Our China

Our China is a country that we don’t understand, like a college roommate who sleeps until sunset and slips back into the room at 10 in the morning. Here’s what I mean: This is a critical review of a documentary that aired on British TV last Monday. It was called China’s Stolen Children, and it was made by some of the people who worked on The Dying Rooms. Unsurprisingly, it appears to take a rather stark view of the One-Child Policy. It’s also, according to the review, a bit over-simplistic. Here’s one half of the reviewer’s point:

Yet it is important to point out that it is precisely because many Chinese live in poor conditions and under the oppressive one-child policy that so-called ‘traffickers’ can step in and fill the role of informal adoption agencies. It is not surprising that rural families cannot afford to use official adoption agencies or that China’s orphanages are not up to the standards of Western ones.

The other half is the way British documentarians (and Western news coverage in general) seems so fascinated by the way children are treated in China. Even without seeing the documentary (and even without being British, but just a different flavor of Western), the review is well worth a read and a good long think.

America and China are more than simply two countries divided by a global economy. (Although how divided they are is pretty indicative of something, ain’t it?) The people in them have different ways of doing things. We don’t agree on things like wagging fingers at Burma, which is something China apparently doesn’t want to do. We have different ways of looking at what we sometimes call human rights violations (although we both prefer to use words like “interrogation techniques”).

Our China is not our China; it’s its own China.

———–

Oh, and on the actual rearing of children once you got ‘em, wherever they’re from tip:

The excellent 43Folders site has a fascinating discussion on time management for parents. I’m positive if you’re new to this hungry-crying-mouth-to-comfort-and-feed business (or even in you’re an old hand) you’ll find some valuable advice in the comments. Those children, they do eat time, don’t they? Here’s how to get some back.

If you’ve got tips, by all means leave a comment here – or just join the conversation over there.

You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.