Avoiding China’s “one-child” Policy

November 29, 2010

In 2008, France 24 International News reported how one Chinese couple wanted to have more than one child and how the couple used loopholes in the one-child policy to have three.

The mother’s first child was a boy, and she was desperate to have a girl. 

Since fines are less for a second child if delivered in a remote province, the couple moved south from Shanghai.

However, the mother discovered she was pregnant again soon after the birth of the second child, a girl.  

The doctor told her that because of her health she couldn’t have an abortion.

Now, due to where the children were born, they will not be allowed to attend school in Shanghai. The mother is upset because she says rural schools are not as good as urban schools.

She also may resent the fact that wealthy Chinese businessmen, television and movie stars often avoid the one-child policy since they have money to pay the fines. Ten percent of rich Chinese have three children and this practice is spreading among the upper-middle class.

Since the early 1900s, state control of the life of individuals has diminished.

Peng Xizhe, dean of social development and public policy at Fudan University, says “In the Maoist era everyone was controlled by his work unit. It’s over now. Many workers are independent. It becomes more and more difficult for the government to pressure people to having only one child.”

In fact, according to experts, China will slip into a two-child policy in several years.

Learn more at Reversing China’s “one-child” Policy

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

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Basketball Great Yao Ming Interviewed by China Daily

November 28, 2010

The embedded ten-minute video of the China Daily interview with Yao Ming is in Mandarin with English subtitles.

For those who don’t know who Yao Ming is, he was born in Shanghai, China in 1980.  When he was twenty-two, Yao Ming came to the US.

Today he plays for the Houston Rockets of the National Basketball Association and is currently the tallest player in the NBA at 2.29 meters or 7 feet 6 inches.

Before Yao Ming came to the US, he played for the Shanghai Sharks as a teen then played on their senior team for five years in the Chinese Basketball Association.

Watching the China Daily interview revealed another side to this gentle giant. A brief abridged transcript of the interview is provided.

The People Daily interview took place in July 2010 shortly before a charity game held in Beijing. The reporter conducting the interview is Yu Yilei

Yu Yilei – Your charity game will be held in Beijing. What idea do you want to convey through it?

Yao Ming – The main purpose of the game is to help kids in Sichuan and other remote areas to rebuild their schools. In addition, we want to tell the public that people like us, who live in big cities, have the responsibility and obligation to help others.

It (the charity) was actually Steve Nash’s idea. Nash had a friend who was an entrepreneur in China, and he’d been concerned about China’s education in its remote areas.  It was an early time, the beginning of 2007.

I said I needed to think it over, because I didn’t have any experience in terms of charity (In fact, Charity as we know it in America and/or the West was new to the Chinese).

The man who provided the information about education in remote areas of China shocked “us” deeply.

A foreigner knew more about China than I did.  It feels… It makes me blush. (He then mentions that charity is just getting started in China and there hasn’t yet been time to develop regulations to supervise and protect it.)

Yu Yilei – How to you insure the regulation of the Yao Foundation?

Yao Ming – I think information transparency is most important. There is a professional management team and accountants. You can also find out very clearly on our website what each donation has been used for.

Note: In 2004, Business Week said, Yao’s four-year contract with the Rockets was worth $18 million, and he earned an estimated $15 million a year in longer-term deals with top-tier brands Pepsi, Reebok, Gatorade, and McDonalds.…Some executives believe Yao has the potential to gross $300 million in his first 10 years in the league. Yao Ming earned 51 million U.S. Dollars (357 million yuan) in 2008 alone.

Yao Ming goes on to talk about his son and how China and America have influenced him.

Discover more about Charity and Philanthropy Sprouting in China

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Reversing China’s “one-child” Policy

November 28, 2010

France 24 reports another exception to China “one-child” policy.  In fact, Chinese law allows married couples who are both the only child of their parents to have two children.

China provides support from government run family planning centers that check on women’s health and inform them of their rights and responsibilities.

The Shanghai government encourages married couples eligible to have more than one child to do so.  In Shanghai, that means most married couples.

In 2009, the Shanghai Family Planning Commission promoted this policy. The reason for this campaign lies in China’s population structure.

Because of the one-child policy, China is aging fast. Shanghai is particularly hard hit by this age disparity. Twenty-two percent of the citizens of Shanghai are over sixty and these numbers are expected to grow.

Xu Xihua, the director of Shanghai’s Aging Development Center says that by adjusting the one-child policy in Shanghai, this disparity in ages can be partially reduced. Giving couples an opportunity to have two children is part of the plan.

However, the central government stresses it is not abandoning its family planning policies or its control over the number of births.  Fear of overpopulation and potential famines remains high.

Discover more about Exemptions in China’s ‘one-child policy’

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Looking Like Jessica Alba in China

November 27, 2010

Nekesa Mumbi Moody wrote for the Huffington Post that Jessica Alba was upset about a Chinese woman having plastic surgery to look like her so she could win her Alba obsessed ex-boyfriend back.

When this news hit the stands in February, I missed it.

I’m currently watching Alba in Dark Angel on DVDs, a TV series that survived two seasons. I’ve seen Alba in the Fantastic Four franchise and that’s about it. She’s a talented actress that started with a small role in 1994 in Camp Nowhere, a film that didn’t do well.

However, Alba went on to compile an impressive history in film, was nominated for 29 awards and won nine.

Alba was right when she said, “I think you should never have to change yourself like that. If someone loves you, they’ll love you no matter what.”

Well, I wouldn’t agree totally with “no matter what” and there may be another side to this story. In China, what you hear is often not the real story.

In China, the odds of being successful at anything are daunting. Less than 15% make it into universities and most of China’s more than 1.3 billion people work hard for little pay earning enough so they won’t starve or become homeless.

On the other hand, there’s a growing shortage of women in China and this woman that wants to look like Jessica Alba should have no trouble finding another man without the plastic surgery.

In fact, the woman who wants to look like Jessica Alba isn’t the only woman changing her looks to gain something.

Over 40 and Feeling Fine says, “There’s an article on ABC News about women in China going under the knife to have ‘western’ eyes, fuller lips, bigger breasts and longer legs.”

Anne Marie Dorning at ABC News says, “Imagine, if you will, a surgeon breaking your leg bones in four places, then attaching a steel scaffold frame to the outside of your limbs with metal pins jutting into your bones.”

The odds are that the woman who wants to look like Alba may be doing this for other reasons than for love. Looking like Jessica Alba in China may lead to success in other areas.

Consider what this young woman accomplished. She used love and sacrifice bordering on the insane to gain the attention of the world’s media, and a well-known American actress responded.

This Chinese woman may have found a way to get to the head of the line. If successful, she will probably write a book about how she did it. Knowing the Chinese obsession to achieve success, it would be a best seller.

Discover how The One-Child Tragedy led to a shortage of women in China.

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Emperor Yongle of the Ming Dynasty – Part 4/4

November 27, 2010

During the campaign to appease the savage Mongolian nomadic tribes, Yongle granted noble titles to the tribal chiefs and gave them Chinese names. His strategy was to divide and conquer.

Many Mongol chiefs were allowed to live south of the Great Wall and in Beijing. The emperor wanted them to be assimilated into the Han culture.

An envoy from Tibet met with Yongle and the emperor established a tributary relationship with Tibet and other nations.

In order to guarantee enough food to feed northern China, a canal was built between Jinan and Ningbo in western Shandong province extending the Grand Canal.

After that extension, about 3000 grain ships traveled north to Beijing annually and returned.

When the construction of the Forbidden City was completed in 1421, the emperor moved the capital from Nanjing to Beijing.


Mandarin with English subtitles

About this time, Yongle’s health started to deteriorate, and his attempt to assimilate the Mongolians failed as the nomadic tribes continued to send large-scale military raids into northern China.

In order to prevent these intrusions, Yongle had no choice but to return to his father’s strategy of reinforcing and rebuilding the Great Wall.

After Emperor Yongle died in 1424, the prosperity and energy of the Ming Dynasty died with him.

Another emperor destroyed most of the records of Admiral Zheng He’s seven voyages and forbid any more explorations at sea and closed China again.

In fact, much of the technology used to build Zheng He’s fleet was lost.

Zheng He’s voyages have not been forgotten and are still celebrated in parts of Southeast Asia where the fleet stopped during the seven known voyages.

Return to Emperor Yongle of the Ming Dynasty – Part 3

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

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