I did struggle however with having someone else giving me very specific particular 'rules' for how to look after my baby at that time (no bright sunlight, no letting them cry even if its just while changing their nappy, no going outside for the first month, how to dress them, etc).

Hopefully women of all backgrounds will realize it's not just a Western thing, or just a white thing, or just a ____ thing. I had a “mix” confinement, in that my mother moved out the day the baby came home (my parents previously lived with me 5yr prior).

The supremely talented Michelle Yeoh plays Evelyn Wang, the exhausted owner of a Laundromat who discovers not only that she exists in a multiverse, but that she is the superhero tasked with saving it from its greatest threat: an alternate version of her daughter. I thought I was disappointing her when I caved in after two days and took a shower, and I felt anxious asking for her “permission” to leave my own house when I couldn’t stand being trapped indoors anymore. The emphasis on emotional restraint, the stigma against mental illness, and the desire to “save face” might prevent some Asian women from admitting they need help or from seeking help. The ’90s was her heyday, when Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club (1989) took the literary world, and then Hollywood, by storm.

Also, I completely know what you mean about the Asian culture being open to "alternative medicines" but skeptical about modern medicine. Reading The School for Good Mothers and meeting Jessamine herself sent me down the path to finding the mantra that came to me in Inyoung’s house.

Thankfully I am in touch with myself enough to realize that this wasn’t normal, and marched myself off to a doctor, saving face be dammed! Finally, Asian cultures operate on the concept of “saving face,” which requires doing whatever you can to preserve your dignity and honor. I found it quite helpful – I am an Anglo-Australian, but my husband is Asian-Australian (Chinese-Singaporean ethnicity). Even if other symptoms are listed in the pamphlets, they usually only emphasize the depression part.

There is also definitely a stigma in the Asian culture against mental illness, often rooted in superstition (eg: a person suffering from mental illness has “bad luck”).

MailOnline remarked “Some of the mothers look so similar to their daughters it is difficult to tell them apart and instead they look like sisters. I’m Korean-American and I couldn’t stand having my Mom stay with us after I give birth– So thank God she still works! Before I had my second child, my mom also told me “not to cry as much” because it was bad for my eyes (due to the tears affecting my hot/cold balance). A Memoir in Nine Adventures , Jane Wong’s Meet Me Tonight in Atlantic City, and Delia Cai’s Central Places ; in film, there are rumblings of sequels to The Joy Luck Club and Crazy Rich Asians. To anyone watching, the message was clear: Asian American motherhood was a trend that could pass, not an identity to be represented.