Chinese families, baby boy or baby girl?

The Great Wall of China

During Chinese class our laoshi (teacher), along with teaching us the mysteries of her ancient language, gives us also little pearls of oriental wisdom and precious information about China's culture and society.

Last week we studied how to approach people, introduce ourselves and ask for others' names. In China there is the unspoken rule that you cannot ask directly for the personal name if a person is older than you or in a higher position: in this case, you will need to politely ask for the family name.

At this juncture, laoshi told us about the controversial topic of Chinese people preferring to have a baby boy instead of a girl.

As in most countries, also in China the new-born takes his/her father's family name, so in order to keep the name alive through the future generations, when women learnt they were expecting a baby girl, they would have an abortion.

Truth be said, in the (recent) past also in Italy having a baby boy was much preferred, to the extent that when I was born and my grandmother learnt I was a girl, with a hint of disappointment, told my mother just recovering from the birth: "Umm...it's ok too...".

While in big cities such as Beijing and Shanghai this practice has disappeared, in other parts of China, especially rural areas in the 1970s and 1980s when the country faced the biggest poverty of modern times, it had started becoming too common.

This has led the Chinese government to come up with a drastic plan: it is now illegal for new parents to check on the sex of the baby. This way women won't get an abortion and the awkward situation of having a nation made only of men will be avoided.

In addition, due to the boom that made China's population reach the figure of 1.3 billion people, the government has adopted the two-child policy, meaning that a family can only have two children, after that the mother can be sterilised or, in case of a third child, the parents would get fined.

This applies only for Chinese people: the law, in fact, exempts from this rule the minorities such as Mongolian and Tibetan that, *because* minorities, have the right to have as many children as they wish.

I was pleased to learn that in China women keep their own family name and don't take their husband's one, as it happens for example in the UK. "We must thank Mao for giving us this power," told us our laoshi in a burst of national pride. I have to agree, in addition to avoiding all the hassle of changing the name in ID papers, I wouldn't be very willing to give up the name my father gave me.

Sex in public: a sign of freedom?

Recently, I have read an interesting post on Travel Blissful about "love customs" in different countries. The writer, Erica, stresses the importance of respecting every country we are visiting. Rightly so, I would add.

I'll never get tired (or maybe at some point I will) of pointing out that belonging to a specific culture doesn't make that culture necessarily right or the best one. People, wherever they are, should consider natural to respect their neighbours, but more so if they are travelling to a foreign country.

I have just got back from to the UAE, country that in the western public mind is very conservative and strict, and I struggle to understand why much of the British press gives a rather negative coverage of the Emirate. 

Two years ago a British couple got arrested in Dubai because they were having sex on a beach, and the police charged them with the count of offending public decency. In Italy they would have got arrested too.

In today's news, another British couple got into trouble in Dubai for having allegedly breached the local law and kissed in public. Kissing in public might be appreciated in some countries, but the UAE tourism office ask tourists to respect local laws. I think visitors can make this enormous effort until they get back home.

British people are usually obsessively respectful of the law, so this persistency reeks a bit of arrogance.

During the two years I spent in London, for quite a few times I've had the impression that the word decency was gradually disappearing from the dictionary, at least during the weekends. I, myself, have witnessed, in Shoreditch on a Friday night, very degrading performances involving young women boasting their "cool" drunkenness, and instead of feeling "emancipated", I felt outraged. 

But that's just me, I don't like such behaviours so I try to avoid places where I know they're common habit.

You feel unable to respect another country's laws and traditions? Stay home.