“China’s Lost Generation”

That’s the title of an intriguing article in today’s WaPo on how today’s parents in China, many of them victims of the Cultural Revolution, have reacted to the nightmare of their youth by spoiling their kids rotten.

Teenagers, particularly those from wealthy or intellectual families, were forced to leave cities and live with farmers, sharing their hard lives and, it was hoped, gaining new insight into the Maoist revolution. Red Guards, meanwhile, took over schools and universities, substituting political criteria for academic achievement.

Millions of lives were smashed in the resulting chaos. Now that they are parents, those who were caught up in the turmoil have displayed unshakeable determination to see their children live more enjoyable lives by using the opportunities available since China opened to the world and adopted market reforms under Deng Xiaoping in the early 1980s.

Tian Shi, 50, the son of a doctor and grandson of a landowner, was sent to a military camp just below the Russian border, where he spent his entire adolescence. Although far from rich, he recently forked over nearly $400 for a cell phone for his 14-year-old daughter, who spent her last vacation in Australia perfecting her English.

Tian’s older sister, Lu Jiang, 53, spent seven years on a flea-ridden farm planting crops and slopping pigs. Her son Ha Li, who graduated from Shandong University, all expenses paid, has gone on to graduate studies in computer science at the University of Paris, where he receives regular cash infusions from his parents.

I would have only one question for the writer, and that’s whether this is truly a result of the Cultural Revolution’s effect on the parents’ psyches, or whether it’s not just a fact that Chinese parents tend to spoil their kids. I saw a lot of this in Hong Kong and Singapore — parents treating their kids like princelings and making them feel the earth revolved around them. I’d love to know what readers think about this.

The Discussion: 12 Comments

In fact, I read out to my class the article that appeared in The Guardian on the 9th (http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1346485,00.html) that reported that although “(a)fter the terracotta warriors, its army of spoilt tinies is now one of the most famous things about China”(!), children are under an unbelievable amount of pressure. When I related its ‘horror’stories, my Chinese students nodded and murmured in assent. What is most intriguing after reading it is that the same pressure isn’t found in countries like Italy, Germany, Sweden etc.with even lower birth rates.

November 24, 2004 @ 3:53 pm | Comment

I have always attributed this to the one-child policy, but I think the same thing has been seen before in other countries. Weren’t the baby-boomers slack, lazy and spoiled compared to the previous (Great depression & WWII) generation? Here in Taiwan there is talk of the ‘Strawberry Generation’, called strawberry because they (kids today) are soft and easy to bruise.

November 24, 2004 @ 6:29 pm | Comment

If these parents loved their children as much as they would like to think that they do, then they migt not put so much preasure on them to study 25 hours a day. Many of us have spoiled rich kids who fall asleep in class because they got their at 6:30 in the morning after spending much of the night studying.

There is too much emphasis on education and material comforts and not enough on the emotional needs of children to be allowed to be children.

November 24, 2004 @ 7:50 pm | Comment

Asia by Blog

Asia by Blog is a twice weekly feature, posted on Monday and Thursday, providing links to Asian blogs and their views on the news in this fascinating region. Previous editions can be found here. This edition contains HK’s ripoff Disneyland, potential C…

November 25, 2004 @ 12:41 am | Comment

Asia by Blog

Asia by Blog is a twice weekly feature, posted on Monday and Thursday, providing links to Asian blogs and their views on the news in this fascinating region. Previous editions can be found here. This edition contains HK’s ripoff Disneyland, potential C…

November 25, 2004 @ 12:45 am | Comment

Asia by Blog

Asia by Blog is a twice weekly feature, posted on Monday and Thursday, providing links to Asian blogs and their views on the news in this fascinating region. Previous editions can be found here. This edition contains HK’s ripoff Disneyland, potential C…

November 25, 2004 @ 1:07 am | Comment

Part of this is a class issue also. Most foreigners who come to asia do not have as privilaged backgrounds as the chinese people they get to know. People with a lot of resources tend to pay for their kids educations, buy them cars, send them off to holidays. That is regardless of whether they are Chinese or English or American. The writer and richard probably didn’t meet with the kind of people who recieved that kind of treatment in the US, so it seems that these people are “spoilt.” It doesn’t take to look very far to meet people like this in foreigh countries, just visit Standford, Oxford, Yale, and any privilaged private schools anywhere in the world, you would find children who have everything paid for.

November 25, 2004 @ 2:39 am | Comment

Jane’s got a fair point. In my experience, the worst students (as a gross generalisation) are those from wealthier backgrounds. My partner, on the other hand, comes from a poor, peasant background and is more than willing to put in an honest day’s work. I think the issue of the current generation of Chinese youth has been over exaggerated in the Western media, and to an extent in the Chinese media. I suspect that the majority of the spoilt brats come from wealthy, urban backgrounds, while many a young peasant has little choice but to start work as early as possible to help the family. Or in a very few cases, has to take out a loan and work part time in order to get through university. I haven’t seen too many ‘Little Emperors’ (or strawberries) out in my partner’s home village.

Having said that, I fully understand the desire to provide one’s child with the best possible opportunities, especially when one has come from a background in which such opportunities have been denied.

November 25, 2004 @ 3:46 am | Comment

I read the WaPo piece as well and was surprised to read that the children cited seemed to have little interest in recent Chinese history; when talking to my own teenaged students here, many are very keen on learning more Chinese history, and when you ask them which era, they’re quick to say “modern”

November 25, 2004 @ 5:31 am | Comment

I think my point is valid, but i truly prefer it not being used as a “my partner is so great” post because “she is from a poor peasent” background either. Firstly, there are plenty of lazy poor people around as much as there are spoilt brats who become bankers and industrialists, consultants or whatever who put in 100 hours weeks. Secondly isnt it a little insulting to say the reason one’s partner works hard is because she was poor? maybe she was just a good hard working person.

And there is nothing wrong with modern history. The last century has provided the world with the most intense technological, cultural, religious, political changes in any era, its has the most direct correlation to how we live and be. Ancient poems are great, 3000 years of history is interesting. But that’s romantism as much as wanting to learn about something from this era.

November 25, 2004 @ 10:54 am | Comment

I had absolutely no intention of boasting about anybody. I was simply trying to support your post with some examples. Nor was their any attempt to insult anyone. Again, I was simply trying to offer some examples. My main point is that modern Chinese society is a lot more complex than some would have us believe, and I was using my personal experiences here as proof of that.

November 25, 2004 @ 5:11 pm | Comment

I’m with Chris on this one. I think that was a bit of an overreaction from Jane.

Here’s a possibility about why Chinese kids are interested in talking to a foreigner about modern Chinese history … they know full well that what they get in school is a one-sided representation of what the government wants them to learn. They’re interested in hearing a different perspective. At least, that’s what a mainland Chinese student down here told me when he enrolled in the Chinese history course I tutor.

I was going to make some more observations about him … but I just realised that I recommended that he look at this website! Oops.

November 27, 2004 @ 5:29 am | Comment

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