Boing Boing had a post about a Korean company offering to gold-plate your newborn's umbilical cord stump and frame it up. I know, isn't that, like, so cool? Don't worry, fellow Singaporeans, I am sure someone will offer it here soon, maybe at the KK Children's Hospital shopping arcade.
Seeing the totally freaked-out reaction of my Western colleague when I told her of this Asian practice, I decided I had to do my bit in healing the East-West cultural divide by pointing out other ways we Asians preserve a piece of our children.
I will post pictures of my son's umbilicial cord stump as soon as I can get my wife to find the envelope it is in. I think my wife is now inspired to get better packaging than our current used envelope.
Excerpt:
BoingBoing reader Lee Kin Mun says, "Hi, I was amused to read about the umbilical cord story you posted, and just want to point out that while gross to most Western audiences, it is a very common practice in Asian communities. We Chinese do it too (yes, even in metropolitan Singapore), like my blog friend Huileng. My wife has the umbilical cord stump of my secondborn son (but not our firstborn daughter, we forgot) too. Personally, I think keeping the umbilical cord stump is way less gross than the eating of placentas (which I am told, tastes like liver).
