How Does Culture Affects Lives

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Culture dramatically affects the lives of every individual. It does not necessarily limit its influence towards traditions but also to healthcare practices and food. In some cases, culture serves as an essential factor that creates the environment for pregnancy and food consumption. This led to a wide range of various practices in different countries. Like in Jay and Sue Kim, who were Korean immigrants, this paper will present how their culture affected their lives in Los Angeles.
Tae-Kyo vs. Allopathy
In Korea, pregnancy for women is a compassionate event since Koreans are overly protective of pregnant women. Their tradition is influencing both the prenatal and postpartum pregnancy periods of the mother. Objectively, there are two parts to this tradition which are called tae-mong and tae-kyo. When women dreamt of the start of a pregnancy, they refer to it as a sign of actual pregnancy, tae-mong. At the same time, tae-kyo refers to the beliefs that a future mother should do during the pregnancy. Some of these beliefs are the following: (1) when a future mother held unclean objects, the process of giving birth would be complicated, (2) pregnant women either wear tight abdominal binders or do strenuous physical works during the late period of pregnancy to prevent the chances of big babies, and (3) some foods should not be eaten by pregnant women due to various reasons (Im, 2013). On the other hand, Boltman-Binkowski (2016) presented that traditionally, allopathic medications are not being used during pregnancy due to their adverse effects on the baby and the mother. She also defined allopathy as a medical treatment in the West and is considered a modern medical treatment for both medicines and surgeries.
During and After Pregnancy: Food Consumption
There is a visible difference between the food consumption of Korean pregnant women during prenatal and postpartum. According to Im (2013), there is a variety of food that pregnant women eat, should not eat, and dislike during the pregnancy. She elaborated that most pregnant women ate kimchee during their pregnancy as it has a percentage of 82.5. This is followed by rice or noodle dishes and fresh fruit, which are also considered a favored food during pregnancy. She also added four dishes that pregnant women avoided: coffee, spicy foods, chicken, and crab, while having coffee was the most avoided food. This list presented how the taste buds of women are picky and limited to various dishes. She also presented various foods that were either disliked by pregnant women or the food is unavailable, and these are rabbit, sparrow, duck, goat, or blemished fruits. While even though pregnant women were aware of food taboos in their tradition, avoiding it was not th...