Rhythm in Chinese thinking: a short question for a long tradition

Self-care strategy of elderly Korean immigrants in the Washington DC Metropolitan Area

The elderly Korean immigrants in the Greater Washington, DC Metropolitan Area use emotional self-care practices to counteract sad and depressive experiences. They tend not to use professional medical help and/or prescription medicine. Their choice of a self-care mental health strategy is a function of several sociocultural and historical factors: the Korean concept of self, life-long caring role, concepts of a morally exemplary emotional life, religious and cosmological beliefs, beliefs about depression and mental illness, systematic and holistic medical principles, political and social upheavals in Korea. Additional factors include the challenge of transition and immigration to a new culture and country, the USA, with its lack of available resources for the immigrants, such as time with their adult children, lower socioeconomic status, language facility, and transportation. Specific self-prescribed self-care strategies for depression include cognitive strategies, religious strategies, physical strategies, social strategies, and artistic strategies.

Doing the month: rickets and post-partum convalescence in rural China

OBJECTIVE

to analyse the health beliefs underlying the Chinese custom of 'doing the month', in particular mothers' perceptions of rickets.

DESIGN

a qualitative approach was used. Four focus group discussions were tape recorded. Translated transcripts were analysed and coded.

SETTING

Yuci District, rural Shanxi Province, China.

PARTICIPANTS

eighteen young mothers with children aged between 12 and 24 months, five grandmothers aged between 48 and 55 years, five township clinic maternal and child health workers, and seven traditional medicine doctors.

FINDINGS

Zuo yuezi (doing the month) is accepted by Chinese mothers as a time of respite and physical recovery. It is also burdensome to mothers, as cloistering indoors compromises both mother and baby's exposure to the sun, resulting in vitamin D deficiency and rickets.

KEY CONCLUSIONS

in order to reduce the rates of rickets in children, it is important to promote a more balanced and health-enhancing form of zuo yuezi that maintains necessary vitamin D status of both the mother and her baby. By understanding this custom, medical professionals caring for pregnant and post-partum Chinese women in Western countries will be able to better serve their health needs.