Mei FongRezensionen

Двадцатый век видел немало радикальных социальных экспериментов, и совсем немногие из них перекочевали в двадцать первый. Один из них — широко известная, но малоизученная китайская политика «одна семья — один ребенок». Разработанная военными без привлечения каких-либо представителей общественных наук, она преследовала вполне приземленную цель: увеличение ВВП в пересчете на душу населения. Чтобы прогресс был заметнее, рост населения требовалось придержать. Однако всех последствий насилия над природой просчитать в 1980-е не смогли. Книга Мэй Фонг знакомит с ходом эксперимента и будущим КНР, которая до сих пор является заложницей давным-давно принятого решения. По оценкам, за 35 лет в Китае не родилось 250–350 млн человек. За каждой сухой цифрой статистики стоят судьбы, биографии и целые тектонические сдвиги в жизни сел и городов, которые автор посетила во всех концах Поднебесной. Самыми разными способами родители добились того, что сейчас на 100 девочек рождается 119 мальчиков (в среднем по миру 100:105). В итоге к 2020 году мужчин будет на 30–40 млн больше. В результате брачный рынок КНР приобрел гипертрофированные черты: невест не хватает, а родители копят на «калым», так что до 50% депозитов в стране за последние годы делается с этой целью. Штрафы с тех, кто позволил себе лишнего малыша, принесли казне только в 2013 году не менее $2,7 млрд. Как обычно, имеющие средства находили возможности обходить запреты самыми разнообразными способами. Для других единственно разрешенный ребенок становился «маленьким императором», так появлялось новое поколение избалованных эгоистичных детей с проблемами социализации.

Без внимания к нюансам демографического пейзажа не понять современного Китая: например, без армии холостяков успех Alibaba, скорее всего, был бы невозможен. Причины же сворачивания программы «одна семья — один ребенок» прозаичны. Сжатие рынка труда началось ранее, чем предполагалось, и от нынешнего комфортного соотношения работающих к пенсионерам 5:1 страна через двадцать лет рискует прийти к 1,6:1. Поэтому в конце 2015 года и появилась либеральная семейная схема — с двумя детьми.

A fascinating read. While still trying to figure out the full fallout of China's one child policy, this book covers some of its impacts. China pretty much chopped off its legs for money and have now set itself up for a nasty surprise (which isn't really a surprise but too many people listen to economists when they shouldn't). Family planning by economist and rocket scientist is not conducive to a healthy, viable country.

This book is necessary and terrifying, and seems like a horrifying real-life mix of the Handmaid's Tale and Brave New World.

However, the narrative was just not compelling. I found each section to be disjointed and disconnected. While there was nominally a thread tying everything together (the one child policy), it just didn't feel like a seamless whole. I agree with other reviews who stated the author's sometimes patronizing tone rang loud in some sections of this book.

This book was engaging, largely in part because China's functioning is a mystery to me. The book opened up so many other things I'd like to learn about.

The author uses humanity to cover all her subjects, getting deep into the stories of people who have secret children, forced abortions, child-theft, aging and the bizarre effects on generational culture.

The book title had me expecting a more rounded take on the one-child policy, but this book is written explicitly against it. With reason and evidence of course. But I'm still craving more depth on the policy's origins.

And a last note—from someone fairly ignorant of Chinese culture—I think it's amazing that people are labeled in China for what their social role or what they've been through. For instance, in rural areas where men vastly outnumber women, men in their late 20's are called "bare branches." It would change our outlook in the US if we had a name for people foreclosed upon in 2008 ("the removed?" or people who've economically fled the rustbelt, etc.

Well, this was a relatively fascinating read.

There are so many aspects to China's One Child policy and what makes it what it is, and Fong sets out to disentangle the many threads that make up this subversive policy.

Unlike most people who read this book and reviewed it, I enjoyed Fong's story about her miscarriage and how certain aspects of Chinese culture had affected her life. I felt that it grounded the story and made all those traditions and superstitions all the more real.

Sometimes I felt a lot of the stories were rushed, but how else are you supposed to cover such a huge and expansive topic in 200 pages?

The only part of the book I didn't like was when Fong was discussing adoption in China. Of course, so many aspects of adoption in China are shady and suspect -- but I'm adopted and so it hurt to have adoption painted in such a vague and negative light. I'm sure the author didn't intend for it to be that way, but that's just how I felt.

This is a mess of a review but if you're at all curious about China or sociology or how a country manages to conjure something up like the One Child policy, check out this book. You'll learn a whole bunch of weird and wonderful facts that'll make you really fun at parties, I promise.

This is about the impact and effects of China's One Child policy on itself and on the rest of the world. I was given this copy to read by a friend who has just been to China and it came highly recommended. It is interesting, well researched and thought-provoking. Also engaging and extremely readable. I appreciated the detailed notes at the end of the book.

-very readable and engaging for a nonfiction book
-comprehensive overview of the consequences of China's one-child policy, covering dozens of angles (from earthquakes to IVF to adoption to academic pressure on only children to the growing retiree population to the differences between the policy's effects in rural and urban areas)
-lots of interviews with a broad range of subjects: experts in sociology, economics, and the like; parents who lost their only children; only children, girls and boys, who grew up with enormous pressures; a woman who forced hundreds of women to have abortions and then fled to the U.S.; girls who have been adopted to the U.S. and their white adoptive parents
-I appreciate that Fong doesn't diminish or justify the misogyny behind son preference; using her own family's patriarchs as examples, she decries misogyny for what it is
-did wish she had made it a little more explicit that sex trafficking and life-size sex dolls are not a natural result of the sex imbalance but the result of men who view women as objects to be used
-was glad to see discussion of Leta Hong Fincher's [b:Leftover Women|19282867|Leftover Women The Resurgence of Gender Inequality in China|Leta Hong Fincher|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1390035686s/19282867.jpg|27330715]!
-occasionally Fong's arguments didn't follow through: arguing in favor of less coercive policies, she claims they would have been more effective at lowering the birthrate, then points to a lower birthrate as ultimately a problem
-she briefly discusses—and unfairly dismisses—concerns about sustainability, pointing to the Club of Rome's Limits to Growth as an example of a long line of mistaken doomsayers, but not offering any evidence that exponential growth on a finite planet is, in fact, sustainable
-she offers an eye-opening discussion of transnational adoption, showing how the disingenuous narrative of unwanted Chinese girls helped fuel a market for babies
-Fong makes it clear how inconsistent, brutal, and ill-conceived the one-child policy has been; she details quotas, and bonuses for govt employees who maintain them, restrictions on who can even give birth at all (age and marriage requirements, waiting periods, etc.), arbitrarily assigned fines, the violence of forced abortions and sterilizations, and punishments like destroying parents' property or literally snatching their children

Does not hold my interest. Still would like to read, but haven't had a chance or certainly the urge to go back to it.

A fascinating and in depth exploration of China's One Child Policy and all its political, economic, social, and psychological ramifications. Sometimes a bit academic, but a truly important topic with enormous implications for China and the world.

Interesting analysis of this misbegotten policy that had led to an imbalance of genders and to changes in social policy to take care of elders who formerly could count on daughters to manage their sunset years. Now there are no daughters to do it, and much fewer daughters-in-law, because boys and boys only.

Chapters deal with the overpopulation panic of the 1970s, the treating of off spring as male princes, how the situation has impacted adoptions (baby selling?) of Chinese girls in the first world, and how the majority of males may be one of the causes of tensions between China, Korea, and Japan. The most heart-rending chapter was about the post-earthquake world of 2008, when so many schools collapsed and so many parents were left childless, which in China is like a death sentence.½