China cracks down on . . . using English?

[Danny Bhoy]

Considering the jokes that are ... and the one child policy...

The one child policy worked for its intention and was enforced rather rigidly. Care to explain why you consider it a joke?

WAGuesstimate but I reckon maybe 10% if not more of the PRCs I've met and small-talked about family backgrounds, claimed that they had siblings (same parents not step-siblings). More than one had even mentioned that they had two siblings. From what I understand, in the countryside (i.e. a fairly large chunk of China), families are allowed to have (at least?) 2 kids if the first wasn't a boy. A few even claimed to be from cities and also claimed to have siblings, so assuming that they weren't fibbing, enforcement could be rather uneven over time and between different locales. If I remember correctly, many of these PRCs were from the Sichuan/Chongqing region.

Short story, it seems that the one child policy is nowhere as draconian as oft made out, certainly not what Clancey depicts in one of his novels (no big surprise).

[mr friendly guy]

Considering the jokes that are ... and the one child policy...

The one child policy worked for its intention and was enforced rather rigidly. Care to explain why you consider it a joke?

WAGuesstimate but I reckon maybe 10% if not more of the PRCs I've met and small-talked about family backgrounds, claimed that they had siblings (same parents not step-siblings). More than one had even mentioned that they had two siblings. From what I understand, in the countryside (i.e. a fairly large chunk of China), families are allowed to have (at least?) 2 kids if the first wasn't a boy. A few even claimed to be from cities and also claimed to have siblings, so assuming that they weren't fibbing, enforcement could be rather uneven over time and between different locales. If I remember correctly, many of these PRCs were from the Sichuan/Chongqing region.

Short story, it seems that the one child policy is nowhere as draconian as oft made out, certainly not what Clancey depicts in one of his novels (no big surprise).

I think Spoonist's point is that it worked in the sense that it keeps births down to a target which the government is quite happy to trumpet about. Even if a not small percentage managed to "get away with it", if the rest follow it, they still reach a satisfactory (if not necessary great) target of decreased births.

I suspect Pelranius was most likely mocking how its not 100% strictly enforced, but its certainly enforced enough for the government to cheer about reduced births.

Back to the conversation with Lusankanya, I should point out that I have seen some aforementioned Chinese patients who didn't know the English terms for things like

a) diabetes (a man who on a routine sugar check was quite high, but denies ever having diabetes)
b) penicillin (we were about to give him penicillin, so we had to make sure he didn't have an allergy to it).

Strangely enough they understand the Chinese equivalent terms (even if I had to look on the internet to get them ). Funny how that one works isn't it?

[Lusankya]

Re: the one child policy.

China's actually in the process of liberalising the one child policy. Currently if two people are only children, then they may have two children, and in some locales, couples may have a second child if only one of them is an only child. It's not unlikely that within ten years or so, the policy will turn into a "two child policy".

The main successes of the one child policy have been as follows: first of all, it did decrease the size of families. The "ideal" number of children in the Chinese mind has gone down from about ten, to about two. Even in the countryside, where people did have more than one child, you rarely encounter the same kinds of large families that they had in the past. Secondly, the one child policy has increased the length of time between children. When people have a second child, many will wait seven years between children, because the fines for the second child go down significantly after seven years. Thirdly, it's helped to increase the status of women in society. While the government had an official policy of gender equality before the one child policy, the one child policy forced many middle class families to put all their resources into raising their only daughter, as they would a son. Had they been allowed to have another child, and thus been able to split their resources between a son and a daughter, the resource allocation would unlikely to be equal, and the education differences between males and females would likely be greater than it is today.

Also, it's worth noting that Chinese people don't differentiate between cousins and siblings quite as strongly as westerners do. The words for "cousin" are basically modified forms of the nouns for brothers and sisters. It's very common for Chinese people to count their cousins as brothers and sisters. Really, if you want to be sure how many siblings they have, it's best to clarify with them.

Back to the conversation with Lusankanya, I should point out that I have seen some aforementioned Chinese patients who didn't know the English terms for things like

a) diabetes (a man who on a routine sugar check was quite high, but denies ever having diabetes)
b) penicillin (we were about to give him penicillin, so we had to make sure he didn't have an allergy to it).

Strangely enough they understand the Chinese equivalent terms (even if I had to look on the internet to get them ). Funny how that one works isn't it?

Yeah. It's almost as though it would be far more efficient for the medical staff in China to be using those terms.

[Danny Bhoy]

Re: the one child policy.

China's actually in the process of liberalising the one child policy. Currently if two people are only children, then they may have two children, and in some locales, couples may have a second child if only one of them is an only child. It's not unlikely that within ten years or so, the policy will turn into a "two child policy".

The main successes of the one child policy have been as follows: first of all, it did decrease the size of families. The "ideal" number of children in the Chinese mind has gone down from about ten, to about two. Even in the countryside, where people did have more than one child, you rarely encounter the same kinds of large families that they had in the past. Secondly, the one child policy has increased the length of time between children. When people have a second child, many will wait seven years between children, because the fines for the second child go down significantly after seven years. Thirdly, it's helped to increase the status of women in society. While the government had an official policy of gender equality before the one child policy, the one child policy forced many middle class families to put all their resources into raising their only daughter, as they would a son. Had they been allowed to have another child, and thus been able to split their resources between a son and a daughter, the resource allocation would unlikely to be equal, and the education differences between males and females would likely be greater than it is today.

Also, it's worth noting that Chinese people don't differentiate between cousins and siblings quite as strongly as westerners do. The words for "cousin" are basically modified forms of the nouns for brothers and sisters. It's very common for Chinese people to count their cousins as brothers and sisters. Really, if you want to be sure how many siblings they have, it's best to clarify with them.

I think we differentiate even more than Westerners do with the 堂/表 prefix for cousin (+哥/姐/弟/妹) depending on dad's or mum's side. Although I had always tended to exclusively use the 表 prefix for all my cousins, regardless of which side of the family they were... For uncles, I still have a devil of a time trying to remember which side of the family was 叔叔/舅舅.

[Spoonist]

Short story, it seems that the one child policy is nowhere as draconian as oft made out, certainly not what Clancey depicts in one of his novels (no big surprise).

So in short, it was nowhere as draconian as some moron's ramblings about it, hence its a joke?


Ignorance on the topic is not a good way to start when trying to disclaim its success.

First the existance of siblings are within the one child policy. There never was any death squads or similar silliness I've heard from fringe americans. Instead it was a fine system and a withdrawal of benefits. So if you had the capital or didn't care about living in relative poverty you could most definately breed on. The enforcement has been very strict compared to other laws or decrees (like the english one), its just a matter of scale. Of course there will be exceptions/corruption in a country so huge.

[Lusankya]

I think we differentiate even more than Westerners do with the 堂/表 prefix for cousin (+哥/姐/弟/妹) depending on dad's or mum's side. Although I had always tended to exclusively use the 表 prefix for all my cousins, regardless of which side of the family they were... For uncles, I still have a devil of a time trying to remember which side of the family was 叔叔/舅舅.

There's more differentiation, but it's not necessarily used. 哥, for example, is usually translated as "older brother" but it can also mean "older male relative of the same generation". While "older brother" is the prototypical meaning, it one can also refer to an older male cousin as 哥 as well, and that usage would technically be correct. That's where the confusion comes in: if someone's particularly close to their cousin, or they're just feeling lazy, then there's a good chance that they'll drop the 表/堂 prefix*. That's what I meant when I said they don't differentiate as strongly. Yes, there are more terms, but you can slide between them a bit more easily than you can with English.

And that's not even taking into account the Chinese tendency to just randomly declare people that they like to be their "brother/sister/daughter/son", since I doubt that usage is the kind that would slip into mistranslations when they describe their family relations in English.

Your 舅舅 is your mother's brother, and your 叔叔 is your father's younger brother. If your father had an older brother, he would be a 伯伯 or 伯父.

*technically the difference is not father or mother's side. 堂 means "hall", and since in the past brothers would all live together in the same house, your 堂兄弟姐妹 would be the ones who lived in the same hall as you - i.e. the children of the same set of brothers. All other cousins - including all the cousins on your mother's side and the children of any aunts would use the 表 prefix. I, personally, only have 表兄弟姐妹 - my father has no brothers.

[Danny Bhoy]

Short story, it seems that the one child policy is nowhere as draconian as oft made out, certainly not what Clancey depicts in one of his novels (no big surprise).

So in short, it was nowhere as draconian as some moron's ramblings about it, hence its a joke?


Ignorance on the topic is not a good way to start when trying to disclaim its success.

First the existance of siblings are within the one child policy. There never was any death squads or similar silliness I've heard from fringe americans. Instead it was a fine system and a withdrawal of benefits. So if you had the capital or didn't care about living in relative poverty you could most definately breed on. The enforcement has been very strict compared to other laws or decrees (like the english one), its just a matter of scale. Of course there will be exceptions/corruption in a country so huge.

Never said it was a joke or no. My comment was directed at your assertion that the OCP was rigidly enforced. I did not get that impression from the relative handful of PRCs I spoke to as they did not mention any drawbacks (mind you these conversations normally took place outside of China in private settings so they were also fairly relaxed). Also enforcement could be variable depending on time and region. The people I spoke to were not poor (by PRC countryside standards) nor wealthy. You're prolly right that in some cases they didn't give a shit about withdrawal of bennies.

[Danny Bhoy]

I think we differentiate even more than Westerners do with the 堂/表 prefix for cousin (+哥/姐/弟/妹) depending on dad's or mum's side. Although I had always tended to exclusively use the 表 prefix for all my cousins, regardless of which side of the family they were... For uncles, I still have a devil of a time trying to remember which side of the family was 叔叔/舅舅.

There's more differentiation, but it's not necessarily used. 哥, for example, is usually translated as "older brother" but it can also mean "older male relative of the same generation". While "older brother" is the prototypical meaning, it one can also refer to an older male cousin as 哥 as well, and that usage would technically be correct. That's where the confusion comes in: if someone's particularly close to their cousin, or they're just feeling lazy, then there's a good chance that they'll drop the 表/堂 prefix*. That's what I meant when I said they don't differentiate as strongly. Yes, there are more terms, but you can slide between them a bit more easily than you can with English.

And that's not even taking into account the Chinese tendency to just randomly declare people that they like to be their "brother/sister/daughter/son", since I doubt that usage is the kind that would slip into mistranslations when they describe their family relations in English.

Your 舅舅 is your mother's brother, and your 叔叔 is your father's younger brother. If your father had an older brother, he would be a 伯伯 or 伯父.

*technically the difference is not father or mother's side. 堂 means "hall", and since in the past brothers would all live together in the same house, your 堂兄弟姐妹 would be the ones who lived in the same hall as you - i.e. the children of the same set of brothers. All other cousins - including all the cousins on your mother's side and the children of any aunts would use the 表 prefix. I, personally, only have 表兄弟姐妹 - my father has no brothers.

The dropping of the prefixes goes back to what you/me said about abbreviations/contractions in Mando. But that's more colloquail I think. While I have used that contraction e.g. 哥 (say in Hokkien) with my older male cousins, I often clarify with their name e.g. 阿李哥 (down our parts we tend to use the ah prefix for names quite a bit - Ah Beng, Ah Lian, Ah Seng etc., although it has a familiar connotation and not usually the formal/actual name)

[Prometheus Unbound]

Liberty cabbage - also known as sauerkraut. The term came about during - IIRC - WWI when everyone got all butthurt over Germany. See also "freedom fries."

The point being that such nationalism is pathetic and only goes to show how the people engaging in it are desperately insecure or incredibly asspained.

They had a whole lot of terms like that in WW1. Liberty Pups was introduced for example after people went around beating Dachshunds to death. You can thank the Committee on Public Information for that. This is just another avenue of China trying to control its population by controlling culture. China also semi actively suppresses certain Chinese dialects as I recall, they want everyone to use Mandarin so its easier for the army of web censors to operate.

Wait...really? People murdered pet dogs because the breed had a German-sounding name?

The dog breed Alsatian was "invented" because the proper name, German Shepherd, was not considered acceptable during WW1...

[Molyneux]

The dog breed Alsatian was "invented" because the proper name, German Shepherd, was not considered acceptable during WW1...

That's quite a long way from actually killing dogs, though. Renaming is one thing, murder is another.

[Todeswind]

The dog breed Alsatian was "invented" because the proper name, German Shepherd, was not considered acceptable during WW1...

That's quite a long way from actually killing dogs, though. Renaming is one thing, murder is another.

They were renamed because people were killing them.