China Boys
Essay by 24 • November 16, 2010 • 464 Words (2 Pages) • 1,394 Views
In the article Bias for Boys leads to sale of baby girls in China, selling baby girls to other families is part of China's culture. The tradition is that each family should have at least one boy in the family. They are only allow two child per family if the first is a boy. When a baby girl is born first, the parents will either keep the girl or give it away to another family so they can have an opportunity of having a baby boy. The preference for boys rather than girls has gone to the extreme, in fact the culture is more important to them than an individual's life.
Rosenthal, the author, was very precise when she imply that planning a family is very difficult and dangerous. First, is hard because the culture says that boys are like gods and girls are treated with less attention. Another reason why newborn girls are given away is the economic status of the parent might be bad therefore they can't afford to pay the expensive fine the government says they have to pay if exceed more than two child. There are different levels of abiding the tradition throughout the country. For instance, Guangdong providence families are allow to have more than one baby per family if all are boys. As oppose to Guanxi, their family planning is very strict.
The population control is taken very seriously, in fact, there was a specific case mention in the article of twenty eight unwanted girls found in a truck ready to sell them as if they were objects. One of the babies was already dead and the rest was purple due to lack of air. The person who runs this type of business makes a lot of money. In fact, eighty percent of newborn babies are trade and the remaining is boys with health problem like deformity.
Whether you grow up in a individualistic or collectivistic environment is going to affect your personality. Both, have the ability to shape someone's life. China's culture is a collectivistic culture. They emphasize
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