Faye Wong (left, with husband Li Yapeng): Superstardom’s easy, try motherhood (see item #2). Video still from Maydaily.com
Tune into the beijingkids blog each Thursday as we take you on a quick tour of items from around the web, all relating (however tangentially) to parenthood and family life in Beijing. Previous posts can be viewed here.
1. Pop quiz: What’s the proper distance to keep in an elevator? A lot of people coming to Beijing for the first time are flummoxed by poor public behavior such as spitting, refusing to queue up, and ignoring traffic rules. Now comes news that China’s education ministry is making public courtesy a part of the curriculum in schools nationwide. Among the courtesies on tap for teaching in primary schools are observing traffic rules and proper table manners; middle schoolers will be taught email and text-messaging etiquette, and high schoolers will be taught to "keep proper distance from other people when they are queuing or using elevators."
2. Superstardom is for wimps, try motherhood: One of China’s foremost celebrities is singer Faye Wong, who lives in Beijing with her two young children and actor husband Li Yapeng. Wong, who took a breather from her musical career for motherhood but came back to the limelight with a recent concert tour, unequivocally declares that it’s far more exhausting to be a mom than it is to be an internationally-known superstar.
3. It’s bedtime, little ones: According to a recent poll from the Beijing Times, more than half of China’s primary and middle school students go to bed after 10pm and suffer from a chronic lack of sleep. Half of all parents polled indicated that they have noticed the lack of sleep has affected their children’s memory and thinking. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg, as now reports are coming out that children that lack sleep are more likely to be obese. Think Beijing doesn’t have an obesity problem? The People’s Daily reports that 31% of all Beijing men are now classified as overweight
4. Amy Chua hits the bookshelves in Beijing: OK, last week I promised no more on Tiger Mother Amy Chua, but this one has a nice local spin: The Chinese translation of Chua’s book "The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother" hit Beijing bookstores last week (you can also buy it online at joyo.com here). Most interesting is to compare the title in Chinese with its English original. Here’s a quick translation of the book cover back into English: The main title is: I’m a Mother in America: The Parenting Handbook from a Yale Law Professor while the bright red strip at the bottom reads: This story proves: In educating children, eastern parents are more successful than western parents.
5. It’s that damn ‘western lifestyle’ problem again: Incidence of cancer in Chinese children under 14 years of age is on the rise, according to this article. The incidence is now 1.04 per 10,000 children, which puts it in the same range as rates in the US. Sited as potential causes for the increase were: long-term exposure to chemicals used in home decoration; obesity; high-calorie diets; physical inactivity, and the "adoption of a Western lifestyle."
6. Now serving #7,943: Many of Beijing’s hospitals are overcrowded, and Beijing’s Children’s Hospital is no exception, with between 7,000 to 8,500 patients visiting every day. Anyone who’s been there knows of the necessity of "registering" — which in essence turning up in person to get a number. A lucrative black market has developed over the years for the numbers, alleviating the need for parents to bring their sick children in and wait in line for hours to get treatment. So how is Beijing’s hospital attempting to resolve this issue? By creating another level of bureaucracy, in which you now have to pre-register to register for a number, with your child in tow. Scalpers says the new regulation has not put a dent in their numbers business.
7. Two new children’s hospitals: With the above in mind, it’s good to hear that part of Beijing’s new 5-year plan includes a proposal for creating two new childrens’ hospitals in the city to help alleviate the crush on the Beijing Children’s Hospital and the Capital Institute of Pediatrics, which treat an estimated 90% of all sick children in the city (as parents almost always choose top-reputation, specialist hospitals rather than the pediatrics wards of lesser-regarded hospitals). Proposed locations for the new hospitals would be in the suburbs, such as Changping or Tongzhou.
8. Who says you can’t have two? An interesting legal battle is brewing in Beijing between a law professor and the government, after the prof was handed a fine of RMB 240,000 for having a second child. Yang Zhizhu, who has been relieved from his duties at his school since the dispute arose, claims that that "there are no laws or regulations mentioning the concept of having children illegally" and that the fine levied is disproportionate to his actual income, which currently is close to zero.
9. Learning acceptance: This is a bit of a dated article (from October 2010) from the China Daily that deals with a very delicate subject: parents in Beijing learning to accept their gay offspring. The article reports on a meeting of 200 people — parents with their gay or lesbian offspring — where they discussed how this non-traditional lifestyle can be accepted in a historically very traditional society.
10. Wonder if he hangs out in Sanlitun? 16-year-old New Yorker Spencer Langerman is one of a handful of Americans in Beijing on study abroad programs, and CNN profiles him in this piece. In it he says that despite the difference in teaching and learning styles between the countries, it’s not all that different — after all, teens in both countries "love basketball, listen to pop music and watch American films."