In many countries like the USA, they celebrate baby shower before the baby is born. As for Chinese custom, this is traditionally celebrated one month after the baby is born. This also coincides with the end of the new mum’s confinement period. During the confinement period, visiting the new mum and baby is not advisable. The full month is the day where both mother and baby are introduced to the extended relatives and friends.
It is a big celebration in Singapore but when I had my first child, Mr K, we lived in London with no relatives close by and friends to invite. Before the party, the baby undergoes the hair ritual. So we had a small hair cutting ritual for Mr K. In this photo, my mum held Mr K while I cut a bit of his hair to keep inside an ang pow (red packet).
This is my daughter, Ms C. Again we cut her hair when it was her first month birthday. Then we rubbed egg white on her hair. According to my great-grandmother, rubbing egg white will help hair to grow thicker.
In Singapore, there are various ways of saving baby hair. You can either keep it in an ang pow or tie it with red ribbon or turn them into a special calligraphy brush, engraved with their names or auspicious words.
A word of advise, even if you are not keep the baby hair, it is best to disposable it properly. According to a story from Mr Zhou’s Ghost Stories podcast on 16th August 2019, if the ghost ate the baby hair, the ghost will follow the baby for his/her rest of the life. Never throw your hair out of the windows. You will never know.
Thanks to my cousin for sharing this photo with us.
In The Tiger Tales’s blog post, she wrote about her son and her research about: hair-cutting rituals of different cultures.
Once the hair ritual is over, the party is held. In Singapore, people hire a common area/hall/venue, or host at their home and serve with buffet. Traditionally, they will have cakes and red eggs to give to the guests. In Hokkien dialect, they will also gift ang ku kueh. Some of bakeries will provide full moon packages that suit your budget. As we live in UK, we had to make do with what we had available. My mum had dyed the eggs earlier in the morning to give to our guests.
Red colour is always to symbolise good luck and fortune and egg represents fertility and their shape symbolises harmony. So we dyed the egg red!
This is one example of a full month cake box. They range from traditional to fanciful cakes. Some bakeries will include the red egg inside the cake box.
The baby will typically receive ang pow (red packet containing money) or gifts from guests. My children are very fortunate as my Singapore relatives had sent a stack of ang pows via my mum! So we saved the money for their future use!
This is a lovely tradition, and nice to keep a little bit of their hair. My son was only born with a small amount, but I will confess when it got long enough to cut I did keep a little bit.
I think that’s such a lovely tradition and it’s always nice having all the family together for a celebration and what better celebration than the birth of a baby.
I love the idea of being left alone for a month after the baby is born. It stops the new mum feeling guilty when she says she’s not up to visitors yet. These posts are excellent 🙂
What a brilliant tradition – I wonder if egg white would work on me not 😉
thanks for sharing.
I love this tradition – it seems far more sensible to leave mum and baby to settle and get into a routine before visitors start arriving
I know from my friend experience that they shave newborns head in Pakistan as a tradition. I always love to read you post about Chinese customs and culture, it’s so interesting! Thanks for sharing xx
This is a wonderful post. I didn’t know about that tradition and it seems so lovely 🙂 x
What a lovely tradition and great that you have managed to keep them up whilst in the UK!
I love reading and learning about Chinese culture, really fascinating. No idea how I would cope with confinement for a month though, after being stuck in hoaiptal for two days I was desperate to go out!!
I learn so much about Chinese culture from your blog – another informative post! Thank you x
Morning Eileen. I find it so interesting reading about your culture on the blog, you are educating me. 😉
It’s lovely to hear about various cultures. My other half is part greek and they too don’t allow the child out of the house for the first month. I remember taking my baby son out a few days old and a greek neighbour spitting on the floor to ward off evil spirits! I must admit I was a bit freaked!
It is always so interesting to read about the chinese culture. I would have struggled as a 1 month Baby didn’t have much hair to cut x
This sounds like a lovely tradition and I love the idea of one month’s confinement! Such gorgeous baby photos too, just so cute!
I just love of the different things they do its opened my eyes up .x
I really enjoy reading these tradition posts. They are so interesting. Thank you for sharing
What a beautiful tradition, I love reading about different cultures.
This is beautiful tradition, we also have the 1 month confinement in zambia too where only family and a select few can come see the baby.
Awww, so cute! I hated cutting my children’s hair the first time, but I think when it’s for a special reason it wouldn’t seem so bad – at least they had some too – my daughter was completely bald for about 18 months! 😀