September 16, 2007
China’s homicidal grandparents
Writing in The Independent, Clifford Coonan reports: There is a strong cultural bias in rural China against baby girls, sometimes known as "maggots in the rice". There is a saying that "raising a daughter is like watering someone else’s fields", a sign of how deep-rooted the pro boy bias is. Boys carry on the family name but, for a girl, families need to find a dowry when she marries into someone else’s family.”
I don’t mean to come off like an arrogant Westerner. Okay, maybe I don’t care if I come off like an arrogant Westerner. Cultural relativism only buys a bunch of Chinese farmers so much slack. China’s cultural bias against girls has reached a point where Beijing’s trading partners should no longer ignore it. We stood up South Africa over Apartheid. Why can’t we stand up to China over women’s rights?
Am I being too harsh? Check out the rest of Mr. Coonan’s article: (Warning: not for the more sensitive readers):
China's one-child policy: doctors discover 23 sewing needles in woman's head
By Clifford Coonan in Beijing
Published: 12 September 2007
Luo Cuifen knew something was wrong when she went to the doctor after finding blood in her urine, but nothing could have prepared her for the discovery of 23 sewing needles, which doctors believe were stuck deep into her as a baby by her grandparents.
Doctors suspect they wanted to kill her because her family preferred a son. Some of the needles were pushed into the fontanelle, the soft spot on the head all babies have before the bones knit. Ms Cuifen, now 29, was a second granddaughter, leaving the family no chance to produce a treasured boy child. (continue reading…)
And you thought that you had a dysfunctional family that secretly wished they could exchange you for the honor student next door. I would be willing to bet that your grandmother never tried to give you a lobotomy with her sewing supplies.
Like many readers, I am fascinated by China as a cultural and historic entity. It has a civilization that goes back 4,000 years, after all. And yes, the Great Wall and the Forbidden City are really amazing. But just what sort of civilization is this, when a large number of parents and grandparents treat their female children this way?
We have been hearing a lot of talk these days about the “Chinese century.” But China’s leaders don’t need to worry about running the world just yet; they need to focus on eliminating the sort of ignorant, backward barbarism of the sort described in the article above.
What can we do about it? Let’s start with the purse strings. How about tying China’s right to sell products in the United States to its improvement in the status of the country’s women? That might persuade the Communist bureaucrats in Beijing to get serious about solving the problem.
