Most people in the U.S. don't understand China. It is very very different than the U.S. and a much larger country than the U.S. so there are diverse cultures like Han, and Tibetan and Mandarin and many many others there. There are about 300 million people with a life style like we have in the U.S. but also 300 million people with TB (Tuberculosis) with some strains incurable. So, you have this incredible diversity much much greater than the U.S. or Europe. Russia and Siberia and Mongolia are also like this with Great Great diversity. China has always been ungovernable (by European and U.S. standards) because there are just too many ethnic groups to make this practical thousands of years ago or now. So, much more brutal methods are used on people than we would find here in the U.S. or Europe because of this to force all these people to tow the line. A government like we have in the U.S. or a government like we see in Europe could NOT work there without major modifications. The model they might be able to follow would be more similar to the government in India at some point in time if that ever happens because both countries have over 1 billion people each. China is 1.4 billion people by itself. It is likely true that Europe combined with the U.S. populations would not equal either India or China individually. This is a lot to comprehend for both Europeans and Americans in regard to all this.
However, the government of India primarily works because English is the least offensive language there because of thousands of years of conflicts and history there between different ethnic groups with different languages. Since China was not colonized by a European nation (at least in the way India was) this is not possible now at least but might be later in this Century for China to become a more westernized government. For now, it is using Western Capitalism quite effectively even though it is not a democratic country at least yet. Whether Democracy would be useful or not in China you might look at Russia and all it's problems getting used to democracy since Yeltsin. It is very debatable whether you can still Call Russia a democracy or not but you definitely likely could call it a Christian nation once again. So, in being a Christian nation like Europe and England and the U.S. , Russia has more in common with Europe and England and the U.S. than many other parts of the world. China does not endorse any religion at all as a government.
742,452,000 within Europe including England, and U.S. 321 million approximately which makes a little over 1 billion people in the U.S. and Europe.
The last two lines are from the following websites regarding population:
http://www.census.gov/popclock/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Europe
To see pictures and videos accompanying this article click word button two lines down:
begin quote from:
Meet China's teen brides
Married young: Meet China's teen brides
11 photos: Married young: Meet China's teen brides
Ming
and his wife, Cai, looks on as Ming's mother puts her grandson's mouth
on her breast in an attempt to calm the child down. Ming's mother helps
the young couple by taking care of the baby most of the time.
Hide Caption
6 of 11
11 photos: Married young: Meet China's teen brides
Ming holds a breast pump as he watches his wife, Cai, and his mother care for his newborn son.
Hide Caption
7 of 11
11 photos: Married young: Meet China's teen brides
Many
of the young couples meet at school. This love letter kept inside a
physics textbook reads: "Hi, do you have a boyfriend? Can you accept me?
I like you, please accept me. Reply."
Hide Caption
8 of 11
11 photos: Married young: Meet China's teen brides
Mei,
16, sits on bed with her 2-year-old daughter and 1-year-old son in
Wanhe village, Mengla county, Yunnan province. She has been married for 2
years. She and her husband were classmates in primary school and they
dropped out from school after getting married.
Hide Caption
9 of 11
11 photos: Married young: Meet China's teen brides
Xiao
Rong, 16, (left) looks on as her 20-year-old husband Xiao Yong holds
their 10-month-old baby, in Mengla county, Yunnan province.
Hide Caption
10 of 11
11 photos: Married young: Meet China's teen brides
Jian, 17, listens to his wife Mei's pregnant belly at their home, in Wenge village, Mengla county.
Hide Caption
11 of 11
11 photos: Married young: Meet China's teen brides
Wen,
18, touches the pregnant belly of his 13-year-old wife Jie. They live
together in Tangzibian village, Mengla county in Yunnan.
Hide Caption
1 of 11
11 photos: Married young: Meet China's teen brides
Jie
(shadow) looks at her wedding photo at home. Jie quit school after she
got married but says she feels bored staying home to farm, cook and
embroider.
Hide Caption
2 of 11
11 photos: Married young: Meet China's teen brides
Jie touches her 6-month pregnant belly at her home.
Hide Caption
3 of 11
11 photos: Married young: Meet China's teen brides
Cai,
16, holds her 2-month-old son at her village home in Mengla county. A
year before this photo was taken she married and dropped out of school.
Hide Caption
4 of 11
11 photos: Married young: Meet China's teen brides
Cai
and her husband Ming use a neighbor's hand mill to grind corn. Ming
says he misses his single life because he could hang out a lot with his
friends before, but now his friends won't take him out because they are
afraid that Cai will disapprove.
Hide Caption
5 of 11
11 photos: Married young: Meet China's teen brides
Ming
and his wife, Cai, looks on as Ming's mother puts her grandson's mouth
on her breast in an attempt to calm the child down. Ming's mother helps
the young couple by taking care of the baby most of the time.
Hide Caption
6 of 11
11 photos: Married young: Meet China's teen brides
Ming holds a breast pump as he watches his wife, Cai, and his mother care for his newborn son.
Hide Caption
7 of 11
11 photos: Married young: Meet China's teen brides
Many
of the young couples meet at school. This love letter kept inside a
physics textbook reads: "Hi, do you have a boyfriend? Can you accept me?
I like you, please accept me. Reply."
Hide Caption
8 of 11
11 photos: Married young: Meet China's teen brides
Mei,
16, sits on bed with her 2-year-old daughter and 1-year-old son in
Wanhe village, Mengla county, Yunnan province. She has been married for 2
years. She and her husband were classmates in primary school and they
dropped out from school after getting married.
Hide Caption
9 of 11
11 photos: Married young: Meet China's teen brides
Xiao
Rong, 16, (left) looks on as her 20-year-old husband Xiao Yong holds
their 10-month-old baby, in Mengla county, Yunnan province.
Hide Caption
10 of 11
11 photos: Married young: Meet China's teen brides
Jian, 17, listens to his wife Mei's pregnant belly at their home, in Wenge village, Mengla county.
Hide Caption
11 of 11
11 photos: Married young: Meet China's teen brides
Wen,
18, touches the pregnant belly of his 13-year-old wife Jie. They live
together in Tangzibian village, Mengla county in Yunnan.
Hide Caption
1 of 11
11 photos: Married young: Meet China's teen brides
Jie
(shadow) looks at her wedding photo at home. Jie quit school after she
got married but says she feels bored staying home to farm, cook and
embroider.
Hide Caption
2 of 11
11 photos: Married young: Meet China's teen brides
Jie touches her 6-month pregnant belly at her home.
Hide Caption
3 of 11
11 photos: Married young: Meet China's teen brides
Cai,
16, holds her 2-month-old son at her village home in Mengla county. A
year before this photo was taken she married and dropped out of school.
Hide Caption
4 of 11
11 photos: Married young: Meet China's teen brides
Cai
and her husband Ming use a neighbor's hand mill to grind corn. Ming
says he misses his single life because he could hang out a lot with his
friends before, but now his friends won't take him out because they are
afraid that Cai will disapprove.
Hide Caption
5 of 11
11 photos: Married young: Meet China's teen brides
Ming
and his wife, Cai, looks on as Ming's mother puts her grandson's mouth
on her breast in an attempt to calm the child down. Ming's mother helps
the young couple by taking care of the baby most of the time.
Hide Caption
6 of 11
Story highlights
- In some remote and rural parts of China, early marriage is not uncommon
- Photographer Xiao Muyi profiled some young couples in 2014
- The youngest was 13-years-old
Hong Kong (CNN)Thirteen
and just married, Jie looks at her wedding picture framed in white.
Next to it, incongruously, are stickers from the Pixar movie "Cars."
Jie
married her 16-year-old husband three days after they met during the
Lunar New Year in 2014. Not long after, she was pregnant.
It
sounds like a scene from China's feudal past, when early marriage was
customary, especially for girls, but teenage brides and grooms aren't
uncommon in some poor and rural parts of the country's hinterland.
Chinese couples turn to American surrogates 04:13
The
reasons are complex -- as economic pressures, shifting social attitudes
and changing population dynamics revive a practice that China's
Communist leaders had hoped to stamp out.
Photographer Muyi Xiao met Jie and her husband Wen in the southwestern province of Yunnan in 2014.
Jie
was the youngest of a number of young Chinese newlyweds she profiled in
a tender and fascinating series of images that helped earn 24-year-old
Xiao a prestigious photography fellowship with the Magnum Foundation.
"Every girl I saw in these villages got married before they were 18 and some of them were extremely young," says Xiao.
"It's like something they think is normal to do -- it comes from the teachers, from the parents, from the kids."
Jie didn't want to fall pregnant so soon after getting married but didn't know about birth control.
Xiao,
who traveled in the region for 18 days, said the marriages didn't
appear to be the result of parental pressure, nor a kneejerk response to
an unexpected pregnancy.
"I didn't see any forced marriage. The kids are happy, they say they fell in love."
She said the teenagers she profiled weren't comfortable giving their full names.
No penalty?
In
China, the legal age for marriage is 22 for men and 20 for women but
there's no specific penalty for breaching the law, according to Jiang
Quanbao, a professor from Xi'an Jiaotong University.
He
says in rural areas many recognize a marriage as long as a couple holds
a ceremony and banquet; official registration would take place once the
couple were of age.
As such, he
says it's difficult to tell how widespread early marriage is. Official
figures suggest that the average marriage age is rising -- 26 for men
and 24 for women.
But tales of young love have been ringing alarm bells.
In
February, pictures of a wedding held for two 16-year-old went viral on
social networks and received widespread coverage in state media as
debate raged over whether they could really be in love.
The couple told a local newspaper that they had the full support of their families, who paid for the banquet.
'Bare branches'
Many
rural parents are keen for their children to tie the knot before they
go off to work in factory towns -- a common fate for many -- and this is
especially true for sons who may face a struggle to find a partner,
says Jiang, the professor.
China ends one-child policy 04:01
The
one-child policy and a traditional preference for sons has caused a
massive gender imbalance in the Chinese countryside -- latest figures
suggest that there are 33.6 million more men than women in China.
These men are often described as "bare branches."
"In some poor areas, getting married early is like a guarantee so they can avoid being bachelors forever," said Jiang.
Xiao
blames a lack of sex education and that many children in villages grow
up without the supervision of one or both their parents -- part of
China's "left behind" generation whose parents go off to work in factory
towns and richer cities.
"They
watch a lot of romantic dramas but they don't have much sex education.
No one told them that having sex isn't the right thing to do."
But Xiao's warm-hearted images don't pass judgment. They show couples that, for the moment at least, look very much in love.
No comments:
Post a Comment