China's One-Child Policy

After reading all those sad, shocking or touching "earthquake" stories happened during the past few days in SiChuang province, China, I had a very weird and pretty sci-fi nightmare last night.

Skip my spooky earthquake-related dream, I shed tears when I watched the TV news, and saw those heart-breaking parents cried and howled when they witnessed their dead kid being dragged out of the debris of the collapsed school buildings. I tried to explain to my step-mom-in-law that this is the biggest tragedy for those parents, because most of the parents only had one child under China's One-Child Policy established in 1979.

I personal had a few chances to deal with those mainland Chinese "only child" back in college. Unfortunately, I couldn't really get along with them. One common traits among those only child is-- self-eccentric-- which is also criticized by many social observers.

One girl A, who's like the 1st generation of the One-Child policy (the first generation should be 29 years old now, so she should be about 22, 23 then in 2002), never showed up in the meeting for our group projects or always called in sick after the meeting started. She always made all kinds of silly excuses for her absence (e.g. my boyfriend's mom is in town...). And the funny thing is, A is actually the first person who told me that she's going to attend a Chinese graduate program for an "easy" master degree. For that, I despise Chinese people who is going to get a master degree in Chinese using their native-speaking advantage for a while (that was way back to the year 2002, before Chinese is getting really hot).

Another boy, X, about 18 or 19 in 2005, came to the U.S. for college, had lived with me under the same roof for a few months (thank G-O-D, only a few months...). During those months, X never cleaned the bathroom or kitchen we shared, always left a mess (let me just mention a bit about the stinky yellow stains on the toilet seat.... not to mention he'd never had the slightest idea that he should lift the toilet seat when he has to share a toilet with a girl). I guess those "little emperors" (one of the popular nicknames for the "only-boy" in China) never learned how to share things with other people.

X would also shout (or chant? I never got it...) every morning during his morning routines: doing exercises (that's good for him, if he didn't mean to jump up and down for the last few forms of his exercises...), shouting some words out of his chest to wake himself up (and also wake the whole house and neighborhood), and running up and down the stairs in a 80-year-old wooden constructed house...

Another example: X never properly knocked on my door after he found out I used to be an ESL teacher. He felt so lucky that he got to ask me questions regarding English anytime. Yep, I meant, any-time to him.

I actually had to post the rules on my bedroom door after he totally disturbed my daily life.

Anyway, I might be just in bad luck to meet the wrong Chinese "only-child"s. Only child in general does has some unique traits compared to the child has siblings. However, when the whole society and the whole country is going for the only child, they were, are, and will be spoiled in a way, or two.