They say it's your birthday/ It's no birthday to you.

The secret to Asian women looking young right up into their fifties is not a cream or good nutrition or wearing long sleeve jackets, wide-brim hats and masks while driving the car on a sunny day. It is the outright repudiation, even abolishment of any birthday celebrations. Middle-aged Taiwanese women do not exchange greeting cards or cakes or presents. They’ll accept a phone call or even a hug from their grown children, but they will refuse any gift because it would signify, perhaps legitimize an aging process. When asked about their age, they ignore the question and the questioner. If forced to answer, they simply state the year they were born, using the Republic of China calendar, in which the year 1 is the same as 1911 by the western reckoning. By doing this, a 50-year-old would say, “I was born in 52,” which in and of itself sounds much better than “one-nine-six-three”, the literally Chinese rendering of “nineteen sixty-three” and which can easily mean “one thousand, nine hundred sixty-three” in Chinese. Such large numbers affect the sensitivities of the age-conscious females.

If you happen to be so ill-mannered, so impertinent to take the time to render the math required to figure out a woman’s age with the above cryptic answer, then you need to be aware of the Taiwanese perspectives on birthdays. From the Western point of view, it is the anniversary of the day of one’s birth, centered solely on one’s entrance into this world. From the Taiwanese attitude, the mother’s pregnancy constitutes the first year and that a newborn is already a year old at birth. Thus, it is not surprising when a six-year-old in first grade claims he is eight. You can show the child the math and explain how by western computation he is only six, but he will refuse to accept it because his mother told him he was eight. Obviously, this sort of addition doesn’t work in a middle-aged woman’s favor as it tacks on additional mileage.

Secondly, there is another word for “birthday”, one little used by the younger, more self-centered generations and has become the quasi-legal basis for the abrogation birthdays by older women. “Mŭ-làn-èr” literally translates to “mother’s difficult day”. Thus, out of respect for the pain and suffering of child delivery, one should not celebrate a birthday. This is probably the basis for why traditionally everyone became a year older at the turn of the Chinese lunar New Year and birthdays were not commemorated. Thus, my older son, who was born in January, could have been considered two years old two weeks later.

As with many newer “traditions”, the celebration of birthdays with a cake probably stems from when American servicemen were stationed on Taiwan. Of course, the Taiwanese have added their own twists to it by adding taro paste or custard pudding filling. How I miss licking the chocolate off the beater whisks when Mom made my b-day cake. Anyway, most Taiwanese children do not get any gifts for their birthdays, and birthday parties are almost unheard of. Scheduling a party between all of one’s friends’ cram school classes would be nearly impossible.

So, out of respect for my wife’s wishes, we will not be going out to dinner this weekend. She has told me not to buy her any flowers or anything for the upcoming her-mother-suffered-day. What I am going to do is wish her a happy birthday, give her a kiss and try to reassure her that she’s not getting older, she’s getting better. She probably tell me to get out of here.