Reading "One Child"
I spent most of my break writing college essays. During these writing marathons, I would have long periods of time where I physically could not look at my essays. So, I turned to my copy of "One Child" by Mei Fong. The GIP program had generally loaned me this book so that I could read it before welcoming Mei Fong to Poly in March.
Mei Fong (方鳯美, Fang Fengmei) grew up in Malaysia and attended the National University of Singapore. After getting her master's degree from Columbia, she worked for The Wall Street Journal, reporting in Hong Kong and Beijing. She left WSJ in 2013 and began writing her book, One Child, about the socioeconomic implications of the CCP's one child policy, which was replaced by the two child policy in late 2015.
For context, here's a timeline of how the CCP addressed population growth:
- In the 1960s-70s, China experienced a huge baby boom. The CCP was encouraging people to have more, saying that China needed the huge population boost for rapid industrialization with popular slogans like "More kids means more grandkids means better fortune" (多子多孙多福气).
- Then, as the government realized that China did not have enough resources to account for a rapidly expanding population, they began releasing slogans promoting fewer children with "Later, Longer, Fewer" campaign (晚稀少).
- In 1980, the government dropped the one child policy, completely halting this boom.
- From 1980-2015, there were several changes to the one child policy, granting exceptions to certain conditions in rural China and letting ethnic minorities escape this regulation. Also, at some point, some parents could have two children if they were both only children.
- In late 2015, the government replaced the one child policy with the two child policy.
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| “计划生育好处多", "The benefits of family planning are many" |
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| “独生子女光荣”, "Only children are glorious" |
Fong begins the book by talking about the Sichuan earthquake. When the quake hit, a generation was wiped out because of a mixture of shoddy school infrastructure and the one child policy. She followed a Sichuan couple in Beijing who rushed back to Shifang to find their child, who had died from the quake. The couple was later forced to sign a government agreement saying "I pledge to come back to normal life and normal production as soon as possible" (p. 21). The stories that followed this one example of the failures of the one child policy are vivid and heart-wrenching.
Fong then examines many more perspectives on this policy than I thought existed. There's the idea of raising a generation of "little emperors" and runaway brides. She also describes the unequal gender balance and its social implications. She wrote that "In 2008, economists showed that a 1 percent increase in China's gender ratios increased violet and property crime rates between 5 and 6 percent. Researchers estimated that the 'increasing maleness' of China's young adult population could account for as much as a third of the overall rise in crime" (p. 115). Furthermore, "one in four women in China confronts domestic violence" (p. 115). It was increasingly harder for men to marry, and women who are still single after 30 are shunned and called "leftover women." Also, the legal age for marriage is 20 for women and 22 for men. This marriage issue, Fong pointed out, is further exacerbated by the hypergamous culture where "women marry up and men marry down." Thus, educated women are finding it hard to find men to marry and are turning to adult education workshops that promote deference to men.
She points out that the policy has, overall, benefited the urban Chinese female because more women are receiving a college education than ever in China, but the trade-offs are great. Infanticide for women in the countryside is prevalent, and trafficking in surrounding countries is being a serious issue for rural China.
Another facet of Chinese culture to consider is the growing elderly population. The average lifespan has extended significantly since WWII, from 39 to 74 years old. By the mid 2020s, there would be an additional 10 million elders and a loss of around 7 million workers in Chinese society. By 2050, it was estimated that 1/3 people in China would be older than 60. Fong mentioned the rise of the saying that "China will grow old before it grows rich." Deference to one's elders is a huge part of Chinese culture, but the one child policy makes it difficult for a married couple to take care of 2 sets of parents, a child, and sometimes 4 sets of grandparents. This is why even when the one child policy was lifted, few couples chose to have an extra child. In 1996, a law required children to support their aging parents because of China's growing elderly population. Later, in 2013, a new law that children must visit their parents frequently was established, with one of the most popular cases ordering a woman to visit her mother once every two months. However, neither of these laws are easy to enforce, but they echo China's fear that the elderly population cannot be taken care of. On top of this, even though most city residents are covered by government pension, only a fourth of rural residents are covered.
Fong also discusses adoption. American media sensationalized the idea of helpless female infants who were abandoned in the countryside because of the one child policy, and as a result, China became by far America's largest source for adoptions. It seems most ethical to adopt from China, a place where stories of baby kidnapping were initially nontexistent. However, human trafficking and kidnapping has also become a huge problem in the adoption industry because of the one child policy.
Finally, Fong consistently highlights her own pregnancy issues throughout the book as a parallel to her journey around China. After experiencing a miscarriage and more fertility issues, she decides to undergo IVF treatment in China, which fails. During this time, she examines how Chinese people sometimes use IVF treatment to obtain twins or surrogate mothers to have more kids. There are a multitude of ways for Chinese couples to go around the law, but they all involve a significant amount of money, whether that be through fines or treatment. In general, the richer have more opportunities to bend the law and have more kids, while the poorer have to abide by the restrictive and sometimes inhumane regulations. Finally, she has a boy after an IVF treatment in America.
While reading this book, I constantly thought back to myself—a Chinese-born immigrant with an American-born brother. My parents were the elite who could escape the one-child restriction by moving to America. When I studied in Beijing, I lived with a host family similar to my own family but who only had a daughter my age. My host family hosted so that their family could feel a little bigger during the school year. I saw what could've been me in my host sister—one trapped by the suffocating education system with no sibling support and with traditional Chinese values crushing many of my aspirations.
I'm glad to have had the opportunity to read One Child, and I'm excited to hear Mei Fong continue her discussion at Poly in March.
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