American Families and Adoption of Chinese Children: Modern World

                 

      

              In 1998 two laws about adoption in China were revised to provide legal protection for the rights of adopted children. In China there are more than 200 welfare institutions that provided international adoption services, the numbers shown that foreign families have adopted more than 50,000 Chinese children by the end of the year 2002 and the American families have adopted more than 80 % of the children, in special American families have adopted girls because due to  the one child policy implemented in China, the couple in China prefer to have boys to girls.
      The American people who look forward for adopted a child have learned about abandoned female in China and for this reason prefer to adopt a girl than a boy , and the same time this adoption process has contributed to a better relationship between the two country.

MLA Citation

Luo, Jing. "American Families and Adoption of Chinese Children: Modern World." Daily Life through History. ABC-CLIO, 2011. Web. 13 Nov. 2011.

Pictured are the families who have recently returned from China with their children.

Urban Families In China

                                               Urban Families in China: Modern World

         Urban Chinese families and households are undergoing a transition. Economic reforms since the early 1980s have changed the urban economy and culture, and tumultuous population changes in recent decades have greatly reduced China's fertility rates. These changes have had such a profound impact on urban Chinese families and marriage that China amended its 1980 marriage law in 2001.
        There have been significant changes in marriage rates and age at first marriage. The number of marriages has gradually declined in recent years, while the number of divorces is skyrocketing.  between 1990 and 2000, the number of marriages decreased by more than 10%, while the number of divorces increased by 50%.
         Today, both men and women marry at a later age. China has the world's highest minimum legal age for marriage: 20 for men ; 22 for women. Evidence suggests that the rising age at first marriage in recent decades has contributed to a reduction in fertility.
       Divorce has become increasingly common in urban China since the early 1980s. Numerous reasons have been cited for the soaring divorce rate. Among them are extramarital affairs, bigamy, domestic violence, financial stress, and health issues such as AIDS. People tend to stress quality of marriage, rather than just being mar
       The one-child-per-couple population-control policy has been effective in limiting urban couples to only one child, and many young people are choosing to have children later in their life. In addition, some urban youth choose not to have children at all.
      If the current trend in divorce continues, single parenthood and single-parent households are bound to rise. At this time, most people still have other family members who could help take care of the children, so single parenthood has yet to become a major social problem in China. Out-of-wedlock births may also become an issue in the future.
      In 2001, China revised and implemented its new marriage law. One of the goals of the new law is to curb adultery and domestic violence. The law also guarantees family and marital rights and seeks to preserve stable families. However, the rising divorce rate is only one of the forces that transform urban families and households in China today. Demographic and social factors such as the imbalanced sex ratio and discrimination against women must also be addressed in order to guarantee a stable family life for all.

Luo, Jing. "Urban Families in China: Modern World." Daily Life through History.

ABC-CLIO, 2011. Web. 8 Nov. 2011.

Public announcement by the government emphasizing the One Child Policy

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan Chapter " Truth"

                                                            TRUTH

      As everybody know in the  last chapter Lily get married, the tradition said that the women have to come back to her natal family after four days of her wedding . Lily rather to return to her natal home has planned to go to Snow Flower's for her Sitting and Singing month. Lily was very anxious because she is going to see Snow Flower again. She dressed in one of her good everyday outfits, with the idea of make a favorable impression on Snow Flower's family,  whom she had heard so much about over these many years. At this time Lily's social status was better and now she had a servant girl, who led her through Tongkou's alleyways to Snow Flower's house. Lily and the servant girl, whose name is Yonggang, stopped before a house that looked exactly how snow Flower had described it, two stories, peaceful and elegant. Yonggang simply opened the main door to the house and stepped inside, like was a village's customs. When Lily came into the house was immediately assailed by a strange odor, the home at one time was luxurious, but now is empty, large room but with far less furniture, a table but no chairs, the room was dirty with food scraps on the floor; was autumn and cold but no fire in the room. Snow Flower and her mother were dressed as a lowly peasant in ragged and dirty padded clothes.
       Lily was totally shocked and  now she remembered a few days ago when her mother had told her that as a woman she couldn't avoid ugliness and had to be brave. Now was when Lily realized that her mother was talked about Snow Flower's reality.
      Lily climbed the stairs; as she was near the Snow Flower she could saw Snow Flower cheeks were streaked with tears. Lily said " Nothing has changed, we are old same."
 Then Snow Flower tells Lily the truth that they were once prosperous, and the house was glorious, but her Grandfather fell from favor when the Emperor died. Snow Flower's father was raised in a house with too many women and thus, was cowardly and susceptible to vice. Snow Flower's father had to take care of Grandfather's concubines and marry out his nine sisters; these marriages were arranged and each bride-price was more extravagant than the last. Snow Flower says her father, after spending lavishly, took to the pipe; a famine had wiped out their crops and her father was not prepared, he smoked his pipe and forgot about the family.
     Snow Flower told Lily that she, her elder sister, her young brother and her mother were saved by her mother’s sister, Auntie Wang, the girls’ matchmaker. Madame Wang arranged the latoong relationship between the two girls with the hope that Snow Flower learned the house work and the same time Lily learned how to embroider and the secret language. The matchmaker arranged a married for Snow Flower with a butcher that was the worst marriage possible. Snow Flower's husband would have some money, but what they did was unclean and disgusting. 
    Lily thought that maybe she should have been angry at Snow Flower for lying to her, but that's not what how she felt. Now Lily realized that everybody in her house knower the truth, but the only one she could blame was her mother, because now Lily knower that her mother doesn't said the truth was a way to keep her on course to the good marriage that would benefit her entire natal family.
   Now that Lily knows the truth, she helped Snow Flower and her mother to clean the house for Snow Flower Sitting and Singing month. Lily gave Madame Wang some money to contract three girls for singing and doing the weeding book. At the end of the month the flower sitting chair arrived to bring Snow Flower to her husband family and then Lily came back to her natal home. 


                                            Vocabulary words

  assail:  if a thought or feeling assails you, it worries or upsets you;  to attack violently with blows or words .

          I followed right behind and was immediately assailed by a strange odor.
  
  betrothal: a mutual promise or contract for a future marriage.

       What had she said about Snow Flower’s betrothal.

  cajoling: to attack violently with blows or words

      In particular I recalled how Madame Wang had stayed  at Snow Flower’s side, offering comfort, quietly cajoling.

  eerie:  strange and frightening.

       But beyond this one familiar sound, the house itself was eerily.

  hitch :   to become joined in marriage ; to fasten something to something else.

        Once she met you, she decided to hitch my fate to yours.

nodded:  to make a quick downward motion of the head whether deliberately (as in expressing assent or salutation) or involuntarily (as from drowsiness)

        When  she didn’t budge, I nodded at her to move along.

overlay:  to lay or spread over or across

    I followed right behind and was immediately assailed by a strange odor, which combine night soil and rotting meat with an overlay of something sickeningly sweet.

peasant:   a poor farmer who owns or rents a small amount of land, either in past times or in poor countries.

    She was dressed as a lowly peasant in ragged and dirty padded clothes.

plucked:    pull or pick off or out

    I had believed I had been plucked for a special future, which made me too self centered to see what was directly in front of me.

sickeningly:     sickness or disgust <a sickening odor> <a sickening display>

sighed:    take a deep audible breath (as in weariness or relief)

     She sighed in resignation, bowed quickly, backed herself to the threshold, turned, and left. 


turmoil:  a state or condition of extreme confusion, agitation, or commotion

    Under all my turmoil simmered the feeling that Snow Flower had betrayed me.

utterly:  carried to the utmost point or highest degree : absolute, total <utter darkness> <utter strangers>

    Shocked, that’s how I felt, utterly shocked.
  

Summary by Nilda Perdomo

One Child Policy Summary

   The "one- child policy" is a government family-planning policy, in place since 1980, the purpose of this is to limit the number of children born to chinese families. The goal of this law is to control one possible explotion in the number of the population. This law was forcefully by the National People's Congress, at the same time was revised and fixed the age of marriage for men now is 22 and for women now is 20.
  The family-planning policy, know as the "one-child policy"  limit urban families to have only one child and the families in a rural area to a maximum of two children. According with the Chinese's government, the policy has effectively curbed the rapidly growing population because this law was implemented the china's population don't grown in 30 million people from 1980 to 2001, this 30 million people are more than the US population.


MLA Citation

Luo, Jing. "China's One-Child Policy." Daily Life through History. ABC-CLIO, 2011. Web. 13 Dec. 2011.

http://dailylife2.abc-clio.com/Search/Display/1423350?terms=china+one+child+policy