@tony
my bad - @quester was merely quoting me from an earlier verbose post.

As for changing the social perception of having girls - it's deeply ingrained in chinese culture - the government is working on dislodging that archaic misconception but it will take a LONG time - probably several generations to ultimately squash.

The gender thing was (I presume) related to promulgation of the clan or family name - as that's how my father raised us. But since I can't see the general public having much pride in their family name anymore (gui xing) as evidenced by the general culture of greed without responsibility or promulgation of the old virtues of respect, honor, courage, compassion, honesty, patriotism, and loyalty (did I miss any?) - seems hypocritical and stupid to promulgate something of potentially dubious value.

@Quester
My apologies, sorry!

@laotou
Thanks for catching that one before I made an arse out of myself, or did I already? You are right, it will take a long time for this attitude to be turned around, although this is changing faster in the city than in the rural areas.

Oops, perhaps I should have followed etiquette of quote marks to make it clear I was repeating someone else's words.
Was my use of the words more inflammatory than their original use?
I found laotou's response to be very balanced. I understand the rationale behind the one child policy. In fact it could be said that not to institute such a policy might have been irresponsible and creating more misery. However the part that I struggle with is that the method of implementation is often the culture of death of abortion. The official name of the policy being family planning, the emphasis should be on contraception. Offering termination as the universal solution has seriously eroded the value of life in China, when as was pointed out the Chinese view is actually that life begins at conception. Now when we see ads saying things like "Oops, little accident? That's simple, come to our hospital and we'll fix it" - what message does that give about the value of Chinese life? It doesn't matter whether I create another Chinese life, whether in marriage or in a one night stand, because it is just something that can be erased since it has no intrinsic value?
How to undo the damage? Is education effective to change culture and social perceptions? For these moral issues, what moral system carries weight that people would listen to and heed?

all my chinees friends tell me they want a girl,because having a boy means that when he,s getting married you have to buy him a house and give money for a wedding ring (15000 kuai)so to secure the family fortune its better to have a girl.

having money and a house in the future is more important thanhaving a son

@Quester
I do apologize to you again. It's not that the original posting was less inflammatory, it's just that I find laotou's posts usually so verbose that I can't take it all in on one sitting. It usually takes me sever readings before I can finish (no offense laotou, I do enjoy you dry wit and sarcasm) and so I probably didn't catch it when he used it.

Regarding the value of human life here in China, with 1.3 billion people, the value of each person already born is close nil let alone those not born. If you look at it from a historical perspective, there has been so much recorded death from warfare, famine, and natural disasters that from a larger perspective people become numb to it and the numbers are just statistics.

@EnglishTeacher,

"where did I say 'all'?...For the same reason Koreans & Chinnese eat dogs!..."

As an English teacher, shouldn't it be obvious your sentence structure & wordings infer 'all'? I can't help but recall lessons from my American parochial primary school days of decades ago that certain words, particularly those referring to nationality, race or even a group do in fact indicate 'all', unless qualified by written as "some Koreans & some Chinese". I am not an English teacher and certainly no linguistic expert, but perhaps the word, 'Chinnese', refers only to 'some' Chinese who are 'Chinnese'.

How about my following sentence: English teacher should and must teach correct English. Does my sentence indicate 'some'?

@tony
Sorry - Tv's broken, I'm too lazy to get it fixed, too cheap to buy a new one (want to trade up the apt first) - but I'm amazed anyone actually reads my posts...thanks - glad to amuse.

On that note - I was explaining international finance and western politics to some high school students the other day as it's a topic frequently in the news.

It goes something like this:

1. USA complains CNY is too cheap. The CNY/RMB is cheap because china has 1.4 billion people and the USA only has 300 million - a roughly 5 to 1 ratio and the exchange rate is about CNY6.5~USD 1. So what the USA is really saying is "China has too many people".
2. China addresses this known issue by implementing a one-child policy to try to reduce or curb explosive population growth.
3. USA says China's one-child policy is evil (or was that google).

So in effect, politics is making multiple mutually contradictory statements to achieve nothing, but make lots of noise and look important. I know - I'm incredibly dangerous to be perverting the minds of China's youth with such tripe - but they actually understood the concept of politics and nodded agreement - so I'm wondering what a high school student could possibly have seen in their young lives to have made them understand that complicated analogy so easily.

Crazy right? or did I oversimplify and or distort things?

This is ever so thinly and flimsily on topic to the original question posed by @dan.

@laotou
Politics IS a study in contradiction and oxymoron, that's why the common people (lao baixing) throughout Chinese history stayed out of it and just kept their noses to farming their land.

Western countries (esp. USA) would like to portray themselves as the "good guys" saving the world from the "commie bad guys", but in reality all politics are dirty, selfish, and self-serving. American politicians denounce human rights violations throughout the world and yet they are the largest beneficiaries of said violations in the cheaper raw materials they can acquire to support their higher standards of living. On the one hand they make a fuss about human rights violations in China and yet at the same time the complain about the exchange rate. By making the RMB stronger it would result in the financial hardship of peasant laborers, the ones already on the margins of society, who find themselves without a job because their factories have closed. What about human rights then? Doesn't the Chinese works have the right to the same standards of living as American laborers. It's all very disingenuous.

I'm not saying the US has no right to such policies, in fact as an American, I demand them to do everything to uphold my freedom. But as a citizen of the world, I'm saying let's not get on a high horse and be holier then thou. Call it what it is. &h!t is &h!t, don't splash some perfume on it and call it something else.

Does anyone else agree with the opinion that the value of each Chinese person is close to nil? I personally do not, because each person has the potential to make a contribution to society. And even more importantly, each person has the potential to love and be loved.