Baby Booming

On a beautifully sunny, even if somewhat breezy, morning in mid-December my nomadic and flaneurial duties have led me to spend some very pleasant time in a branch of Taste Zone, a newly created but very comfortable chain of restaurants in Southern China. This particular outlet has only been open for a few weeks in the town of Chang An (which, as I discovered recently, roughly translates to 'Everlasting Peace') but I have found myself frequenting it on several occasions now. The restaurant /café has rather deep and sumptuous chairs, a relatively good internet connection and a seductively tempting range of breakfast delights at outrageously reasonable prices. Added to this, they allow endless refills of coffee or dou nai (a soya bean based drink), whichever refreshing beverage happens to be more to the customer's tastes. This particular nomadic flaneur feels that he could scarcely wish for more!

          This has become a preferred place for writing as the nearby Cafe de Coral seems to attract a few too many mums who sometimes pop in for a cheap and cheerful breakfast before taking their offspring off to the nearby school. The children are almost invariably well behaved but very energetic, something that I have found throughout my travels in China. Oft times, even the youngest of them seem to enjoy attempting to practice their few words of English on me. Usually this consists of 'Hello' and 'How are you?” followed by a look of total incomprehension when I reply. After that, the normal reaction seems to be to break out in fits of giggles before running back to their smiling mothers.

          This is one feature of Chinese life that is very clear: they love and cherish their children. This may be because of the one child policy followed here, or maybe simply because of the underlying Confucian culture which puts great emphasis on the value of family and relationship. As is usual with so many of these things, the reality probably lies somewhere between the two. The culture values children anyway but the realisation that a family may only ever have one or two children puts even greater value on the children themselves.

          Babies in particular are valued to an extent that is almost fetishistic by European or American standards. Chang An itself has whole streets that seem to be mainly dedicated to baby shops. Whereas the larger main streets of Western cities may have one or, in very exceptional cases, two such outlets, here in China you may see three or four such shops within just a few metres of each other, each apparently doing a roaring trade.

          The one child policy has been much criticised, particularly by those in the West who feel it is a great imposition on personal freedom. To be fair to China though, they are perhaps the only country in the World that has reacted meaningfully to the ominous and looming problems of overpopulation that we all face. At the time it was imposed, once again mainly due to the insight of that most far-sighted and shrewd of politicians, Deng Xiaoping, China's population has already reached a billion. Twenty five years later the population seems to be peaking at around 1.4 billion and to be achieving the levels of stability that were first envisioned all those years ago. It is believed that without Deng's measures there would now have been something like three hundred million additional citizens living in the People's Republic.

          In contrast to this, India's politicians have singularly failed to even address the issue and their population has nearly doubled over the same period of time. If projections are to be believed, India will surpass China as the World's most populace country within the next few years. Given the relative sizes of the two countries, one feels that a sorry fate awaits the Indian sub-continent.

          An interesting graph to look at is that of the planet's population over the last two thousand years. It is remarkably steady at around half a billion all the way up to the industrial revolution. After that it begins to take off, the line of the graph growing ever steeper and steeper as we move into the 21^st century. At the time of writing, the World's population presently exceeds seven billion. Clearly, if the numbers go on increasing at such a rate (and it is hard to see how that could be avoided) we will reach unsustainable levels in the not very distant future.

          Given that, great credit must go to China in this. Most of the brighter folk around the World seem all too well aware of the imminent threat of global warming, even if those given to consuming their information from less reliable sources will be forever in denial. With regards to the population problem though, there is an almost deafening silence.

          China is still a very overcrowded country but they do seem to have a grip on the problem now. Socially the restrictions of the one child policy are likely to have many unforeseen effects but, in the short term at least, one cannot help but be impressed by the individual attitudes of the parents to their children and by the children themselves. They seem to intuit, even the youngest of them, that they are loved, that they are appreciated, that they are cherished. Like children everywhere, the youngest will still throw the occasional tantrum, tears will occasionally flow, but here such unhappiness seems to be short lived and the child will quickly be comforted by their parents, safe and secure in the knowledge that they are wanted, that they are loved. The smiles soon return.

          Back in the café, two hours have passed very pleasantly, apart from the slightly annoying repetitive playing of Christmas carols; I had fervently hoped that I had escaped that particular fate when I left the West in November. Oh well, at least it is not John Lennon, Kirsty McColl and the like; I guess I should be grateful for such small mercies. I consume yet another cup of dou nai, a little too sweet for my tastes but the Chinese seem to like their drinks so.  The sun is shining brightly outside and the day is wearing on. Time to leave now methinks; pleasant as this place is, there is much to do today and I think I may have indulged in the seductive pleasures of blogging a tad too  much for one day already.