- Title Pages
- Figures
- Charts
- Tables
- Foreword
- Introduction Cantonese Society in Hong Kong and Singapore: Gender, Religion, Medicine and Money
- Chapter 1 Some Occasional Rites Performed by the Singapore Cantonese
- Chapter 2 Chinese Rites for the Repose of the Soul, with Special Reference to Cantonese Custom
- Chapter 3 Paper Charms, and Prayer Sheets as Adjuncts to Chinese Worship
- Chapter 4 Ghost Marriages among the Singapore Chinese
- Chapter 5 Ghost Marriages among the Singapore Chinese: A Further Note
- Chapter 6 Chinese Women’s Vegetarian Houses in Singapore
- Chapter 7 Chinese Religion and Religious Institutions in Singapore
- Chapter 8 The Emergence and Social Function of Chinese Religious Associations in Singapore
- Chapter 9 The Great Way of Former Heaven: A Group of Chinese Secret Religious Sects
- Chapter 10 Chinese Religion and Rural Cohesion in the Nineteenth Century
- Chapter 11 The Role of Savings and Wealth among Hong Kong Chinese
- Chapter 12 Capital, Saving and Credit among Indigenous Rice Farmers and Immigrant Vegetable Farmers in Hong Kong’s New Territories
- Chapter 13 Some Basic Conceptions and Their Traditional Relationship to Society
- Chapter 14 Chinese Occasional Rites in Hong Kong
- Chapter 15 Notes on Some Vegetarian Halls in Hong Kong Belonging to the Sect of <i>Hsien-T’ien Tao</i> (The Way of Former Heaven)
- Chapter 16 Marriage Resistance in Rural Kwangtung
- Chapter 17 Chinese Traditional Ideas and the Treatment of Disease: Two Examples from Hong Kong
- Chapter 18 Cosmic Antagonisms: A Mother-Child Syndrome
- Chapter 19 Chinese and Western Medicine in Hong Kong: Some Social and Cultural Determinants of Variation, Interaction and Change
- Chapter 20 Chinese Traditional Aetiology and Methods of Cure in Hong Kong
- Appendix
- Index
Cosmic Antagonisms: A Mother-Child Syndrome
Cosmic Antagonisms: A Mother-Child Syndrome
(1974)*
- Chapter:
- (p.471) Chapter 18 Cosmic Antagonisms: A Mother-Child Syndrome
- Source:
- Cantonese Society in Hong Kong and Singapore
- Author(s):
Marjorie Topley
, Jean DeBernardi- Publisher:
- Hong Kong University Press
The period immediately following the birth of a baby is a time of biological and emotional adjustment for mother and child, when, in the Chinese view, a variety of difficulties can be anticipated. During an exploratory child-rearing study conducted in urban Hong Kong in 1969, twenty illiterate and semi-literate mothers of small children sought different explanations and treatments when any one or two such difficulties persisted. However, when they all persisted together, the women all thought that there must be a causal connection. This syndrome is the subject of this chapter. The mothers' explanations of the syndrome rest on cosmological assumptions. To understand conceptions of maladjustment, this chapter looks at what these women thought to be happening in the period of postnatal adjustment.
Keywords: child-rearing, Hong Kong, syndrome, cosmological assumptions, maladjustment, postnatal adjustment, mothers
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- Title Pages
- Figures
- Charts
- Tables
- Foreword
- Introduction Cantonese Society in Hong Kong and Singapore: Gender, Religion, Medicine and Money
- Chapter 1 Some Occasional Rites Performed by the Singapore Cantonese
- Chapter 2 Chinese Rites for the Repose of the Soul, with Special Reference to Cantonese Custom
- Chapter 3 Paper Charms, and Prayer Sheets as Adjuncts to Chinese Worship
- Chapter 4 Ghost Marriages among the Singapore Chinese
- Chapter 5 Ghost Marriages among the Singapore Chinese: A Further Note
- Chapter 6 Chinese Women’s Vegetarian Houses in Singapore
- Chapter 7 Chinese Religion and Religious Institutions in Singapore
- Chapter 8 The Emergence and Social Function of Chinese Religious Associations in Singapore
- Chapter 9 The Great Way of Former Heaven: A Group of Chinese Secret Religious Sects
- Chapter 10 Chinese Religion and Rural Cohesion in the Nineteenth Century
- Chapter 11 The Role of Savings and Wealth among Hong Kong Chinese
- Chapter 12 Capital, Saving and Credit among Indigenous Rice Farmers and Immigrant Vegetable Farmers in Hong Kong’s New Territories
- Chapter 13 Some Basic Conceptions and Their Traditional Relationship to Society
- Chapter 14 Chinese Occasional Rites in Hong Kong
- Chapter 15 Notes on Some Vegetarian Halls in Hong Kong Belonging to the Sect of <i>Hsien-T’ien Tao</i> (The Way of Former Heaven)
- Chapter 16 Marriage Resistance in Rural Kwangtung
- Chapter 17 Chinese Traditional Ideas and the Treatment of Disease: Two Examples from Hong Kong
- Chapter 18 Cosmic Antagonisms: A Mother-Child Syndrome
- Chapter 19 Chinese and Western Medicine in Hong Kong: Some Social and Cultural Determinants of Variation, Interaction and Change
- Chapter 20 Chinese Traditional Aetiology and Methods of Cure in Hong Kong
- Appendix
- Index