On Friday night, Sean, Jordan, Ken, Daniel and I went over to Mr. Wu's (Steve) house for dinner. Steve is Chinese but works in the foreign language department and teaches English. He has been really nice and helpful to all of us when we have problems or questions about adapting to life in China. He likes to spend a lot of time with the foreigners and his English is excellent. Steve is married to his wife, Spring and they have a son, Michael.I didn't really know what to expect when we took the bus from school over to Steve's house as I had never been in a Chinese person's house before. The Wu family lives in an apartment complex about 15 minutes from school. Their apartment had a kitchen, bathroom, living room and two bedrooms and when we arrived Spring had all of the main dishes ready for us on the table.
Everything was delicious. There was beef and onions, water chestnuts, asparagus and pork, candied chicken, sweet peas, tofu and mushrooms and curried potatoes with chicken. After dinner we played a Chinese version of tic-tac-toe called something like "five in a row". It was trickier than it sounded and I lost to eleven-year-old Michael in a matter of minutes.It is common for a Chinese couple to have only one child due to the "Family Planning Policy" that China began in 1979. In this policy parents with multiple births aren’t given the same benefits as parents of one child. Many times the parents have to pay money to the government in order to get permission to have another child or are fined if they have another child without permission.
As a consequence of the One-Child policy the structure of the traditional Chinese family has changed dramatically and the attention has shifted from the respected elders of the family to revolving around one child often causing the child to become spoiled and overindulged. In addition, the child is often weighed down with huge pressures and expectations as he/she is the only heir of the family. This phenomenon is known in China as "Little Emperor Syndrome" and has been attributed most frequently to an increased spending power within the family unit due to the parents’ desire for their child to experience the benefits they were denied. Wikipedia describes it as a problem “so acute that it’s changing how society functions" and notes that the effect has produced consequences “the architects of China's one-child policy could never have foreseen." Another source referred to the syndrome as a “behavioral time-bomb" of the "Spoilt Brat Generation".
I don't know Michael very well but it was interesting to think about "Little Emperors" while spending time with him and his family. Some of the other teachers that had spent more time with him said that he frequently got his way or didn't have to do any chores and was doted on and praised excessively for relatively average achievements. It will be interesting to not only get to know Michael better in the future but also to see the future implications of a society growing up with families of only one child.
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