During lunch today, I couldn't stop wondering about the last bits of rice and dishes while I was finishing my meal. I remembered since I was a little girl, my mother and grandma used to scare me with the two stories if I have any left-overs, including tiny pieces of rice, after each meal.
The first story was told by my mother - it was about this girl never finishes her entire meal, having bits and pieces of food left over in her bowl and making the table messy. Of course, she grew up and acne had popped up on her face continuously.
The second story came from my grandma, which had been passed on verbally through her maternal family. Obviously, the story was about this girl never finishes her entire meal, leaving bits of rice behind. She ended up marrying a husband with broken teeths.
As I was trained to not have left-overs (yes, by those "horrible" stories), so now I rarely leave any pieces of food behind. But I can't stop wondering why do acne and marrying an teeth-less husband would freaken a young girl? What are the beauty standards of today's world? Why do a girl have to marry, and does theat person has to be a man? How about scientific explaination on the creation of acne, as it is produced by the over-reactive testosterone hormone which doesn't really relate to the left-over rice pieces?
I was actually told that if I didn't finish each grain of rice, whatever's left will show up as boils and marks on my future husband's face! Obviously, by the time I was ten, I knew it couldn't possibly be true and it was just something my parents said to scare me. But I still eat everything off of my plate. Who knows, karma works in mysterious ways...
ReplyDeleteLOL. Karma does happen... so it's better to be safe than sorry.
ReplyDeleteThe funny thing was I actually told the horrible folktale to my little Japanese host sister who was 6 at the time. She got so freaked out and finished up all of her rice everyday ever after. Nonetheless my host mom was happy.