PompousBastard

I don't know much about China's policies, but is it possible that the OCP is intentionally devised to limit population growth indirectly by means of the unbalanced male-to-female ratio a genration or two down the road? It seems an effective way to limit the number of cildbearing citizens in the country...all those excess men can't get pregnant.

Just speculating...

Sakpo

Oh yah, I know! The city I live in has a huge immigrant Chinese and first generation CBC population. My neighborhood is overwhelmingly Chinese. Put the Japanese and the Chinese in the same category and both will be offended (fundamentalist Chinese ,as I call them,might like Japanese pop culture but they know deep down the Japanese are barbarians,as is any non Chinese).

Around here the accepted pecking order appears to be:
1. Hong Kong
2. Taiwan
3. Singapore
4. Mainland
5. Other( Fijian, Indonesian, etc)
6. CBC who don't speak any dialect of Chinese or show other overt cultural Chinese influences.
----

As for the topic at hand, well quite frankly I do think China had to do something to reign in the population. This policy was probably the most effective despite many of the awful results.

[ February 14, 2002: Message edited by: Sakpo ]</p>

Dark Jedi

While in Japan, I made a few friends. I had them translate a lot, as it turns out I am VERY bad at picking up a language. (Though I did, for a while, speak enough to pick up women in the bars )

One guy who was particularly straightforward told me that the name for a Japanese is 'Nippon' which means human. The name for any non-Japanese is 'Gaijin' which means non-human.

I experienced this in many ways. This is an infinately polite and proper society, so it was always in attitude and tone, more than action and open disdain. More like when someone is dealing with a harmless dog or cat, than a person.
Sinji Nahito, if you are out there, I still say you should have let me date your sister!

Vorkosigan

Yes, I experience the same thing sometime here in Taiwan. For any ordinary conversational issues I am fluent in Chinese, and when I open my mouth, you can just watch their faces as you go from "non-human" to "maybe-human." For some.

But many Taiwanese like foreigners and many have lived in the US -- 500,000 went into exile there during the White Terror under the Chiang regime -- and they often can conceptualize us as human beings. This is also because to the Chinese who came over in 1949, the locals were not-quite-human due to their long association with the Japanese, so "being Taiwanese" has some element of "not-Chinese" in it. The locals who come from families that came over in 1949 remain depressingly racist, however.

Michael

echidna

At one stage I was told that in Botswana the word for white man translates as "vomit". I was told this wasn't a colloquialism but I'm not sure.

echidna

I believe that the name "China" is derived from Middle Kingdom in a typical show of ethno-centricism.

One of my father’s favourite stories was visiting China shortly after the Cultural Revolution (another great plan gone horribly wrong). He was 6 feet tall with bright red hair, a long European nose and as such attracted a great deal of attention.

Back then education rarely even included a world outside China and foreigners were still much of a rarity and largely unknown. He was on a bus trying to ignore the stares when a schoolgirl asked him is he was "one of China’s ethnic minorities". Although his Mandarin probably wasn’t fluent at that stage, it was good enough for a full explanation, but he could only think of replying "yes".

alek0

I've been facing that "non-human" attitude in Hong Kong a lot. Maybe because Hong Kong men are only interested in money and not in women (well, most of them). Never had a problem in mainland China, except that many have made it clear that they would appreciate if I would try to contribute to their population growth

No problems while travelling in Japan either Actually, in Osaka I had one of the nicest experiences when getting lost. I was attending a conference, and was staying in a hotel a bit far from the conference center which was called Osaka Tokyu Inn and had no idea that there also exists Osaka Tokyu Hotel, which was what my agent marked on the map. In the morning I woke up late as usual and had to take a taxi (quite expensive) and planned to walk back, which turned out not such a great idea in high heels and all (first day included opening ceremony attended by prince and princess and they demanded dressing formally).
Since I was walking towards the wrong thing marked on the map, couldn't recognize anything and soon got hopelessly lost. I've asked several people, nobody spoke any English. Finally I've asked a guy who spoke a little English, and he said he would show me. So I limped along (broke one heel during 1 hour walk) and then we came to the place and I said this is not my hotel. Then he talked to the doorman, clarified the issue about the name, told me to wait there, run back to get his car and then drove me to my hotel. During other trips in Japan, people were always kind and helpful.

Back on topic - does anyone of those who are against one child policy (when I see OCP I keep thinking oral contraceptive pill, maybe I am debating abortion with fundies too often) have suggestion what could have been done instead to curb population growth which was a must?

Another question is what can be done in the rest of the world to curb population growth? Population in India will be larger than in China by 2020 or so (maybe even earlier than that).
Do you think that everybody should have as many children as they want and to hell with environment, preserving endangered species etc.?

echidna

I think forecasts are currently somewhere between an estimated peak of 12 – 18 billion.

Seeing as I’m away for the weekend, it would be unfairly inflammatory to declare that both endangered species and the environment are largely unnecessary and as such are luxuries for our aesthetical enjoyment rather than being necessary for our existence.

So I’ll wait & see if the thread’s still alive on Monday when I get back …

Ms. Siv

Alek0, But at least they started doing something about it. Look at India. We still haven't done a damn thing !

Thats actually a different issue and goes on in India too. Thats the consequence of a male dominated and chauvenistic society. Lets please not confuse the 2 issues.

Tronvillian, Doesn't my breathing in oxygen and breathing out CO2 reduce your oxygen supply by 0.0000001% and increase your carbon dioxide supply by 0.0000001 % ? Now multiply that by 6 Billion plus !

Echidna, We face serious droughts and famine. Many die every year from starvation and disease. Our economic condition is poor. What do you think ?!!!!!

Do you have statistics to back up that claim ?
My statistics tell me that their pop. growth rate is down and their economic growth rate is up.


Proud Atheist, Very well said


- Sivakami.

echidna

Sivakami S, maybe you’re right, FWIW here’s a comparison in the demographic between India and China.

<a href="http://www.iiasa.ac.at/Research/LUC/Papers/gkh1/figc1_5.htm" target="_blank">http://www.iiasa.ac.at/Research/LUC/Papers/gkh1/figc1_5.htm</a>

I can’t help wondering if a 2-child policy may have been a little more humane and socially healthy. Widespread female infanticide is not something I consider a good thing and nor do I think the consequential gender imbalance and abnormally skewed demographic to be a good longterm direction.

While I appreciate that this reduces the slowing effect, I think the dramatic change would still have been sufficient to achieve their goals.

My father was the only son of and only son. I think sometimes there can be advantages to growing up with the companionship of siblings.