One Child: The Story of China's Most Radical Experiment

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One Child: The Story of China's Most Radical Experiment Page 25

by Mei Fong

] less than a dollar a day: Jackson, Nakashima, and Howe, China’s Long March to Retirement Reform.

  [>] “Your chances of avoiding”: Atul Gawande, Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2014), 79.

  [>] cemeteries won’t sell them burial plots: “Life After Loss,” China Daily, December 17, 2013, http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/html/feature/lifeafterloss/.

  [>] million of them, and growing: National Health and Family Planning Commission of People’s Republic of China, “2010 China Health Statistical Yearbook,” National Health and Family Planning Commission of People’s Republic of China website, August 8, 2010, http://www.moh.gov.cn/htmlfiles/zwgkzt/ptjnj/year2010/index2010.html.

  [>] shidu parents receive reimbursement: Yao Zhang, Lixin Zhang, and Liying Ren, “The First Shidu Parents Received Reimbursement,” Xinhua Daily Telegraph, July 12, 2012, http://news.xinhuanet.com/mrdx/2012-07/12/c_131710347.htm.

  [>] sharing her quarters with a huge sow: David Moye, “Chen Shoutian Under Fire for Making 100-Year-Old Mom Sleep with a Pig,” Huffington Post Weird News, December 18, 2012, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/17/chen-shoutian-under-fire-_n_2317912.html.

  [>] depending in turn on their children’s largess: Associated Press, “Elderly Chinese Woman, 94, Sues Her Daughter for Care as Aging Population Presents New Problems for Governments,” New York Daily News, October 12, 2013, http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/edlerly-chinese-woman-sues-daughter-care-article-1.1483711.

  [>] “human reproduction is sacred is no longer accepted”: Yan Yunxiang, Private Life Under Socialism: Love, Intimacy and Family Change in a Chinese Village, 1949–1999 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2003).

  [>] reducing out-of-pocket expenses: Y. Zhao, Y. Hu, J. P. Smith, J. Strauss, and G. Yang, “Cohort Profile: The China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS),” International Journal of Epidemiology 43, no. 1 (2014): 61–68, http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/ije/dys203.

  [>] 0.7 percentage points per year: Jackson, Nakashima, and Howe, China’s Long March to Retirement Reform, 3–17.

  [>] forced nearly a hundred dying patients into the streets: Coco Liu, “China Death Taboo on Its Way Out,” Global Post, November 15, 2010, http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/china/101108/hospice-care-health-aging-culture.

  [>] karaoke hostesses: Reuters, “China Bans Tomb-Sweepers’ ‘Vulgar’ Burned Offerings,” China Daily, April 25, 2006, http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2006-04/25/content_576881.htm.

  [>] 40 percent of the world’s Parkinson’s sufferers: E. R. Dorsey, Radu Constantinescu, J. P. Thompson, Kevin Biglan, R. G. Holloway, and K. Kieburtz, “Projected Number of People with Parkinson Disease in the Most Populous Nations, 2005 Through 2030,” Neurology 68, no. 5 (February 2007): 384–86, http://www.researchgate.net/publication/6715222_Projected_number_of_people_with_Parkinson_disease_in_the_most_populous_nations_2005_through_2030._Neurology.

  8. The Red Thread Is Broken

  [>] For two decades, over 120,000: There were 122,661 adoptions from China between 1995 and 2013. Australian InterCountry Adoption Network (AICAN) and Peter Selman, Newcastle University, http://www.aican.org/statistics.php?region=0&type=birth.

  [>] eight thousand China babies: InterCountry Adoption, Bureau of Consular Affairs, US Department of State, http://travel.state.gov/content/dam/aa/pdfs/fy2014_annual_report.pdf.

  [>] China continues to be by far the largest source country for adoptions: Ibid.

  [>] “The orphanage asked for more babies”: Scott Tong, “The Dark Side of Chinese Adoptions,” Marketplace, May 5, 2010, http://www.marketplace.org/topics/life/dark-side-chinese-adoptions.

  [>] according to the Los Angeles Times: Barbara Demick, “Some Chinese Parents Say Their Babies Were Stolen for Adoption,” Los Angeles Times, September 20, 2009, http://articles.latimes.com/2009/sep/20/world/fg-china-adopt20.

  [>] Caixin reported a similar case: Pang Jiaoming, “The Lost Children of Shaoyang City,” Caixin, May 10, 2011, http://english.caixin.com/2011-05-10/100257699.html.

  [>] trafficking cases in Guizhou: “Chinese Baby Girls Sold for Adoption,” UPI, July 2, 2009, http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2009/07/02/Chinese-baby-girls-sold-for-adoption/UPI-52961246593352/?st_rec=63831376140810.

  [>] Shaanxi provinces: “Doctor, Eight Others Arrested in Chinese Baby-Selling Scandal,” UPI, August 10, 2013, http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2013/08/10/Doctor-eight-others-arrested-in-Chinese-baby-selling-scandal/63831376140810/#ixzz3UEJALYoH.

  [>] foundation Half the Sky: Figures calculated from Half the Sky’s financial records as posted on HalftheSky.org and verified by Patricia King, chief communication officer, July 17, 2014.

  [>] constantly violated: David Smolin, “The Corrupting Influence of the United States on a Vulnerable Intercountry Adoption System: A Guide for Stakeholders, Hague and Non-Hague Nations, NGOs, and Concerned Parties,” Utah Law Review no. 4 (2013), http://epubs.utah.edu/index.php/ulr/article/viewArticle/1166.

  [>] many of those girls could have found loving homes within the country: Kay Ann Johnson, Wanting a Daughter, Needing a Son: Abandonment, Adoption, and Orphanage Care in China (St. Paul, MN: Yeong & Yeong Books, 2004). See also Johnson’s forthcoming China’s Hidden Children: Abandonment, Adoption, and the Human Costs of the One-Child Policy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016).

  [>] practices in Chinese orphanages: Kate Blewett and Brian Woods, The Dying Rooms, Lauderdale Productions, 1995, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112919/.

  [>] little more than places where children were sent to die: “Death by Default: A Policy of Fatal Neglect in China’s State Orphanages,” Human Rights Watch report, January 1, 1996, http://www.hrw.org/reports/1996/01/01/death-default.

  [>] “some cash with a red birth note”: Brian Stuy’s blog, http://research-china.blog spot.com/search?q=RED%20BIRTH%20NOTE&max-results=20&by-date=true, as well as interviews with the author.

  [>] “an unsettling postmortem”: Brian H. Stuy, “Brian H. Stuy (with Foreword by David Smolin), Open Secret: Cash and Coercion in China’s International Adoption Program,” Cumberland Law Review 44, no. 3 (2014): 355–422, http://works.bepress.com/david_smolin/15.

  [>] Families with Children from China: The FCC has now expanded to be “Families with Children from Asia (FCA).”

  [>] “huge part of cultural loss feels physically grafted”: Grace Newton, The Red Thread Is Broken (blog), https://redthreadbroken.wordpress.com/.

  [>] “kind of joking, kind of not”: Interview with the author, September 25, 2014.

  [>] “If I start to disbelieve what they [China authorities] told me”: Karin Evans, The Lost Daughters of China: Adopted Girls, Their Journey to America, and the Search for a Missing Past (New York: Tarcher, 2008).

  [>] a hard-nosed reporter for the Philadephia Inquirer: Jeff Gammage, China Ghosts: My Daughter’s Journey to America, My Passage to Fatherhood (New York: Harper Perennial, 2008).

  9. Babies Beyond Borders

  [>] first test-tube baby: “China’s First Test Tube Baby to Celebrate 20th Birthday,” Xinhua News, February 26, 2008, http://www.china.org.cn/china/sci_tech/2008-02/26/content_10784222.htm.

  [>] fertility treatments mushroomed: Jared Yee, “Rising Demand for IVF in China Causes Spread of Unlicensed Clinics,” BioEdge, November 3, 2010, http://www.bioedge.org/index.php/bioethics/bioethics_article/rising_demand_for_ivf_in_china_causes_spread_of_unlicensed_clinics.

  [>] number of twin births: Qin Xu and Yanhui Wang, “Why Twins Birth Rate Increases,” Fenghuang Web, January 30, 2013, http://fashion.ifeng.com/baby/haoyun/detail_2013_01/30/21777648_1.shtml.

  [>] the one-child policy accounted for at least a third of the increase in twins: Wei Huang, Xiaoyan Lei, and Yaohui Zhao, “One-Child Policy and the Rise of Man-Made Twins,” Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit, Institute for the Study of Labor, August 2014, http://ftp.iza.org/dp8394.pdf.

  [>] seven hundred pairs of such “fake twins” in over three hundred villages: “700 Fake Twins Inve
stigated in Yunnan,” People Web, July 28, 2000, http://www.people.com.cn/GB/channel1/13/20000728/163617.html.

  [>] one in every fifty babies born was a twin: Shuang Lu and Yun Luo, “Drugs Lead to Increased Twins Rate,” Sina Web, January 22, 2013, http://baby.sina.com.cn/news/2013-01-22/084158010.shtml?oda_pick_aid=0&oda_pick_mid=0&oda _pick_pid=3411627&oda_pick_sid=0&oda_pick_st=1&pl=0&kid=0&ct=0.

  [>] “To have one family with eight kids”: Alexa Olesen, “‘Octomom’ in One-Child China Stuns Public,” USA Today, December 30, 2011, http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/health/wellness/story/2011-12-30/Octomom-in-one-child-China-stuns-public/52284636/1.

  [>] five surrogate mothers in a quest for a son: “Strict Selection Before Surrogacy and 4 Abortions for Bearing a Boy,” Guangming Web, January 12, 2015, http://life .gmw.cn/2015-01/12/content_14478195.htm.

  [>] three surrogate mothers: James Pomfret, “Forced Abortions Shake Up China Wombs-for-Rent Industry,” Reuters, April 30, 2009, http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/04/30/us-china-surrogacy-idUSTRE53T04D20090430.

  [>] “what does the law mean”: Olesen, “‘Octomom’ in One-Child China Stuns Public.”

  [>] forced late-term abortion: Massoud Hayoun, “Understanding China’s One-Child Policy,” The National Interest, August 15, 2012, http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/understanding-chinas-one-child-policy-7330.

  [>] linked to infertility: “Study to Assess Impact of Air Pollution on Fertility,” Environmental Technology, September 10, 2013, http://www.envirotech-online.com/news/air-monitoring/6/breaking_news/study_to_assess_impact_of_air_pollution_on_fertility/26787/.

  [>] a five-year study of the relationship between air pollution and female infertility: Ibid.

  [>] a “semen crisis”: Changfeng Chen, “Shanghai Sperm Bank Investigation Shows 2/3 Semen Unqualified,” Xinmin Web, November 6, 2013, http://shanghai.xin min.cn/xmsq/2013/11/06/22552119.html.

  [>] World Health Organization standards: Tom Phillips, “Pollution Pushes Shanghai Towards Semen Crisis,” The Telegraph, November 7, 2013, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/10432226/Pollution-pushes-Shanghai-towards-semen-crisis.html.

  [>] Chinese men’s sperm: Weiguang Wang and Guoguang Zheng, Green Book of Climate Change: Annual Report on Actions to Address Climate Change (Beijing: Social Sciences Academic Press, 2013).

  [>] With over 60 million females who were never born, killed in infancy, or given away: “Bare Branches, Redundant Males,” Economist, April 16, 2015, http://www.economist.com/news/asia/21648715-distorted-sex-ratios-birth-generation-ago-are-changing-marriage-and-damaging-societies-asias.

  [>] and another 40 million females experiencing infertility: Alice Yang and Jeremy Blum, “Pollutants’ Effect on Infertility Rates in China to Be Examined,” South China Morning Post, September 4, 2013.

  [>] exposed by his mistress: Shitong Nie, “Woman Accused Deputy of City Construction Bureau in Changde’s Deshan Economic Development Zone,” Zhongyuan Web, March 11, 2014, http://zx.zynews.com/whzx/134537.html.

  [>] Lei was sentenced to death: Jianliang Huang and Xiangsheng Yue, “Former Vice Mayor of Chenzhou City Had Relationships with Nine Lovers,” Sina Web, May 11, 2006, http://news.sina.com.cn/c/l/2006-05-11/11219831007.shtml.

  [>] “but they don’t want African American”: Interview with the author, March 5, 2015.

  [>] “US and other countries”: Wendie Wilson-Miller, based on an interview with the author, March 6, 2015.

  [>] “‘anchor baby’ industry”: Miriam Jordan, “Federal Agents Raid Alleged ‘Maternity Tourism’ Businesses Catering to Chinese,” Wall Street Journal, March 3, 2015, http://www.wsj.com/articles/us-agents-raid-alleged-maternity-tourism-anchor-baby-businesses-catering-to-chinese-1425404456.

  [>] “the donor’s had eyelid surgery”: Wilson-Miller, based on an interview with the author, March 6, 2015.

  [>] genetic screening they would prefer: Niu Yujie, Yang Youmeng, Li Yajuan, Tang Qi, Zhang Yixi, Xu Linyong, and Zhang Helong, “A Study upon Knowledge and Awareness of Genetic Screening and Influencing Factors in Changsha,” Practical Preventive Medicine 22, no. 1 (January 2015).

  [>] “People ought to be free to manipulate their children’s IQ”: Bregtje van der Haak, DNA Dreams (documentary), Netherlands, 2012, http://www.nposales.com/dna-dreams/.

  [>] select embryos that have better genetic markers: John Bohannon, “Why Are Some People So Smart? The Answer Could Spawn a New Generation of Superbabies,” Wired, July 16, 2013 http://www.wired.com/2013/07/genetics-of-iq/.

  [>] forbidding couples who had “genetic diseases of a serious nature”: Sun-Wei Guo, “China: The Maternal and Infant Health Care Law,” eLS, April 16, 2012, http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9780470015902.a0005201.pub2/abstract.

  [>] “reproduction of the dull-witted, idiots, or blockheads”: Wang Guisong, “Constitutionality Adjustment on China Eugenics Law,” Study in Law and Business, no. 2 (2011).

  [>] Only a tenth of eligible couples: “Only 1/10th Chinese Couples Had 2nd Child After Policy Relaxed.”

  [>] “selfish and bad parenting to have another child”: Lauren Sandler, “Chinese Parents Can Now Have More Than One Child. Why Many Say They Won’t,” Washington Post, January 10, 2014, http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/chinese-parents-can-now-have-more-than-one-child-why-many-say-they-wont/2014/01/10/2c9811de-73c5-11e3-8def-a33011492df2_story.html.

  [>] the one-child policy had nothing to do with their decision: Ma Xiaohong, “Birth Policy’s Enlightenment: Child-Bearing Trends in Different Districts,” Population and Development, no. 6 (2011).

  [>] “a case of extreme economic rationalism”: Susan Greenhalgh, “Fertility as Mobility: Sinic Transitions,” Population and Development Review 14, no. 4 (December 1988): 629–74, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1973627.

  Index

  A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z

  A

  AARP (American Association of Retired Persons), 141

  abortion

  advice/persuasion on, 68, 69

  as birth control, 25

  Chen Guangcheng on, 81

  forced, x, xv, 60, 61, 62, 70, 72, 78, 79, 80, 167, 196

  Gao (family-planning official) on, 76–77

  mistresses and, 197

  population police and, 80

  religious beliefs and, 51

  sex-selective, 31–32, 44, 109

  surrogacy and, 195

  urban women and, 129

  wage incentives for, 75

  About a Boy (Hornby), 137

  adoption, xv, 169–89, 191

  baby buying and, 171–73, 174, 179, 180

  black market, xiii

  DNA testing and, 183–84, 186, 189

  domestic, 174–75

  finding notices, 178, 180

  international, 170–73, 175–83, 232n

  red thread and, 188

  seized/stolen children and, 12, 184–89

  shidu parents and, 41

  of special-needs children, 179, 180

  Affordable Care Act, 202

  African Americans, 200

  aging population, 9, 48, 59, 138–39, 141, 157, 208

  arc between retirement and terminal illness in China, 142

  death/afterlife and, 161–64

  economics and, 156–57, 161

  elder abuse, 151–52, 155

  enqing concept and, 155

  health-care reforms and, 156

  home nursing services for, 143–49

  number of people over sixty, 7, 140

  nursing homes, 150, 151

  origins of Pinetree lifestyle services company for, 141–43

  public dancing of, 147

  in rural areas, 151–56

  shidu parents and, 150–51

  support of/caring for, 44–45, 86, 150, 156

  See also hospices; pensions

  agricultural decollectivization, 70–71

  Ah Ma (grandmother of Mei Fong), 133–34


  “Ain’t We Got Fun,” 190

  air filter masks, 105

  Ai Weiwei, 35

  Alibaba, 125

  All-China Women’s Federation, 102, 115, 125, 126

  Amnesty International, 78

  anchor babies, 204–5

  Anderson, Siwan, 116

  Anren, 37–38, 41

  ant tribe, 95

  Arab Spring, 114

  Asian Studies (at Hampshire College), 174

  “At the Gate of Heaven” (Ma Ke’s diary), 158

  Atwood, Margaret, 196, 197

  B

  babaotai muqin (China’s Octomom), 194

  baby buying, 171–73, 174, 179, 180

  Baidu (China’s Google), 94, 124

  bangbang jun (porters), 27

  Bare Branches (den Boer), 114, 115

  barefoot doctors, 152

  BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation), 106, 175, 228n

  Beckham, David, 34

  Beidou (China’s GPS system), 89

  Beijing, 30, 62, 79, 211–12

  adoption and, 171, 173, 181

  after Sichuan earthquake, 4

  aging population and, 150

  birth-planning machinery and, 66

  caili (reverse dowry) in, 117

  Chen (Jenova) in, 97

  Dongyue Miao in, 162

  economics and, xi, 8–9

  environment and, xv

  fertility treatments in, 191–92

  Fong (Mei) in, 23

 

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