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Monday, May 25th, 2015

China’s little emperors – the children without siblings

Author:     Xinran Xue
Source:     The Guardian (U.K.)
Publication Date:     Saturday 23 May 2015 01.00 EDT
 Link: China’s little emperors – the children without siblings
Stephan:   If you read SR regularly you know I have been following the social outcomes arising from China's 30 year on-child-per-family program. China is on track to be the most powerful country in the world.  And its leadership will come entirely from men and women, who had no siblings. Think of that psychology at a mass level. This is why I place so much attention into the equation of social policies and their social outcomes. Here is the latest on the one-child trend, written by such a child, now an adult.  This trend is going to have enormous consequences for the world, and yet is happening almost unremarked by American media.
Credit: Xinran Xue/Guardian

Credit: Xinran Xue/Guardian

One day in October 2001, I made my way to Heathrow airport to pick up the son of a family friend. This was in the days before Chinese students had started coming in numbers to the UK and a tall, skinny Chinese youth standing at the airport exit was quite noticeable.

Du Zhuang, frail and as insubstantial as plasterboard, was pushing his suitcase with one hand, and holding his phone with the other. He was not looking around, but listening to the person on the other end with single-minded devotion. On his face was the serious, almost devout, expression of someone receiving an edict from the emperor.

It was only when I was standing right in front of him that he finally looked at me, and smiled. In those days, Chinese people did not hug or exchange pecks on the cheek, while shaking hands was for grownups only.Instead, Du Zhuang passed me his mobile phone, saying, “My mother’s been waiting to speak to you!”

Hearing her shout down the phone it was as though […]

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