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Life Stages－Birth Garland

Place：Sheung Shui
Date：1963-12-03
Observation：For a full month after a child was born in Sheung Shui the house doors were shut in order to keep out strangers and evil spirits, any of which might deliberately or unwittingly bring harm to the new-born child or its mother. The garland hung on the door warned strangers not to come in, but it also had ritual significance, bringing the positive benefits of good fortune (the red string), increase in the family (the clustering tubers of the taro root and multiple leaves of grasses), and protection of the child (a cloth shoe, its name punning into ‘protect the child’, had fallen off the door when I took the shot).