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Thursday, November 4, 2010

A Woman's Place Is In The...

A Woman’s Place Is In The …..


Colin Wiltshire of Barbados shares a moment on the set of a Chengdu
television station with two female presenters.

Wu Yi is the Deputy Premier of the China Communist Party and ranked as one of the most influential women today in the world. She represents the optimism that her country has for its future and of the meaningful participation of women in every area of national life.

Amoy (not her real name) is a tour guide in Beijing who escorted participants in the Professional Journalism Workshop in the Professional Programme for Journalists from Caribbean Countries in October. At age 28, Amoy has benefitted from China’s boom. She drives her own car and bought a studio apartment for several thousand Yuan in an upscale area in Changpin, a small city in China. She lives in Beijing as that is where she does most of her work and shares the rent of an apartment there while she collects rent from her studio. Amoy has a cosmopolitan flair. She has travelled abroad, her hair is professionally maintained and she dresses stylishly with quality garments.

This is a far cry from the experience of her parents. Amoy recalls stories that her parents told her of the 1980s where the total family spend of a month was no more than 50 Yuan. When her father got the news that his wife had a baby boy, he went out and bought fish, food they ate maybe once per year. The news of the birth was slightly wrong, the baby was a girl and not a boy. The Chinese preference for boy children influenced her parents to try again for a son, an offence when the one-child family planning policy came into force in 1980.

Despite the threat of punishment, Amoy’s mother went ahead with her second pregnancy and spent the gestation period dodging the government by living in different homes around their home city of Tianjin. Her cover story to the neighbours was that she moved out because she wanted a divorce from her husband. Luckily, they had their wish of a baby boy. The government then confiscated their black and white television set and electric flashlight as the couple could not pay the 500 Yuan fine.

A few years later, Amoy’s mother became pregnant again with a third child, a girl. By the time the government caught up with her, she was already five months pregnant, but they instructed her to visit the hospital and the pregnancy was terminated. Amoy said that the government would not give such an instruction today, but the current fine is upwards of 100,000 Yuan.

Recalling that one of China’s major challenges is its overpopulation, Amoy says that her parents never held bitter feelings against the government, but that her mother was very traditional and loved the idea of a family with children.

A woman and child enjoy a morning in Tiananmen Square
During Amoy’s coming-of-age, employment and educational opportunities in China increased rapidly and tens of millions of persons have been lifted out of poverty. Amoy said that women are doing especially well in today’s China. She says that many times women apply themselves very hard to their studies and careers and do better than their male counterparts. She enjoys equal pay and has equal opportunities for employment. In tribute to women, the government of China declared International Women’s Day as a public holiday for women only. Amoy also jokes that her friends now prefer to have a girl baby for their only child, as parents are expected to buy their sons a house so that he can take a wife – shades of a modern-day bride price.

As a graduate with a Degree in Tourism Management, Amoy enjoyed the privilege of being selected as an official liaison for corporate VIPs during the Beijing Olympics; her talent and professionalism were recognised! We asked Amoy about her dreams for the future, surely the sky is the limit.

She leaned close to the Flair reporter and levelled a steady gaze, “I want to be a housewife. Get married and have children.”

Although China is close to relaxing its one-child policy, she will not be allowed to have more than one child as she is a member of the Han ethnic majority and also that she herself is not an only child. Amoy says that she accepts the restrictive family planning policy as necessary for her country’s long term success. She however, has one major advantage towards her dream. China is unique as it is one of the few places where the population has more young men than women. The United Nations said that in 2005 there were 106.8 males to 100 females in China, one of the highest sex ratio imbalances in the world. This is good for Amoy as there are more eligible young men for marriage than ever before, making a good marriage match a very viable option for her.
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