Modern Chinese Family Culture

Summary
  • The most significant change in Chinese family culture is the One Child Policy of 1979 that says that each household can only have one child regardless of the gender.
  • As a result of the policy, the pressure on women is heavier causing an increase in the number of suicides.
  • An extreme case related to this issue is some women actually send their fetus to the market, where restaurants can buy and create a dish out of it.
  • This policy creates a first generation of kids without siblings, and this generation is also referred to as "the generation of little emperors."
  • Without a sibling, psychologists argue that children will grow up not knowing how to share or compromise. In turn, the society has created a generation of selfish people.
  • With the change in the foundation of Chinese family culture, it is more common to see younger people moving out and living with their significant other without getting married.
  • The standard of living becomes more expensive for an individual, making it harder for only one child to take care of a whole family.
  • The number of divorces continues to rise since 1995 when it reaches a million. By 2006, there is a website dedicate to people that have been in a divorce.
chinese family
Suicide girls from China...

When the Communist came in, they created a significant change in China by passing the One Child Policy in 1979. The policy means that each Chinese family can only have one child, regardless if it is a boy or girl. This is where all hell breaks loose, because this changes the whole foundation of a family.

Before, every member in the family can rely on each other to support them in the family business, or having somebody to fall back on. Now, the pressure is much higher, because each Chinese family has only one hope to survive, and hopefully that hope is a boy. This adds more pressure on the women than before.

With more pressure, it translates into an increasing number of suicides. According to WHO (World Health Organization), every four minutes a woman in China commits suicide.

This number is weighed heavier in country areas than in the cities; this is due to the fact of less education in the countryside. As a whole, more women commit suicide than men (common sense). If a woman cannot give birth to a boy, she will probably get an abortion.

Here is a disturbing fact. Some women do not have enough money, and know that they are having a girl. The women will take their fetus to the market and sell it.

Many of the restaurants will actually buy fetus to serve as food to some customers. I don't know where they are selling it, but the best bet will be in Guangdong.

If you are into that, by all mean enjoy. For the people that don't, which includes me, we should get in contact will each other, and hunt the people who do. You can contact me here (another successful attempt to promote the website).

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Raphita Tobing