A bolster is a long narrow pillow

Pillow

A pillow is a large cushion support for the head, usually used while sleeping in a bed, or for the body as used on a couch or chair. There are also throw pillows , which are pillows that are purely decorative and not designed for support or comfort...

 or cushion

Cushion

A cushion is a soft bag of some ornamental material, stuffed with wool, hair, feathers, polyester staple fiber, non-woven material, or even paper torn into fragments. It may be used for sitting or kneeling upon, or to soften the hardness or angularity of a chair or couch...

 filled with cotton, down, or fibre. In western countries, it is usually placed at the head of bed and functions as head or back support. In south and southeast Asian countries, in particular Vietnam

Vietnam

Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...

, Philippines

Philippines

The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...

, Indonesia

Indonesia

Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...

, Malaysia, Singapore

Singapore

Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...

, and Thailand

Thailand

Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...

, the bolster is designed to be hugged when sleeping. In Vietnam, it is called "gối ôm" meaning "hugging pillow." It is called a dakimakura

Dakimakura

A ' is a type of large pillow from Japan. The word is often translated in English simply as "hug pillow". From a semantic standpoint, dakimakura are no different from Western orthopedic body pillows, and are commonly used by Japanese youth as "security objects"...

in Japanese. In the Philippines, many call it the "hotdog pillow" (or more natively, "tandayan") following the close resemblance to the food bearing that name. In Chinese, its hanyu pinyin is "bao zhen" (lit. "hugging pillow"). In Cantonese, it is called a "Lam Chum". The Indonesian/Malay folks called it "bantal peluk" or "bantal guling". In the Indo-Pak Sub Continent, it is also called Gao-Takkiya, and is used for back support as well as to hug when going to sleep. In the United States, "body pillows" resemble bolsters and are designed to be hugged when sleeping.

Tradition suggests that a wife would fashion the bolster out of bamboo and give it to her husband when he traveled away from home so that he would not be lonely at night, hence the name "bamboo wife," or "Dutch wife

Dutch wife

Dutch wife may refer to:* a long body-length pillow better known as a dakimakura* a Zhufuren, a wicker or bamboo pillow-shaped "cage" which is kept in the bed on hot nights to improve air circulation* a prostitute* a sex doll* a hot water bottle...

," or chikufujin in Japanese.