in their school lunches’

Mark J. Palmer is the associate director for the International Marine Mammal Project (IMMP), which works for the protection of marine mammals across the world. He has been keeping a close watch on the strategy employed by Japan’s whaling industry over the past decade:    

For years, they’ve been trying to institutionalise commercial whaling and get the Japanese people to eat more whale meat. Following World War Two, there was a period when when Japan was very dependent upon whales because they were starving. Basically after World War Two, their infrastructure had been destroyed and they needed to get protein and whaling was one of the ways they did that. A whole generation of Japanese people grew up eating whale meat in their school lunches in order to provide nutrition to the Japanese people. But that time is long gone. 

The Japanese have killed whales since probably medieval times. However, that was always very local in coastal areas where they’d go out and they’d pull in a whale and the local community and maybe communities around would eat it. But there was never a widespread whale eating culture within the country of Japan itself.

The government itself tries to push this myth that whale meat is necessary for Japan to survive, and it really hasn’t taken hold at all. So they they do things like set up restaurants, put out recipes, they sell whale jerky. The newest gimmick is these little stores that have these machines.

They have a very hard time getting rid of the existing whale meat supplies that they have, much less expanding it to get it more economically viable. The problem with whaling has always been that in order to make a profit, you have to kill as many whales as you possibly can. So they’re always pushing for higher quotas. They’re always pushing for more whales because that’s the only way they can make it profitable.

When it lifted the whaling ban, Japan did impose a quota on whalers. In 2023, the quota was fixed at 347 whales total. Japanese whalers are allowed to hunt three different species: minke whales, Bryde’s whales and sei whales. 


However, our Observer says that these three species are not the only types of whale meat sold in Japan. At least one other species is imported. 

Sei whales are endangered, while the other two species on the Japanese hunt list are less so.  However, a large part of the whale meat imported into Japan comes from fin whales, hunted in Iceland.

Kyodo Senpaku, the company behind the vending machines, is planning to import nearly 3,000 tons of fin whale meat starting in February 2023. However, Iceland announced in 2022 that it would stop whale hunting by 2024, as demand for whale meat dwindles. Our Observers hope that Japan will take the same route. 



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Alcohol and dementia: Study finds benefits in minimal drinking, but it’s complicated | CNN

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CNN
 — 

Keeping alcohol consumption to one or two drinks a day lessened the odds of developing dementia, according to a study of nearly 4 million South Koreans.

However, drinking more than two drinks a day increased that risk, according to the study published Monday in the journal JAMA Network Open.

“We found that maintaining mild to moderate alcohol consumption as well as reducing alcohol consumption from a heavy to moderate level were associated with a decreased risk of dementia,” said first author Dr. Keun Hye Jeon, an assistant professor at CHA Gumi Medical Center, CHA University in Gumi, South Korea, in an email.

But don’t rush to the liquor store, experts say.

“This study was well done and is extremely robust with 4 million subjects, but we should be cautious not to over interpret the findings,” said Alzheimer’s researcher Dr. Richard Isaacson, a preventive neurologist at the Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases of Florida. He was not involved in the new study.

Alcohol use can be a risk factor for breast and other cancers, and consuming too much can contribute to digestive problems, heart and liver disease, hypertension, stroke, and a weak immune system over time, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

There are red flags for Alzheimer’s as well. For example, if a person has one or two copies of the APOE4 gene variant, which raises your risk of developing the mind-wasting disease, drinking is not a good choice, Isaacson said.

“Alcohol has been shown to be harmful for brain outcomes in people with that risk gene — and about 25% of the US population carries one copy of APOE4,” he said.

The new study examined the medical records of people covered by the Korean National Health Insurance Service (NHIS), which provides a free health exam twice a year to insured South Koreans who are 40 and older. In addition to doing various tests, examiners asked about each person’s drinking, smoking and exercise habits.

The study looked at the data collected in 2009 and 2011 and categorized people by their self-reported drinking levels. If a person said they drank less than 15 grams (approximately 0.5 ounces) of alcohol a day, they were considered “mild” drinkers.

In the United States, a standard drink contains 14 grams of alcohol, which is roughly the same as 12 ounces of regular beer, 5 ounces of wine or 1.5 ounces of distilled spirits.

If study participants told doctors they drank 15 to 29.9 grams a day — the equivalent of two standards drinks in the US — the researchers categorized them as “moderate” drinkers. And if people said they drank over 30 grams, or three or more drinks a day, researchers considered them “heavy” drinkers.

Researchers also looked at whether people sustained or changed the amount they drank between 2009 and 2011, Jeon said.

“By measuring alcohol consumption at two time points, we were able to study the relationship between reducing, ceasing, maintaining and increasing alcohol consumption and incident dementia,” he said.

The team then compared that data to medical records in 2018 — seven or eight years later — to see if anyone studied had been diagnosed with dementia.

After adjusting for age, sex, smoking, exercise level and other demographic factors, researchers found people who said they drank at a mild level over time — about a drink a day — were 21% less likely to develop dementia than people who never drank.

People who said they continued to drink at moderate level, or about two drinks a day, were 17% less likely to develop dementia, the study found.

“One has to be cautious when interpreting studies using medical records. They can be fraught with challenges in how diseases are coded and studied,” Isaacson said. “Any anytime you ask people to recall their behaviors, such as drinking, it leaves room for memory errors.”

The positive pattern did not continue as drinking increased. People who drank heavily — three or more drinks a day — were 8% more likely to be diagnosed with dementia, the study found.

If heavy drinkers reduced their drinking over time to a moderate level, their risk of being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s fell by 12%, and the risk of all-cause dementia fell by 8%.

However, people aren’t very good at judging how much alcohol they are drinking, Isaacson said.

“People don’t really monitor their pours of wine, for example,” Isaacson said. “They may think they are drinking a standard-sized glass of wine, but it’s really a glass and a half every time. Drink two of those pours and they’ve had three glasses of wine. That’s no longer mild or moderate consumption.”

In addition, too many people who think they are moderate drinkers do all of their drinking on weekends. Binge drinking is on the rise worldwide, even among adults, studies show.

“If someone downs five drinks on Saturday and Sunday that’s 10 drinks a week so that would qualify as a moderate alcohol intake,” Isaacson said. “To me, that is not that is not the same as having a glass of wine five days a week with a meal, which slows consumption.”

The new study also found that starting to drink at a mild level was associated with a decreased risk of all-cause dementia and Alzheimer’s, “which, to our knowledge, has never been reported in previous studies,” the authors wrote.

However, “none of the existing health guidelines recommends starting alcohol drinking,” Jeon said, adding that since the study was observational, no cause and effect can be determined.

“Our findings regarding a initiation of mild alcohol consumption cannot be directly translated into clinical recommendations, thereby warranting additional studies to confirm these associations further,” Jeon said.

A study published in March 2022 found that just one pint of beer or glass of wine a day can shrink the overall volume of the brain, with the damage increasing as the number of daily drinks rises.

On average, people between 40 and 69 who drank a pint of beer or 6-ounce glass of wine per day for a month had brains that appeared two years older than those who only drank half of a beer, according to that previous study.

“I’ve never personally suggested someone to start drinking moderate amounts of alcohol if they were abstinent,” Isaacson said. “But there’s really not a one-size-fits-all approach towards counseling a patient on alcohol consumption.”

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Inspired by tough love and true love, Lydia Ko is on top of the world | CNN

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CNN
 — 

Last year, Lydia Ko’s mother joked that she would retire if her daughter made it back into the top three of the women’s golf world rankings – a position the New Zealander hadn’t occupied in over five years.

Based on what happened next, it can only be assumed that Ko was desperate to put her parent out of work. Because forget third; as 2022 draws to a close, she is streaking clear at the summit.

Victory at the CME Group Tour Championship in Naples, Florida, earlier this month provided a fitting end to what has been a spectacular season for the newly crowned world No. 1. Having climbed back into the top-three at the turn of the year, Ko never once dropped below fifth.

With 14 top-10 finishes in just 22 LPGA Tour starts, she secured wins at the Gainbridge LPGA and BMW Ladies Championship before adding her 19th LPGA title at the season-ending Group Tour Championship. Triumph in Naples earned her a winner’s check of $2 million, the largest payout in LPGA history.

As well as securing her return to world No. 1, Ko was subsequently crowned the LPGA’s Player of the Year and – with $4,364,403 in seasonal winnings – the Tour’s Money Winner. It marked a repeat of her double swoop in 2015, when a teenage Ko dominated the Tour with five wins and a major triumph at the Evian Championship.

On top of all that, she finished with the Tour’s lowest scoring average of 68.988 to lift the LPGA Vare Trophy for the second consecutive year. Only Swedish great Annika Sörenstam, who averaged 68.70 in 2002, has ever shot a lower average over a season.

“I think this is probably the best I’ve played,” she told CNN’s Alex Thomas.

“In 2015, I had just won more frequently in that season … but I think this is the most consistently I’ve played.

“It’s a double-edged sword when you are playing consistently, but you don’t get the win … At the end of the week, it’s very marginal differences that get you from first place to second place, second place to 10th place.”

Ko is glad that her mother did not follow through on her retirement wager, which was perhaps an example of a – very successful – tough love strategy.

“My mom does joke to me at times,” Ko told reporters ahead of her final round in Naples. “She’s like, ‘You played so much better when you were 15.’

“I was like, ‘Thanks, Mom. What am I meant to do with that information?’”

But after closing out the win, Ko praised her mother for keeping her grounded.

“I know that she might be one of my toughest critics, but at the same time I know that she says that because she wants me to just keep growing, and I think she keeps me really humble,” Ko told reporters.

“I should say thank you more often, but I don’t end up saying that. It’s easier to say it when she’s not here. But I have to thank her because she does everything for me.”

Ko became the youngest golfer to win on the LPGA Tour with victory at the Canadian Women’s Open at just 15 years old in 2012, accelerating a meteoric rise for the child prodigy. In 2017, she became the youngest golfer to reach world No. 1, but by August 2020 she had slid outside the top-50 for the first time since her rookie season.


It seems ludicrous to describe an athlete as having a renaissance at 25 years old, but given she was a two-time major winner before her 19th birthday, Ko has already lived a long career – though not that long, she insists.

“Some people, they look at me and say, ‘Oh, you must be, like, 30 by now, right?’ and I’m like, ‘Thank you, but no thank you, I’m still 25,” Ko said.

“My golf game is very different to then. My long game was a strength but when I was struggling through the middle of my career, that was the part that wasn’t as good – I feel like I’m getting those feels back again.

“My strategy around some of the golf courses that I’ve played in my rookie year to now is very different, just because my game is different. But it’s good, it’s like I am evolving.”

A 12-year-old Ko tees off at the New Zealand Men's & Women's Amateur Championship in April 2009.

For all her excellence on the fairways, Ko chalks up much of her improved form to factors away from the course. Paradoxically, more breaks and holidays than before have helped spark more focused, quality practice, consolidating a finely tuned work-life balance.

In August, Ko publicly confirmed her engagement to Chung Jun, the son of a prominent Korean businessman, according to Reuters. In finding love with her fiancé, Ko rediscovered her love for golf.

“I came on tour at such a young age – all I knew was golf. If I had a bad day on the golf course, I was a bad person, if I had a great day on the golf course, I felt like a better person,” Ko said.

“But now I don’t think that affects me as much, because there is obviously my family and the people I love, but there is (now) this one special new person that has come into my life, and I think through him I’ve been just able to enjoy life, enjoy the process.

“He’s helped to make me love the game again – it’s not just work. I think it takes somebody very special to make me realize that.”

Ko celebrates her haul with her fiancé Chung.

After rolling home her putt to secure a two-stroke win over Leona Maguire at the Group Tour Championship, a tearful Ko was embraced by her husband-to-be. It marked the first time Chung had seen his future wife win in person, and yet another emotional success in 2022.

After a frustrating flurry of near-misses on Tour, victory at the BMW Ladies Championship in South Korea in October saw the South Korean-born Kiwi triumph in the country of her birth for the first time. It had been two and a half years since her Dad had last seen her compete in person, and after surging to a dominant four-shot lead at Oak Valley Country Club, tears welled in Ko’s eyes before they were swiftly doused in champagne.

Ko is showered in champagne after winning the BMW Ladies Championship in October.

“I feel very privileged to have two cultures,” Ko said. “I don’t think I would be the same if I was just a South Korean-born Korean, or just a Kiwi. I think both of those cultures make me who I am.

“When that putt sunk I was about to cry, but there was so much champagne those tears went straight back in. When I started talking about my family and how much South Korea means to me, I think that’s where I got really emotional, and I also just realized how special this win was going to be.”

If her 2023 is anything like her 2022, then there will be plenty more champagne coming Ko’s way.

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