by Aurelie Placais
Chinese New Year truly looks like Christmas for Europeans, a time you spend eating and talking with your family; except that the family is Chinese.
In Europe, a family is usually composed of grand-parents, parents, uncles and aunties, cousins and brothers or sisters. In China if you are less than thirty years old, you are the only one of your generation. Because of the One-Child Policy you would probably have your four grand-parents and even a great grand-mother, but your parents are like you: the ‘only child’ of their families. Not only you have no brother or sister, but you also have no cousin (which means nobody to play with you and enjoy doing silly things).
This generation is an exception: never before such a policy has been implemented, and it seems it won’t last for another generation. Since the beginning of the new century, the government has allowed couples who are both adult children from one-child families to have two children.
Because it has never happed before the social consequences are really hard to identify. Selfishness and laziness are often (and very stereotypically) granted to these ‘little emperors”, but it is far to be unanimously approved.
Being a French student in China, I'm lucky enough to meet a lot of Chinese students. Two of them are now my friends. And while they are totally different, both have to cope with the same "only child" pressure.
The first one is a young student, neither selfish nor lazy and even less antisocial. Only one thing worries him: to succeed in his studies. Not because he is ambitious, but afraid he might waste his parents’ investment. He comes from a poor village, which takes you four hours to get there from the province’s capital where he is studying, and his parents have put all their money and hope in him. He knows he has no right to fail, and being poor the only solution is to excel at studying. So far he has passed his exams with flying colours. Thanks to these successes he has always managed to receive merit grants, but if he fails once, he won’t have any money to continue. He only sees his parents twice a year: for Chinese New Year and summer holidays. He works everyday, all-day, except on Saturdays. He has many friends, mostly his classmates, but no girlfriend. He never goes out at night; he has never entered a club and only went once to a bar because I invited him. He has no money and no time to waste. He has such a pressure on his shoulders that he uses any spare time to work.
My other friend is a young urban woman. Her family is part of this non-existent “Chinese middle class”. She is attracted by everything that is western-like and is always overactive. Although she has been a teacher in a private university for four years now, she still lives with her parents: “My mother told me it would be such a waste for me to leave them before I get married”. Even if she could afford to rent a flat, she is a woman and leaving alone is very unusual. She has carried out her first mission but still has to find a husband. The choice is very tough since her family put a lot of pressure on her: it is now time to get married and get pregnant. But she feels she is young and still have some time to choose someone. She is now thinking about finding another job because her income might not be enough for all her family.
Like many others from their generation the fate of their family lies in their hands. As the traditional social system goes on the responsibility of the younger generations is to take care of the older one. They already know that they will have to make a living for their four grand-parents, parents and if they get married for their in-laws. And if they have a child or two, they will also have to spend lavishly for their education. This young generation has to succeed not only in studying and finding a good job, but also in building a family of their own. Since they are the only one to belong to the new generation in their family, they are the only chance for their ancestors to have descendants.
