Ok. I am stuck. Every month, I can’t keep a straight face during my wonderful girlfriend’s female whoas. She refuses to drink cold drinks during this time.
I can’t help but listen for a while to her reasons only to finally give in and smirk at one point. That causes a huge discussion on how, if she has a cold drink, the period stops. Then the blood gets backed up and she’ll end up with cancer.
Was there a brilliant water salesman once who had no fridge and came up with a marketing ploy? What gives?
Help me. I feel she’s annoyed at my stupidity and I’m too entertained by this idea.
Being a comedian doesn’t help, either. I feel writing this into my routine would be a death sentence.
It’s some traditional Chinese medicine yin/yang hooey that the locals have been brainwashed to believe, and which is constantly reinforced by the media. It’s a pretty universal belief in Taiwan.
Go ahead and tell her it’s all a load of bunkum. She’ll protest, and refer you to some local media guru, who by virtue of appearing on TV, is speaking The Unassailable Truth. And she’ll win the argument, because faith overrules fact.
Didn’t you just do that in this thread? Aren’t we your audience here? Does your girlfriend know you just made fun of her to a bunch of strangers in public?
FWIW, I wouldn’t mind being made fun of. In fact, I’d enjoy it. I think quirks are great and partners should both accept and make fun of them. I would very much appreciate a boyfriend who believed drinking milk one week of the month would make his wee wee curl up or something. Wouldn’t that be fantastic?
But if your girlfriend doesn’t want you to do that, and you mentioned the death sentence, then you should respect that.
It’s what Chris said, but you should be very, very careful arguing with a woman about period stuff. No matter what, you will not win that one. And this is a woman with access to your family jewels, right? I hope you’re super charming.
ok, cold water thingy won’t fly, try buying the most delicious frozen treat, coldstone ice cream, a slurpee, some tea flavored slush drink or just the old traditional fruit ice slush(cha bing)…9 times out of 10 she will have it, but as long as it’s not cold water…why??the oogly boogly school of thought says no cold water, but there is no rule with ice cream, etc…that’s how you win your arguement without arguing…
All the Taiwanese women I know believe the no-cold-water-during-one’s-period thing. I have one friend who will announce, in a mixed group at a coffee shop, “I can’t have anything cold today!” Therefore announcing to everyone that’s she got her period. And they claim Western women are open.
The reason is that if you drink something cold, your insides contract, and that means the menstrual blood won’t flow freely, giving you cramps. If I ever mentioned that women in the West don’t believe this, the response would be: “See? That is why Western women have so many problems with their periods.”
Do this, but also important to note NEVER TELL HER THAT SHE IS WRONG. That is a one way ticket straight to dog-houseville, it doesn’t matter if you are right and have all the logic to back it up. = ) It has to be her idea/decision that it is okay to drink cold drinks while on her period. Crazy I know :loco:
Good luck, it’s a long path to undertake to get a woman to change her mind about something like that. Especially Tawainese. Reminds me of the times I’ve tried to convince to my ex-girlfriend’s mother that you don’t have to unplug every single cable attached to the computer before you leave the house for more than a day and put it up in a box. And then call me when she got back so I could come set it back up… Needless to say, she still does that…
Cultural hits and misses. As Chris says, it stems from a basic cultural understanding of the principles of Chinese medicine. Cold is Yin, which also inhibits movement, and the idea is to have the blood and qi moving to disperse the period. Pain in Chinese medicine is symptomatic of qi and or blood stagnation, and blood stagnation can be anything from a mere bruise to cancer. Note that both in the west and in this part of the world women often use a hot water bottle on their lower abdomen for period pain, not an ice pack.
On the upside, what most Taiwanese women do know to drink if they are enduring period pain or discomfort makes extremely good sense. Dang gui duck soup (當歸鴨湯). Dang gui is an extremely interesting herb for its function of regulating menses.
Yep. It even works for white girls. And I think the same stuff is used in some “nursing” teas for women who’ve just given birth, but I’ve only seen that in the States.
It’s the most common herb used for anything to do with menstrual irregularities and as a postpartum tonic in Chinese medicine. Interestingly enough, it’s also used for depression- Think of the origins of the term “hysteria.”
The herb’s most representative formula is named from a chapter by Zhuang Zi called “Free and easy wandering” - 逍遙遊. Thus “Free and easy wandering (medicinal) powder.” 逍遙散 - Xiao yao san.
My Wife is Taiwanese… She believes it, I don’t. She knows I don’t believe it. Life goes on.
To be honest, there’s a lot of things that people believe that are wrong. Chances are, everybody here has some random belief they are 100% convinced that is fact that is not fact.
Do you believe that shaving your legs/face causes the hairs to grow back thicker? FALSE
Do you believe alcohol kills brain cells? FALSE (Unless it’s heavy/chronic/addictive use but… That’s more of an issue of lacking nutrition than the alcohol itself)
Do you believe you only use 10% of your brain? FALSE
Anyways… I never believe anything anybody* says unless I see proof to back it up. But I usually let it go. Ignoring things is a valuable skill.
I’m not really interested in the shaving point, and I know about the 10% brain usage myth. However, I’m not sure about your second point. Everything that comes up on google seems to suggest that alchohol causes brain damage even with a moderate intake:
This is actually one of those funny things that’s hard to find research for. It’s like, if I try to find research proving that drinking cold water doesn’t affect your period, I can’t find it… Because nobody has ever bothered to research it because the premise is wrong.
