Dec 21 2009
One child policy
As you may know, China has a ‘one-child-policy’. It basically means that you can only have one child (and if you have more, it costs a lot of money). I never realized what this law really means.
It’s not just that you don’t have brothers. Your parents do not have brothers, too. So you don’t have an uncles or aunts. And you also do not have any cousins. In fact, there’s almost no family – certainly nothing in your own age group!
I understand the need for such a law – China’s population is big (1.4B or so) – and if it grows too much, they won’t be able to feed themselves (China does not need to import any food, currently, and it matters a lot to them). But it’s oh-so controversial…
Interestingly, China has a new law now, that if a couple are both from one-child families, they are allowed to have 2 babies. A slight improvement…
I never thought about Chinese families not having aunts, uncles and cousins. But that is very true. Observing from an American stand-point this is very different to me. Especially since I’m from the south. Our families are very large and fairly tight knit. Found your blog through FuelMyBlog. Very interesting!