China Digital Times

Stories tagged with: family (16)

• Couple Frantic to Find Loved Ones in Rubble

  

  NPR’s Melissa Block told a touching story of a couple in Dujiangyan looking for their toddler son buried in rubble.

  We found Fu Guanyu and her husband Wang Wei as they clung frantically to the long arm of a Hitachi excavator as it rumbled through the city of Dujiangyan.They were crying and seemed to be trying to pull the heavy machine, as if they could make it move faster toward their home. Their six-story apartment building had collapsed in the earthquake. Their toddler son, Wang Zhilu, was buried under the debris along with his grandparents. Mrs. Fu broke down as she told me she still had hope their son would be found alive.

  Click here to listen to the moving story on All Things Considered. More than three hundred people have commented on it.

  » Read more
  • May 15, 2008 7:03 PM

• New Year in Bed

  

  As Chinese return to work after the New Year, NPR’s Morning Edition aired this commentary about an American’s experience of Spring Festival in China:

  Commentator Alison Klayman has been living in China for a year and a half. She had some idea of what it was like to celebrate the Chinese New Year: fireworks, dumplings, red lanterns and envelopes of money. But this year was special. She was invited to celebrate the New Year in a countryside village, in the hometown of a friend and colleague.

  She knew it would be a 650-kilometer bus ride from Beijing on the busiest travel week of the year. She knew she would stand out as the only white person everywhere she went. She did not realize she would spend most of the holiday in bed with her friend’s grandmother.

  » Read more
  • February 14, 2008 12:33 AM

• Lonely Couple Offer Grown Children ‘Salary’ for Visits - Dalian News

  

  Dalian News reports a short story about a lonely couple paying their grown children to visit them:

  A lonely retired couple of Dalian, Liaoning Province, have decided to pay their three grown children a “salary” to visit them every weekend. Lin and his wife, who are in their late 60s, live a comfortable life on their more than 4,000 yuan ($530) monthly pension, but feel sad that their
  two sons and one daughter seldom come to visit them.

  To lure them home, the couple have drafted a contract offering 1,000 yuan a month for twice-a-week visits. There is also a bonus if the grandchildren accompany them. It is not known if the couple’s children have signed the contract….[Full Text]

  [Image: A lonely old man, via Google Image]

  » Read more
  • September 2, 2007 8:08 AM

• China’s Elderly Care Conundrum - James Reynolds

  

  The BBC looks at the effects of the one-child policy on the condition of the elderly in China today:

  Right now Jie Jie has absolutely no idea how much his family is counting on him.

  When he gets older, he will have to support them all. Six adults - and just one child. This is the effect of China’s one-child policy. [Full text]

  [Image: Jie Jie Cai and his extended family, via BBC]

  » Read more
  • August 23, 2007 2:55 PM

• Redefining China’s Family - Washington Post

  

  Washingtonpost.com has a special video feature titled “Redefining China’s Family“, which includes segments on women, migrant workers and the elderly, and includes links to relevant Post articles. A transcript of an online chat with Travis Fox, the videojournalist who produced it, is here.

  » Read more
  • June 17, 2007 9:27 PM

• Chinese Official With 5 Children Loses His Post - Richard Spencer

  

  From The New York Sun:

  A Chinese bureaucrat who broke the country’s single-child regulations not once but four times has become the latest cadre to pay the price for not having devoted enough attention to his mistress.

  » Read more
  • April 10, 2007 9:26 AM

• photo: A mother carrying her disabled girl on her back in the street of Beijing, via www,fengniao.com.

  

  

  » Read more
  • July 9, 2006 5:15 AM

• Love means queuing for kids? -Shanghai Daily

  

  From Xinhua News Agency (link):

  Instead of exercising in parks or shopping in wet markets, some senior parents in Yangpu District in Shanghai have a different routine every morning - they line up at a bus terminal so that their children can sleep longer and still get a bus seat to school.

  Some call it coddling children in one-child families, some say it makes young people less independent. Others say Chinese parents naturally want to help their children and are willing to sacrifice because of long commutes on crowded buses and a hectic life.

  Some sociologists say it results from poor public transport, but should not be encouraged.

  » Read more
  • April 23, 2006 2:45 PM

• China’s Union Organizers - Mark Magnier

  

  From The Los Angeles Times:

  The middle-aged men and women gather in small clumps around the pavilion in Zhongshan Park like molecules in motion, drawn together by the magnetic force of their placards and photos, the odd smile, a flirtatious nod that hints at fading charms.

  “Graduate degree, 5 feet, 2 inches tall with a Beijing residency permit,” says a fiftysomething woman. “I’m sorry, I’m looking for someone who’s 5 feet, 6 inches,” a man about the same age responds before walking off.

  These earnest hunters aren’t in search of soul mates for themselves. They’re looking for husbands and wives for their grown children, most of whom have no idea they’re here. In fact, many would blanch at meeting anyone their parents recommended.

  » Read more
  • January 2, 2006 6:34 AM

• Photo: Father and daughter on the streets, Beijing, from wenxue.com

  

  

  » Read more
  • October 7, 2005 4:51 AM

• People’s Daily: Chinese families become smaller: Expert

  

  From People’s Daily Online:

  China’s reform and opening up has not only brought about great changes to the economy and society, but also transformed Chinese marriages and family structure in an unprecedented way. Population expert Tang Can believes that in the last thirty years Chinese families have shown diversified patterns. The scale of family is becoming smaller and the marriage functions of families are being gradually weakened.

  Smaller family is an important characteristic of the changes taking place in Chinese urban and rural family structure, said Tang in an article published on the latest Gazette of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences titled The Changes of Urban and Rural Family Structure and Function. Nuclear family is the dominant form of family structure and small families are becoming increasingly diversified. In 2002 the average number of family members was 3.39, down by 1.42 from that in 1973. The average number of persons in each household is approaching that of developed countries such as the USA and Canada, which is about 3.

  » Read more
  • May 9, 2005 7:12 AM

• AP: Reforms increase divorce rate in China

  

  From The International Herald Tribune:

  The divorce rate in China soared by more than 20 percent last year after legal reforms eliminated the need for couples to get permission from their employers before they separate, the government said Wednesday.

  More than 1.6 million couples divorced in 2004, an increase of 21.2 percent from the previous year, the official newspaper China Daily reported.

  » Read more
  • March 2, 2005 7:07 AM

• People’s Daily: China’s divorce rate 21.2% up in 2004

  

  From People’s Daily Online:

  China saw 1.613 million couples divorced in 2004 while 8.341 million couples registered to marry that year, according to statistics of the Ministry of Civil Affairs.

  Compared with the statistics of 2003, 282,000 more couples divorced with an increase rate of 21.2 percent while 227,000 more couples got married in 2004.

  About 995,000 couples chose to divorce at civil administration organs rather than suing at courts in 2004, 304,000 couples more than those in 2003 with an increase rate of 44 percent, which covers 62 percent of the total divorces.

  » Read more
  • February 28, 2005 8:24 PM

• People’s Daily: 490,000 yuan needed to rear a child in China?

  

  From People’s Daily Online:

  “Chinese parents will spend on average of 490,000 yuan to bring up one healthy child.” this assertion, reported by the media from a research report issued by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, aroused the suspicion of many citizens.

  Singapore’s United Morning Post’s Beijing Bureau reported that most citizens thought that this research report was produced by the Academy’s experts in their ivory towers, behind closed doors, far removed from the reality of Chinese society.

  » Read more
  • February 17, 2005 8:26 AM

• Family ties take new shapes in a prosperous China

  

  From the Christian Science Monitor: “Pang Rongchang was ready to join Mao Zedong’s revolutionary army in the late 1940s. But before he left his Hubei town, his father did what generations of men did for their sons: secured a wife for him. There was no discussion. The bride was hand-carried to the groom’s doorstep from the next village; the marriage was that day. The two had never met before - then lived 50-plus years together.

  By contrast, Pang’s son, Liping, married, divorced, then fell in love with Wang Zhe, who works at a Japanese joint venture. They met at Ditan Park by the gate, set up by three layers of friends. She saw Liping was ‘a good one.’ It started raining, they went inside for tea, and it became a second marriage for them both.”

  » Read more
  • December 16, 2004 8:56 AM