From her I learned that yes, families sometimes believe that men can do more farm work than women, but she does not see families still relying on that too much. A child of either sex is successful if he or she studies hard, so whether a daughter or son is born to you doesn’t truly matter much anymore. She says that as a female, the last thing you want to do is be a housewife and depend on a man, for one becuase there aren’t really enough men to go around and this life strategy can be disasterous. She said there are many women who are highly educated and never marry, something which she says is not stygmatized at all. She called them something like the “3 highs” because they have high education, high income, and high age (I am not 100% sure I know what she meant with “high age”).

In addition, I learned that the one child policy is not as uniform as we believe it is, or at least as I believed it was. She says if both parents come from a single-child family, they can have two kids.

I found this extremely interesting, so I thought I’d share.
This comes from a 21-year-old girl who studies at Peking University, finishing her bachelor’s and has already been accepted to their Master’s program with full tuition waved.

One last thing I want to mention, because she said this Chinese saying to me and I can’t get it out of my mind: “Knowledge changes fate”. I think that absolutely hits home for me, and just wanted to pass this on because I feel that is a very powerful saying and explains so much about their culture, but can also be applied to our own lives at this point in time.

(As a side note, I find the title’s double entendre to be dangerously close to offensive.)

Regarding JingWei’s experiences and observations of child rearing in China and Elisabeth’s similar experience (and Gary’s quote about furthuring individuals vs. family), one has to read Richard Dawkin’s ground breaking work in 1976, She Selfish Gene, to understand why that’s the case. The book also helps explain why grandparents are often involved in bringing up their offsprings. In America, we have a highly developed, specialist-oriented post-industrial society where we outsource almost everything. The role of the family needs to be reexamined here as every service and function a family provides as an economic unit can be purchased, sometimes more cheaply, from outside. We hire nannies, send kids to schools, have a teacher/coach for anything from piano and violin and soccer, tennis, and modeling, use an entourage of gardeners, plumbers, carpenters, handymen to maintain our houses, and work with a psychiatrist because we don’t now how to discipline kids (please watch the cable show “Honey we are killing the kids”). In China, generalists still rule and women perform the many and various duties in their society.

Finally, what’s the meaning of life? Are advances in economics the same as advances in culture? Can a poor country develop highly advanced civilization? Can poor men (and women) be happy or happier than their richer counterparts? It’s NOT how much one makes; it’s how much one buys the many neccessities and indulgences every month and how much one saves in the end of the month that matters. $5000 a month here will leave you nothing in the end of the month (Americans savings rates are around -0.5% in 2005) while 5000RMB a month in China (RMB is a mere 1/8 of USD) will likely buy all the luxuries of a middle class living, a moderate house, a small car maybe, and a whopping 40% savings rate! So, who is richer?

While we are not likely to see the real China in this trip, we will experience what many Chinese experience, even though they live in the three most advanced cities, in their everyday life. We will discover how affordable life can be outside of our 4-star hotels.

Since women had been surpressed by tradition for a very long time in Chinese histroy, Chinese government created laws and policies to protect women rights. These laws and policies are being perfected while new laws and being added. Politically, there must be women representative in each part of the government. For example, Ms. Wu Yi became one of the vice presidents of China before Ms. Rice took over the secretary of state. Before being a vice president, Ms. Wu served as a top officer of department of commerce of China for a long time. In addition, Chinese women have one benefit that American women don’t - a date for women, March 8. It’s not a holiday, in which ladies still have to work like normal. However, companies and business (I’m not sure if foreign companies and investments do this) specially treat all their female employee. Usually women are treated a nice gathering dinner, or a cash bonus for this special day, or a one-to-two-day trip. This is how China appreciate women’s contribution.

I totally agree with Elisabeth’s comments. That’s the main reason why I’m here with you guys. I’m the only child. It was a very tough decision for both myself and my parents to being apart for years. In order for me to be more competitive, they decided to send me away and I decided to accept their decision. I actually rejected the first time they asked, with chance I could have come 3 years earlier. The preference of a son is partly originated from the need of working power. I thing it’s still be part of the reason now. The ability to carry on the family name is another main reason. This is rooted in our tradition. However, it’s evidently that those who are educated and exposed to the world don’t have such mind dead-set anymore. In fact, there are increasing number of people prefer a daughter now because the claim a daughter will be more closed and more likely to take care of the parents when the parents become old.

Before going to Emile’s question, I would conclude that women are not discriminated in terms of their abilty to work in business in China, since they are able to receive salary as a man in the same position, as well as being able to have equal opportunity to climb up the stair.

Emile, you’re on the right track. What I meant in my last message was not to match what you may earn in China with the life expense in United State. It’s very reasonable to assume that if you work in China, you’re going to live in China for that period, unless it is a short term business trip or assignment. Therefore, what you earn is going to be spent at where you earn. So, $20,000 is low income in US, while 160,000RMB is considered to be high income in China.

I’m not surprised by what you said about the three wealthy cities. I think it would be very easy for people to visit the more developed cities and assume all of China is as affluent as those cities. I hope we will be able to see and appreciate the real parts of China.

The simple answer to the complex question appears to be economics. If you have a higher earning potential than your parents, it makes sense that you would be the one working. However, the social implications of the varying concepts of childhood and upbringing definitely would need to go much deeper then that. Thanks for the book recommendation. Sounds like I have quite a few reasons to read that.