Breakdown of Family Ties in China
An unfortunate thing for many of us in so-called developed countries is that the extended family and strong blood ties have broken down as family members move away to distant towns or countries. Cultural links between family members have broken as part of this process. I’m an example of it all. My family moved from Scotland to Australia when I was still a child and I didn’t get back to see anyone for seventeen years. By that time some family members had died including my beloved grannies and a favourite uncle. I lost the benefit of their wisdom during years where it would have been handy. Integrating into a new culture, albeit another British based one, was not easy.
Who knows the whys of the restlessness in my soul but eventually I left a marriage I was firmly committed to when it began and stayed with for two decades. I began to explore life anew and eventually went to China to teach. Living in China I see the strength of family obligations here but I also see the stress put on those links by the need of even husbands to live in towns distant from their wives as both work to find success in a modern economy. I see China desperately trying to preserve the strength of family ties. Every Spring Festival more than half a billion Chinese move from wherever they are in the country to their home town to reunite with parents and relatives. The cost is enormous and the whole transport system of the country is stretched to its utmost to get them there and back. It is awesome to see people sitting on suitcases outside of stations for a day or more until they finally manage to get on a train home or back. The foods eaten during China’s festivals are plain and some are even unappetizing but people will pay high prices to buy them gift wrapped (or overpackaged perhaps) as a largely symbolic present that will be eaten appreciatively by the receiver.
Working against this are both new and old factors. The Chinese wish not to trouble people goes against preservation of family ties, in my opinion. I can name numerous instances told me by friends and seen in the media where a daughter or son speaks of having troubles in their life but did not tell their parents so as not to give them worry or heartache. Yes, many of us have made such choices in circumstances, for example, when our parent was already experiencing deep troubles (I’ve done this), but not as consistently as in China. It is a matter of course here and not only in special circumstances. For me as a parent dependent on internet chat and telephone calls to preserve my links with family it is a privilege to have my children share their troubles with me and I would never want to forego the closeness it brings us. In the Western world, for some sectors of the economy in particular (mining, international business, the film industry) even our small nuclear families are split for emotionally significant periods of time. In China separation of parents from children in order to work somewhere distant in the assumption that this gives a chance of prosperity and a better future is not new. I guess that what is new is the number of families undergoing this kind of separation. I also guess that a much higher percentage than before of married couples are experiencing this. I believe I am observing accurately that both husbands and wives in China have little hesitation in taking an opportunity that will increase their income or advance their career but separate them by hundreds of kilometres from their spouse. I also know that employers have no hesitation or little hesitation in deploying a worker to a distant branch without taking responsibility for assisting the marriage partner to redeploy too. Often these postings are permanent and not a matter of choice. There are exceptions of course and it would be remiss of me to suggest that all Chinese employers are unresponsive to the human issues involved.
I hope that the Chinese Government recognises this tension between the importance of family in Chinese culture and tradition and the practical operation of Chinese society today. Chinese people proudly point out the lower divorce rates in China as compared to Western countries but it is my prediction that divorce, which is now granted more easily than before, will rapidly rise because of the stress factors inherent in work practices in the Middle Kingdom today. Unless the traditional imperative for children not to trouble their parents with the difficulties they face in life changes, to allow for deep communication experiences between parents and children over distance, there will be more and more instances in the China Daily of aged parents having to sue their estranged children for financial support.
April 7th, 2008 at 2:47 am
I disagree with you. Indeed, I’m not giving a ringing disagreement, but just sayin’ what I think. I have my opinion, you have yours.
April 9th, 2008 at 1:27 am
It is good that we are different ClassicMan. I would like to see you be more specific about what you disagree with. After all, there are a lot of different aspects to my discussion here. Let me learn from the particular disagreements you have.