China's One-Child Policy Summary

Culture shock- pg.35- the disorientation that people experience when they come into contact with a fundamentally different culture and can no longer depend on their taken-for-granted assumptions about life
Culture shock is also known as the disorientation people feel when they come into contact with different cultures, making it difficult for the person to adjust. This disorientation can be experienced with any age, gender, or with any one or group of people. While watching the video on China’s One-Child Policy, it was evident that these young babies were clearly disorientated and nearly terrified of the people around them. It can be assumed that most, if not all of them, had never seen a person who was Caucasian. Most of their caretakers, …show more content…
At conception, they are automatically considered the future caregivers of the parents and possibly grandparents (or other elderly family members) in the family. They have a path in life that is already set for them since before birth. Because of this, only child males are now becoming spoiled within families. This is causing a growing obesity and attitude problem within young males throughout China, becoming so prominent that families are resorting to bringing their boys to clinics in order for them to lose weight. For many girls across China, their fate is sealed while in the womb, as well. Since many couples illegally have ultrasounds to find out the sex of their child, as many as 13 million abortions (or more, including the ones that don’t occur in safe clinics or on back alley streets) are happening to baby girls. If the woman decides to give birth, many baby girls can be found in boxes along the streets in hopes that someone will find her or sent to orphanages with nothing but a birth date. Many orphanages are filled with infant girls and their fate is to either be adopted or to grow up, leave the orphanage, and pursue a job in a factory doing laborious work. They are limited and often without families or high education. If lucky enough to be adopted as a child, these girls leave behind the people and friends they knew back in their orphanage to become …show more content…
Many doctors and nurses now travel through rural villages in China to educate people on having more than one child or the use of other forms of birth control. China is also now looking to lift its one child policy, but many families seem to be accustomed to their traditional way of life. They simply want boys. Many families are aborting or abandoning their baby girls because boys will traditionally stay home to take care of elderly family members. They worry that girls will marry and leave with their husband. It seems that many people, although China now allows many couples in certain places to have two children, still favor having only one boy in the family. In the United States, boys and girls are often valued equally among families. It would be difficult to imagine millions of abortions or abandoned baby girls along the side of the road simply for being female. Since the one child policy being enacted, the desire for boys in Chinese families has increased tremendously. It seems that even lawfully allowing more children, families seem to not want more children or only want the boys. The disparity between males and females in China is greatly climbing each year. Soon men will outnumber women by millions upon millions, and many men will be left without partners while many women will be at risk for the abuses that come along with lack of females within a society. This