Week 6&7 - City Homestay

So the past two weeks i have been living with a Han Chinese family in Kunming. The mother is a teacher, the father is a police officer and they have an 8 year old boy. The father's parents are also living with them temporarily.

 

I love the mother and grandmother. The mother teaches English and is a very strong woman. She grew up on a farm and moved to the city to teach. We have had lots of interesting personal conversations about her life and her feelings about Chinese women. And the grandmother is just a very sweet old lady that is a lot of fun.

 

The father is not around very often sometimes working nights, sometimes days, so it has been hard to set an opinion about him or learn that much. The grandfather is also quiet and I think a little more hindered by the language barrier than the grandmother.

 

 The child is a terror to be conservative. The single most misbehaved and undisciplined being I have ever met... however he is 8... and a boy... so I do understand what that means and I do feel for his mother. But in the 2 weeks I have been here the child has squirted random passer-bys with waterguns from the window, wrote "you are crazy" on the bed sheets, hit his mother and ran around the house half naked because he had to take a bath instead of playing video games, and sat in front of the TV until he had to be physically removed to do his homework.

Typical little kid stuff?

 

Anyway... it brought up a very enlightening conversation about the "one child policy" (note: this is an American term, the Chinese have never called it a "one child policy" nor is it one) I thought after learning and talking with a lot of women here, Americans might be interested to know some facts of the birth control policy in China.

 

1) If each parent is an only child than they may chose to have another child

2) Because property laws pass property to the son, many counties will allow a family to have a 2nd child if the first is a girl

3) Rural residents may have 2 or 3 based on the province

4) Many woman (almost ALL of who I have talked to) like girls and also only want one child

5) Minorities (those who are not Han) are not bound by these laws so they can increase their dwindling population (i.e Tibetans can have basically as many kids as they want)

6) The policy basically only comes down to affecting 35% of the population

 

I thought some people might like to know some facts, I won't tell people what to think. I think what matters is how the Chinese people think and even those that are allowed more than one child have said they don't want another.

 

One issue that was brought up that I find funny is the "little emperor syndrome" where basically little boys think they are kings... I have found this very evident in my homestay brother. ><

 

So I have one more weekend here and then it is off on our 2 week field trip and rural homestay. I will post pictures of the apartment and family when I have access to my own computer again :)

 

Zaijian!

April