library

so, as i have already written about, every wednesday i go to the library to read chinese magazines. recently i have discovered this magazine called 'china,' which is basically like the newsweek of china. it's perfect reading, the articles are all about 1-3 pages, which is a good length, given my slow reading speed, and they are much much more interesting than the newspaper, which mainly has articles on things like traveling car shows. i read this really fascinating article called 'second child hopes,' which was all about the 1 child policy. the article identified about four major trends in chinese society. the article said that many people, generally the urban middle class, really only want one child. raising a child is expensive and time consuming, and most people feel they can't maintain their lifestyle and have more than one kid. of course, maybe it's kind of a chicken-and-egg phenomenon, because after all, having only one child meant parents (and grandparents) could lavish their kids with piano lessons and golf lessons and extra math tutors and english lessons and dance lessons and cell phones, etc. but now, it's kind of become a vicious cycle: if you want your child not to fall behind, you need to make sure that you provide lots of expensive extras to make sure your child becomes accomplished and successful. (dan has 7 and 8 year olds who are taking journalism lessons to give them poise). also, many people are concerned about china's overpopulation problems and many of the practical problems that resulted. as my friend said, for her, getting into college was a stressful overly competetive nightmare, and grad school is just as hard, given that there are too many qualified people for not enough spots.--she said that she would do anything to make sure her child's life will be easier, and that the best way of doing that was only having one child. that many people support the law for socially conscious reasons shouldn't be surprising, yet the way we talk about it in america, it's as though it's merely yet another form of oppression heaped upon a long suffering people. (when i told that to one of my students, she laughed, and said that americans were really different). of course, the article mentioned that many people want a second child, but they can't afford to pay the fine (about $1200) for having a second birth. in chinese, there's a saying "you er you nu cai suan hao ming" or, only when you have a boy and a girl do you have a good life. not having a birth certificate, aka having an illegal birth means that your child cannot get a residence permit or legally enroll in school, which pretty much guarantees that your child will be on the fringes of society. of course, the article pointed out that many people do have more than one child, mainly wealthy people for whom 1200 bucks is nothing, and people from small villages who often have extra children outside of the law. some people are allowed to have more kids, especially in the countryside. for example, if your first child is a girl, you are allowed to have another. though sometimes, the article said, it means there are single child families with one boy, and parents who desperately want a girl. of course, in the country there are also many families with two girls who really want a boy.
it's interesting, two questions i always ask people are "how many siblings do you have?" and/or "how many kids do you have?" many people answer, one, of course, there's a single child law. however, when i asked our security guard how many siblings he had, he said two, a younger brother and sister. i asked him how his family was able to have three kids, and he just gave me a puzzled look and said, why wouldn't my parents be able to have more than one kid? i was very confused.
this week i started an article on food safety in china, which i don't know if i really should talk about on the blog, i mean, i'm not sure if i really want to read about it myself. somehow finding out much of my food is produced in unsanitary conditions near open cesspits isn't exactly what i want to know, considering i don't really have the option of not eating. in this case, ignorance is bliss--though actually, the statistic in the article that every day, 500 people get food poisoning in china actually seems really low, considering--1) the hygienic standards at most restaurants i've seen, and b) that there are 1.3 billion people in china.