...but laowai remain exempt

[con's fly is open]

China won't ease one-child policy

Thursday, June 9, 2005 Updated at 3:23 AM EDT

Associated Press

Beijing ¡ª China on Thursday said it will expand aid to rural couples with only one child to promote family planning, but will not ease its three-decade-old one-child policy to limit population growth.

China limits most couples to one child, but allows some poor couples to have a second child if the first is a girl.

Rural Chinese families depend on their offspring to support them in old age, and have traditionally valued sons over daughters for their earning power.

In a pilot program that will be expanded this year to 1.35 million people, rural couples over age 60 who have one child or two girls will receive at least 600 yuan ($72 U.S.) a year in aid, officials said.

The program will be expanded nationwide next year, said Pan Guiyu, vice-minister for family planning.

Ms. Pan refused to characterize it as an incentive program, and denied that China was moving away from penalizing couples who break the rules.

Slowing population growth is ¡°a long-term, arduous task for us,¡± she said. ¡°Family planning as a national policy will remain unchanged.¡±

[con's fly is open]

Now, I realize that the humungous human population puts a strain on the land, but I wonder about the aging demographic.
What are they gonna do in 10 years, when so many folks will be too old to work? How about 20?

Does anyone know a site with detailed demographic studies of China? How big a crisis will this become? At what point in time should they allow more than one per family?

[Lotus Eater]

One of my Chinese friends wants to go to England to have her baby there - technically making the child English, and then return here to have another one. Or vice versa - have this first one here, head off to the UK, get pregnant, have the baby and come back. Would that work?

I think the easiest thing for her to do is to divorce the current husband, marry a guy with no children, have another one (doesn't matter if it is his or the first husbands) , divorce him and then remarry the one she really wants to be married to in the first place.

[Ruth]

Seems like a really convoluted way to go about things. Does she really want two children that badly?

600 kuai a year. Geesh. Makes me feel guilty to be earning what I earn here. Those people work harder than I do, too.

[con's fly is open]

You said it, Ruth.

Lotus, WHERE do these chicks hang out? I voice a wish to have both a son AND a daughter, and they look at me like I just came out of the closet.
"What if you have 2 sons or 2 daughters?"
"Then I want a third."
"Uhh,... (no sudden moves, prepare a leather wallet in case Con has a seizure)... negaaah, what if 3 sons or daughters?"
"Then I'll give up. I've got three, that's pretty cool."
"Most Chinese women want only one."

Many Canadian women, too. Maybe I'll end up with a fellow laowai.

[acjade]

When chinese people ask me if I have children and I reply that I have two sons they look at me as though I've won the national lottery.
And my female students have some collective plan to make my sons fall in love with them, marry them and make Cinderella into a reality. It aint gonna happen.

[Ruth]

yup, I've got two sons and get the same reaction. And my step-daughter has 3 sons, so when I do the family tree thing on the board she gets lots of ooo's and aah's. Then I throw in that my cousin has 5 sons - no daughters.

[con's fly is open]

In your small town, your cousin must be a folk hero. . Me, if I end up with a bunch of sons and no daughters, I'll feel cheated- might resort to adopting one.

[gengrant]

Last year National Geographic TV ran a special on the "Lost Daughters of China" with Lisa Ling and said that in 10 years or less, China would have so few girls that almost 25% of the male population would not be able to find wives...the head honcho in charge of pop. control said that he predicted rioting and other violence if the trend wasn't slowed or even reversed...

they even showed some of the women who were kidnapped and sold as wives to rural fellas (but who had obviously escaped) for less than 300 dollars U.S.

Going to be interesting when all these guys get to be young adults and want to find a bride...maybe they can share the women?



and as for Con's comment on adopting...me and my better half did adopt our daughter last year from China...Jiangxi Province...she's now 2 years old...we're obviously bringing her with us when we return to China in July! That will be interesting to say the least...

[Ruth]

My husband and I, both blond hair and blue eyes, took a Chinese student (12 year old girl) to Beijing with us during the May holidays. Poor kid kept getting asked if she was Chinese. Not an unusual question, given the company she was keeping (us!), but it began to irritate her. She thought that since she has black hair and eyes that it should be obvious.

[Newbs]

Ruth you know that's really pretty sad.

It's sad for the kid, because as soon as she is with a couple of westerners, she's as good as an outsider. We all have experienced some $hite here in China (eg. "Hello") and I want it to stop, but not by getting 12yo Chinese to feel alienated from their culture.

It's sad that "everyone" asked if she was Chinese. It just shows that the people here have virtually never been taught to think outside the square.

Does any of this make sense? My Australian Football team had a big win today over their arch rivals, so I'm on to my second bottle of Siwo beer. Go the mighty Dees

[burlives]

You bastard! And you have XiHu within a 5 minute walk, albeit a 25 minute drunken amble.


Are laowai exempt?

A child born in China to a Chinese is Chinese, is it not? Unless the bearer has alternative citizenship, in which case she too is not Chinese.

[Newbs]

You bastard! And you have XiHu within a 5 minute walk, albeit a 25 minute drunken amble.

Correction, a 1 minute walk, allow me to prove that right now...






























Well, we're both right. It's a 1 minute walk or a 25 minute drunken ramble.

Shall I sing the old club song for you?

[Ruth]

newbs said:

Ruth you know that's really pretty sad.
It's sad for the kid,

I felt really badly about the whole thing. We made her laugh about it a couple of times, but I could tell it was really bothering her. Once a group of ladies were carrying on a conversation about us (unbeknownst to me, of course). ML (my little friend) didn't let on she understood them and they didn't address her. Not pleasant for her at all.

Last week I went to Beijing with ML and her mother. On this trip she said to me, 'No one is asking if I'm Chinese, now, because (Crippler) isn't with us and my mother is.'

[Nate M]

connell said:

Now, I realize that the humungous human population puts a strain on the land, but I wonder about the aging demographic.
What are they gonna do in 10 years, when so many folks will be too old to work? How about 20?

Does anyone know a site with detailed demographic studies of China? How big a crisis will this become? At what point in time should they allow more than one per family?

I'm pretty sure I read a report from a group of American demographers who went to China to advise the government when they first introduced the one-child policy. They did predict disaster, but the government obviously took no heed. One of the things they predicted was, as pointed out before, the sexual imbalance. I personally believe that in the next 15 years or so women are going to become very, very powerful in China. You're already starting to see it, (even if it is based on an undercurrent of sexism), that women in China from poor backgrounds tend to be more upwardly mobile than poor men, although currently that usually only takes them to the middle class, as it's men who want pretty assistants, floor models, concubines, etc, that still run the show.

The problems with men without wives could turn out to be very real. Then again, I still meet tons of guys with standards so out of whack it's crazy. I mean, sometimes I just wanna grab them and say "Hey, look kid. You're a 20- year old 5'2" pizza face who's hobbies include picking your nose and playing CS. You have absolutely no business complaining about the looks of any girls, much less call any "fat" because they weigh a hair over 90 lbs!" Seriously, I can't believe how many guys still think they're going to marry 19 year old, virgin, Gong Li look-a-likes, and then wonder why they're still virgins themselves.

[Steiner]

A bloody war with Taiwan could go a long way towards restoring the gender balance.

[con's fly is open]

Steiner, perhaps you were joking, but they'd have to kill off at least 10 million more guys to make any impact on the demographics. This could be a very nasty, violent place in another generation.

Ruth, sorry about the grief your friend endured, but she's 12 now, and that's old enough to learn that most adults are stupid.

This huge imbalance in gender, and people are still sneaking their daughters off to the orphanages so they can have a boy. Why haven't they figured out that girls are now more valuable than their counterparts?

[acjade]

It's collective narcissism - a cultural trait of the Chinese. But they're only kids. Who were you dreaming of laying at 20? I'm still waiting for Johnny Depp.
I actually those guys who don't find brides will be the ones lurking in computer bars. I can't see women wanting more than one husband so totally against women's psyche/biology. But what I can see is the world's biggest Mardi Gras. Or a new angle on marriage. A lonely bachelor finds a lubbly Chinese girl and marries her. When the realities of marriage kick in they get divorced, the guy moves back into the computer bar and someone else woos newly divorced woman. ... ring -a-ring -of rosy.
And in a society in which women were reduced/ forced into concubinage it would be a massive karmic turn around for the little lonely chappies to have to line up outside the door...

[Nate M]

Who were you dreaming of laying at 20? I'm still waiting for Johnny Depp.

Well, for one, I'm not much over 20, (ok, 23), so I don't think I'm too out of step with what it's like to be a 20 year old male. Of course everyone has a "dream lover", the difference is that most people in the rest of the world actually are able to recognize that this is just a dream and in fact are able to see beauty in people that don't look like "insert sexy model/movie star's name here", and who might have had sex with someone before they met you. That's something I see as severely lacking in a lot of Chinese males.

Narcissism, as you pointed out, is probably a big factor here. I think, though, that collective insecurity is probably an even bigger factor, particularly regarding the issue of virginity and sex before marriage. I think a lot of guys are afraid of actually talking to girls for fear of rejection, and are deathly afraid of a woman who might be more sexually experienced than they are. It's an issue of power, and I think a lot of Chinese males feel the need to be in the driver's seat at all times, (even more than we Western men, who can be plenty insecure and controlling in our own right).

So instead, they set completely unrealistic goals for themselves, retreat to computer bars, and feel sorry for themselves, instead of actually taking the chance of talking to a girl who might take an interest in them.

As far as the future this holds, I'm definately leaning more towards your second idea than your first. Outside of the pink hair salons, most Chinese girls still have pretty traditional values forced down them and for the most part they seem to swallow it, (although there are definately exceptions to that, I'll grant). Personally, after reading an article today, I have a feeling the Chinese are going to start taking a cue from the Mormon colonies in the U.S. and institute something like this:

news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/latimests/20050613/ts_latimes/losttotheonlylifetheyknew

[Ruth]

That's quite an article, Nate. Unbelievable in this day and age in America. What people do in the name of religion.

[con's fly is open]

I'd say Nate mostly nailed it. Add to that the government and educational propaganda they get showered with, telling them to eschew sexual contact until they're 25 (what perfect protection against happiness and self-discovery).
Sadly, the majority of them seem to genuinely believe what The Man tells them. How can they NOT be total nerds with girls?