May I pinch your nose?

We are always amazed as to how much this culture has to offer that we don’t yet understand. The other day I was in a store with an American friend. I noticed two women staring and giggling at us while they were leaving the store. I thought this was strange, especially for this culture. In America I would think that these women were interested in us, but here I know how improper it would be for women to act that way.

Five minutes later they came back to the store and walked up directly to my friend. In Indonesian one said, “Excuse me, my friend here is pregnant. She is having a pregnancy craving and would like to pinch your nose. Your nose is very pointy. May she pinch it?”

Wow, I had heard how here in Indonesia, pregnant women don’t necessarily crave food. On the contrary, they usually crave to do something, and technically it isn’t the woman’s craving but the babies. If a pregnancy craving is not fulfilled in this culture they believe that their baby will either drool for years, have a cleft pallet, or be mentally retarded. All because the baby will always crave that thing that they never received. The lady was probably also hoping that her baby would be born with a pointy nose like my friend. I hear most women here spend a lot of time pinching their babies noses after birth so that maybe it will grow to be pointy instead of small.

After discussing the situation briefly with me, my friend decided that he mine as well let her pinch his pointy nose. At this point everyone in the store had stopped what they were doing, and they were staring at us. The pregnant lady quickly and gently pinched my friends nose. She was so happy to have been able to do it, and I suppose we were happy not to be considered responsible if the baby was born with problems.