I have recently returned from a month long visit to southern China where I introduced Parent Effectiveness Training to several thousand parents. So, of course, I am especially interested in the current situation as it affects children.
A great time to be a child in China.
In many ways this is a wonderful time to be a child in China. With the one-child policy now in effect for some 35 years, almost every child is a wanted child. Even the pro-male baby bias is diminishing. It is true that the latest data still shows almost 120 baby boy births registered for every 100 girl births. It is illegal for medical personnel to reveal the gender of an in utero fetus, so abortions of females have lessened. Also, personal conversations as well as newspaper reports indicate a growing equal acceptance of boy or girl babies and several young couples told me they hoped their child would be a girl.
Children are often so valued that there is a danger of permissiveness as the child is treated as a “little emperor” or “empress”. And since grandparents will have only one grandchild, that grandchild is often the focus of extra attention, love and gifts.
While tragically there are still too many pockets of poverty, hunger and high infant mortality rates, over all trends for these matters are positive.
It was interesting to me that the matter of children participating in household chores is not an issue. “Children don’t do chores. Children study. Any parent who expects the child to participate in household care is irresponsible.” I was told this more than once.
As I watched children go to kindergarten, be on the street, or enjoy food, they seemed to be quite content.
An anxious time to be a child in China. But not everything is ideal. There is tremendous pressure on the child to be perfect, to get into the best school, especially for boys to bring honor to the family name.
Virtually all kindergartens and primary schools now have police guards at school entrances. This is in response to at least 7 attacks this year in which raging “maniacs” have attacked and killed children even as they sat in their classrooms. While the resulting number of deaths is well under 100, the news of this terrorism on children naturally has caused great anxiety for teachers, parents, and children.
There is also obvious anxiety in many youth in their late teens and early twenties. Many, especially from poor rural areas, have flocked t o the city. There they produce all those “made in China” goods. They live in cramped dormitories, work very long hours with minimum days off and send almost all their earnings home to poor parents. It takes its toll. While I was in Shen Zhen the 11th suicide of the year for this group was reported. Anxiety spreads through all of these youths and their families back home.
The national government in Beijing recently called a conference on a new parent-child issue. Surveys indicate that among the most financially successful private entrepreneurs 90% stated they hoped their child would continue their business. Yet when the children were polled, 95% said they did not want to eventually take over their parents’ enterprises.
A time for shaping the future of the world. Each morning I watched kindergartners happily enter their kindergarten. One morning they gathered outside for a moving and very patriotic national flag raising ceremony. As I watched, it hit me again: The 19th century was the century when Great Britain ruled the world. The 20th century saw the USA as the number one world power. The 21st century will be the century of China dominance. I can only hope and pray that those Chinese kindergarteners raising that flag today, who will be the leaders of the world tomorrow, will lead all of us into ways of peace, prosperity and mutual respect and into a world in which all children can live fulfilling lives.
Saturday, August 28, 2010
Monday, August 23, 2010
China: A Personal Word on Chinese Food
Of course, Chinese food is the most commonly eaten food on the planet. With its billions of people, multiple ethnic strains, varied geography, vast gap in resources and its long history, the food in China is varied beyond imagination. It has been my good fortune recently to once again spend a month in China and grab a teeny sample of its wonderfully varied cuisines.
Because of my schedule and commitments it was around midnight when I had finally finished my third dinner of that day. The next question from my host was, “Now for breakfast do you want rice noodles or flour noodles?” I made a quick decision, rice noodles. So early the next morning she was in the hotel lobby ready to take me to breakfast. We parked on a side street. I looked for the restaurant. Then I realized that I was standing in it. The restaurant was one of those sidewalk, small shop affairs where the meal is cooked on a simple, single gas burner on the curb. Guests sit on small three legged “milk-stools” and enjoy the fare. I was even asked what kind of meat I wanted with those noodles and saw the cook mix in the half teaspoon of chopped pork. It was all delicious.
In Kun Ming we went in the opposite direction. The walk-way to the very upscale restaurant was through a beautifully long curved tree lined path. At intervals along the way sat beautifully red-robed instrumentalists. Each played marvelously on traditional Chinese stringed instruments, a perfect prelude to really fine dining. It was similar to other 12- course dinners I’ve been served on special occasions. Two things were new, however. The first is that one of the early dishes was a massive platter of exquisitely prepared and presented sushi, something new for me in China. The other was that while, of course, tea, beer and soft drinks were available, this time the options included a steady supply of wonderfully aged French wine supplemented by what other guests brought with them. Several had selected their own special brand of that fiery Chinese drink called mao tie. Toasts were drunk from each variety. Food, fun, friends (old and new) made for a not to be soon forgotten evening
While on the island city of XiaMen across from Taiwan I was taken to “the best sea food restaurant in the city.” I was told that once again 12 dishes were being ordered. Each one came from the sea. Each one was going to be a delicacy that I was guaranteed to never have eaten previously. And so creatures of many sizes, shapes and flavors from the sea supplemented by fungi and other plants made for a wonderful “lunch”. When one of the dishes was served I took a healthy mouthful with my chopsticks and enjoyed it. I noticed a bit of almost imperceptible snickering at my enjoyment of the dish. Then I was told, “There is a Chinese saying attached to this particular dish. The English version is ‘If man eats this dish, woman watch out. If woman eats this dish, man watch out. If man and woman eat this dish, bed watch out!” I got it. This was an aphrodisiac. I enjoyed the food.
In the large and modern city of ShenZhen one can find to almost anything to eat that one might desire. Most of the world food chains MacDonald’s, Starbucks, Papa Johns. KFC. etc .etc.) are all there. A new one simply called Fridays was the site for several good meals. My very sophisticated host enjoyed some very simple delicacies. I especially noted her relishing chicken feet and duck tongue. I preferred the duck tongue to the chicken feet.
Great enjoyment, made both more somber, even more appreciated as I recalled that when I lived in Hong Kong 50 years ago my Chinese colleagues were trying to figure out how to just get a bit of rice across the border to their relatives where millions of Chinese were starving because of Mao TseDung’s horrendous “Great Leap Forward.” And now China is indeed leaping forward and many (including me) get to enjoy more of that marvelous Chinese food!
Because of my schedule and commitments it was around midnight when I had finally finished my third dinner of that day. The next question from my host was, “Now for breakfast do you want rice noodles or flour noodles?” I made a quick decision, rice noodles. So early the next morning she was in the hotel lobby ready to take me to breakfast. We parked on a side street. I looked for the restaurant. Then I realized that I was standing in it. The restaurant was one of those sidewalk, small shop affairs where the meal is cooked on a simple, single gas burner on the curb. Guests sit on small three legged “milk-stools” and enjoy the fare. I was even asked what kind of meat I wanted with those noodles and saw the cook mix in the half teaspoon of chopped pork. It was all delicious.
In Kun Ming we went in the opposite direction. The walk-way to the very upscale restaurant was through a beautifully long curved tree lined path. At intervals along the way sat beautifully red-robed instrumentalists. Each played marvelously on traditional Chinese stringed instruments, a perfect prelude to really fine dining. It was similar to other 12- course dinners I’ve been served on special occasions. Two things were new, however. The first is that one of the early dishes was a massive platter of exquisitely prepared and presented sushi, something new for me in China. The other was that while, of course, tea, beer and soft drinks were available, this time the options included a steady supply of wonderfully aged French wine supplemented by what other guests brought with them. Several had selected their own special brand of that fiery Chinese drink called mao tie. Toasts were drunk from each variety. Food, fun, friends (old and new) made for a not to be soon forgotten evening
While on the island city of XiaMen across from Taiwan I was taken to “the best sea food restaurant in the city.” I was told that once again 12 dishes were being ordered. Each one came from the sea. Each one was going to be a delicacy that I was guaranteed to never have eaten previously. And so creatures of many sizes, shapes and flavors from the sea supplemented by fungi and other plants made for a wonderful “lunch”. When one of the dishes was served I took a healthy mouthful with my chopsticks and enjoyed it. I noticed a bit of almost imperceptible snickering at my enjoyment of the dish. Then I was told, “There is a Chinese saying attached to this particular dish. The English version is ‘If man eats this dish, woman watch out. If woman eats this dish, man watch out. If man and woman eat this dish, bed watch out!” I got it. This was an aphrodisiac. I enjoyed the food.
In the large and modern city of ShenZhen one can find to almost anything to eat that one might desire. Most of the world food chains MacDonald’s, Starbucks, Papa Johns. KFC. etc .etc.) are all there. A new one simply called Fridays was the site for several good meals. My very sophisticated host enjoyed some very simple delicacies. I especially noted her relishing chicken feet and duck tongue. I preferred the duck tongue to the chicken feet.
Great enjoyment, made both more somber, even more appreciated as I recalled that when I lived in Hong Kong 50 years ago my Chinese colleagues were trying to figure out how to just get a bit of rice across the border to their relatives where millions of Chinese were starving because of Mao TseDung’s horrendous “Great Leap Forward.” And now China is indeed leaping forward and many (including me) get to enjoy more of that marvelous Chinese food!
Monday, August 9, 2010
China: A Very Personal View (I)
China with its thousands of years of history, billions of people and vast spaces of geography defies any simple descriptions or important insights. So while I enjoy traveling there or studying its history and being with its people, my comments must (of course) be very personal, incredibly partial, and severely biased. So having just returned from spending a month there here are a few snippets.
The Chinese: wonderfully hospitable; Once again I was the object of great unreserved hospitality. My hosts made every effort to care for me. They wanted me to have the best accommodations, most appropriate food, highest places of honor at feasts, safety on the streets and the appropriate respect for my role of teacher. When they learned I was 82 years of age and still conducting workshops they expressed a reaction almost of awe. But then they learned something else about me which raised me even higher in their estimation. They learned that the most famous movie director in China, John Woo, was a student of mine in elementary and high school. That trumped age and any other experience or set of skills I might have carried with me.
The Chinese: Ambivalence about children. Of course, Chinese. like parents everywhere, love their children. The child is the focus of love, attention, favors, and the very best education possible. I learned that only in a very few homes is a child expected to do chores, for that may distract from the child’s most important role, namely, that of being a diligent student - twenty-four-seven; year round. In their zeal to have their one and only child be all that s/he can possibly be Chinese (like parents in most parts of the world) tend to swing between severe authoritarianism (this child must do exactly as I teach it and be rewarded or punished to achieve that) or the child is king or queen, so the parent is extremely permissive and “what this wonderful and only child wants, this wonderful and only child gets!” On the other hand, in a much-needed effort to control population growth the one child per family law is still being enforced. Tragically, especially female fetuses continue to be aborted and some children with birth defects continue to be abandoned.
The Chinese: Driven by capitalism. The government may still be socialist but private entrepreneurs drive the economy. When I traveled along the coast at Xiamen, just across from Taiwan, I noticed a building which looked strikingly like the new Goldman Sacks Building on Wall Street, it suddenly hit me: in the month that I traveled only in southern China Government was convening a forum in Beijing to discuss this matter.
Chinese: Atheistic and spiritual. The Chinese “constitution” continues to declare atheism as the official position of the country. And there is plenty of evidence of a secularism in which spiritual values are dismissed as irrelevant. Concurrently there are deep undertones of spiritual yearnings and pursuits. The same organization that is promoting Parent Effectiveness is very successful in offering seminars and workshop on “Your Spiritual Being”, “Meditation” and “Higher Consciousness”. The story of Christianity in modern China is almost beyond belief. There are now many more professing Christians in China than at any time in history. Both the three-self churches (self-propagating, self-governing and self supporting) which number more than 15,000 and the more than 30,000 unauthorized house churches are growing at an unprecedented rate and estimates of the number of Christians in China run from 50 million to 100 million.
Of course, I barely stuck one toe into that vast ocean called China. I will say a little more about one other toe in those waters in my next blog.
The Chinese: wonderfully hospitable; Once again I was the object of great unreserved hospitality. My hosts made every effort to care for me. They wanted me to have the best accommodations, most appropriate food, highest places of honor at feasts, safety on the streets and the appropriate respect for my role of teacher. When they learned I was 82 years of age and still conducting workshops they expressed a reaction almost of awe. But then they learned something else about me which raised me even higher in their estimation. They learned that the most famous movie director in China, John Woo, was a student of mine in elementary and high school. That trumped age and any other experience or set of skills I might have carried with me.
The Chinese: Ambivalence about children. Of course, Chinese. like parents everywhere, love their children. The child is the focus of love, attention, favors, and the very best education possible. I learned that only in a very few homes is a child expected to do chores, for that may distract from the child’s most important role, namely, that of being a diligent student - twenty-four-seven; year round. In their zeal to have their one and only child be all that s/he can possibly be Chinese (like parents in most parts of the world) tend to swing between severe authoritarianism (this child must do exactly as I teach it and be rewarded or punished to achieve that) or the child is king or queen, so the parent is extremely permissive and “what this wonderful and only child wants, this wonderful and only child gets!” On the other hand, in a much-needed effort to control population growth the one child per family law is still being enforced. Tragically, especially female fetuses continue to be aborted and some children with birth defects continue to be abandoned.
The Chinese: Driven by capitalism. The government may still be socialist but private entrepreneurs drive the economy. When I traveled along the coast at Xiamen, just across from Taiwan, I noticed a building which looked strikingly like the new Goldman Sacks Building on Wall Street, it suddenly hit me: in the month that I traveled only in southern China Government was convening a forum in Beijing to discuss this matter.
Chinese: Atheistic and spiritual. The Chinese “constitution” continues to declare atheism as the official position of the country. And there is plenty of evidence of a secularism in which spiritual values are dismissed as irrelevant. Concurrently there are deep undertones of spiritual yearnings and pursuits. The same organization that is promoting Parent Effectiveness is very successful in offering seminars and workshop on “Your Spiritual Being”, “Meditation” and “Higher Consciousness”. The story of Christianity in modern China is almost beyond belief. There are now many more professing Christians in China than at any time in history. Both the three-self churches (self-propagating, self-governing and self supporting) which number more than 15,000 and the more than 30,000 unauthorized house churches are growing at an unprecedented rate and estimates of the number of Christians in China run from 50 million to 100 million.
Of course, I barely stuck one toe into that vast ocean called China. I will say a little more about one other toe in those waters in my next blog.
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