It's all about families
I have a friend who recently left Baoding after being here for two years. She did not leave for a job; she did not leave for another opportunity. In fact, she did not even want to leave, but she had to. Her father told her to come home.
She is 22 years old.
She cried when she left, saddened by the prospect of never seeing her Baoding friends again, upset by the stress of having to move and distraught by her lack of choice in the matter.
I asked her why she couldn’t stay.
"You’re an adult," I said. "Can’t you make your own decisions?"
"In China, family comes first," she said tearfully.
She has to obey the family because that is how it works in China. Very few people disobey the wishes of their parents. They may fight with them, but they rarely defy them.
Many reasons contribute to this "family first" phenomenon. As I’ve been told many times over, China has a long history, dating back 5000 years. Throughout that history, famines, wars, natural disasters, and different philosophies and religions have come and gone, leaving their marks on the Chinese people. When faced with changing social, political and physical landscapes, the people have had to rely on whatever they could to survive and prosper. And the most solid and unchanging beam of support was the family.
This deeply engrained social characteristic did not only arise as an indoctrinated abstract idea in Chinese tradition, it was also inscribed into Chinese social law after Emperor Wu of Han adopted Confucianism as the official philosophy of the state in 141 B.C.
Confucianism was born out of the teachings and writings of Confucius (think of those fortune cookie messages that begin with, "Confucius say ..."). He lived 2,500 years ago and wrote four major works, including "The Analects," which teaches filial piety — a belief in the importance of the bond between parents and children. He believed that this bond would produce social order and good governance, and that this bond should continue beyond death through the practice of ancestor worship. Confucius also taught a familial hierarchy, with the father being at the top and the youngest daughter at the bottom.
Although at this time there are few formal adherents to this philosophy (it’s not a religion), the values have become a principal part of Chinese society. It has been a part of China for so long that it is ingrained into its very structure. (In one family, the youngest daughter is rarely allowed to eat with the rest of the family, and she is forced to cook and clean while her older siblings study and surf the Internet).
Children are expected to respect their parents above all else, and, in return, parents are expected to care for and love their children and take very active roles in their lives. In modern China, this means parents tell their children what they must do and how they must do it — from what to study and where to work, to whom they befriend and date. It may seem overly controlling, but many parents have good reason to be so concerned: They invest so much, sacrificing a great deal for their children to succeed.
China’s modernization has required massive amounts of labor, so it is common for poor fathers and mothers from small villages to move to the big cities for work. Many of these migrant workers spend many years in the cities, saving money to send home so they can send their children to school. The New York Times recently profiled a migrant laborer who has been away from his family for 15 years. He has seen his daughter only once.
It is believed that education will lead to a good job and to a profitable career. So, while parents sacrifice to provide their children with an education, children are expected to take care of their parents when they make it big. Many children leave home when they become adults with the hope of returning one day with the resources needed to care for their parents for life.
But some stay at home well into adulthood. I know at least three families whose households include three generations, which they say is common, and I have yet to see any retirement communities (not to say there aren’t any).
The family is not the only institutions that rely on the younger generations to help care for the elderly: The government does, too. Since reforms of the social security system in the 1980s, more and more retirees have been given stipends and payments to live on, depending on what work they did and where they live. It is a policy for retirees living in urban areas to be awarded a government-issued payment based on the amount they contributed during their careers, the cost of living, surviving family members’ ability to support them and a number of other factors.
In rural areas, the system is a little different. The government began to implement an old-age security system in 1991 where the payments are made from a collective pool and by the beneficiaries themselves and their families.
One major difference, besides the financial differences, between urban and rural areas has a significant impact on Chinese families and stirs up controversy and debate: the one child per family policy.
One child per family policy was a law issued to curb the exponential growth of the Chinese population, which unofficially stands at 3.4 billion. The law is more strict in urban areas, but less enforced in the countryside. Many human rights groups and Western governments fiercely oppose this policy, but when faced with so many mouths to feed, the government had to do something, leaving many to ask, "Is there another way?"
Maybe not.
Whatever your opinion might be, the effects of this policy are clear. The traditional structure of the Chinese family is changing. The result is fewer large families, and the gradual disappearance of brothers, sisters, aunts and uncles, leaving more of a burden on children to be sole providers for their elderly parents. When they can’t provide, the responsibility falls on the government.
It’s amazing to see the transformation that modernization is forcing China to make. I can’t help but wonder where my friends are going to end up and how they will cope with the challenges ahead.
Chris Gauthier is a recent Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts graduate who is spending a year in China teaching English at Hebei University. He is writing regular columns for The Advocate during his stay in China. To read all of his Advocate columns, visit blogtheberkshires.com. Readers can also read more about his experiences on his own blog at chrisinchina.wordpress.com.