Liumingke1234, why is it so sad that people want to live their own lives. Children do not ask to be born. It is a great conceit of parents to expect to be raised by their own parents and then to be taken care of by their children. Each generation is responsible for the future, not for the past.

If you are elderly and can't take care of yourself or haven't made arrangements to be taken care of, the only fault is your own (barring any unforeseen circumstances). We all know that we are to going to age and at some point become feeble. Why is it our children's responsibility to take care of us?

I ask this as a childless, 56 year old, who is an only child.

@laotou, thanks for your comment. I think that there are two completely different worlds at work here. The official CPC line about harmony is a thinly veiled ideal of group think and uniformity rather than the kind of community spirit and cooperation we normally think of. The other world is the continuous improvement in the well being of a large number, albeit a minority, of Chinese people who have formed a large middle class open to a world of ideas and information beyond Chinese borders. As their children are exposed to the benefits of communal responsibility, as they experience more and more acts of selfless kindness by those around them, social responsibility and true harmony may yet come I the next generation. Let's hope so....now what to do about the other 900 million Chinese!

You've lived in China long enough to realize that there is virtually no sense of communal responsibility. It's every man for himself. Think about the traffic, getting on a bus or trying to buy a train ticket. Because traiditionally one could not rely on anyone outside of immediate family, everyone else is suspect. Hence, no one is willing to get involved.

Thanks for the great interview. I'm delighted to hear about the, obviously, active classical music scene in Kunming. When I lived there, I'm ashamed to admit that I had no luck in finding concerts like those discussed in the interview. I always wondered what the students who bought all those instruments from the musical instruments stores lining one long street near downtown were doing with them. Now I know.

As usual, it's nothing but a show. The "laws" may be written, but until there is rule of law, it's all a bad joke. They are deluding themselves.