Wang LanBo did everything what a modern young Chinese father is doing, he played a lot with his son, all went well. When the little one was just over a year old, QingFang, the mother, decided that she wanted to work again. Soon after, the toddler was brought into the home-town of the mother and has since lived with his grandmother. Programmer Wang had all of that imagined differently. But his wife and his mother-in-law had already decided everything without him, as they told him how things would proceed from here....
SunLi’s baby grew up and quickly turned into a toddler, crawled and babbled and began to walk. Mother and father went on well with him, but granny ruled the roost. Finally she decided that she had now been long enough in ShenZhen, she would now go home and take the child with her. He was just a year and two months old, and mother and child (and father) were again separated from each other. Engineer Sun had all of that imagined differently. But her mother and her mother-in-law had already decided without asking her how things would proceed from here.
SunLi and her husband had long before pregnancy bought a second home, there their grandparents were supposed to live, sometimes with, sometimes without grandchild. The apartment is just minutes by car from their own one, so they can move quickly from one to the other. That would be comfortable. But SunLi’s father has to retire first, till then, the plans cannot be implemented. Till then, the second new apartment will remain empty, waiting for grand-parents and grandchild.
At least the engineers couple does not have to pay bank loans for the apartment. Engineer Chu earns very good, HuaWei is paying above average, SunLi earns well in LaoWei’s company. Of course, they haven’t yet accumulated as much money as a great apartment in booming ShenZhen will cost today, but both parents are contributing all their savings, all their own pensions, and so the engineers Chu and Sun only need to take about 10 % of the purchase price as credit, paying it off within a few months.
It is perfectly normal in China that close relatives, and even more distant relatives and close friends, lend each other enormous quantities of money at no cost and without a written contract (such enormous quantities that it even has economic importance and thus is an element of the financial sector which clearly distinguishes China from most other countries). No one would ever think of not paying it back. In any case, Engineer Chu will support his parents fully when they will have grown old, engineer Sun will support her parents, too. For parents, it’s not a risk to invest their savings into the second apartment of the young couple, either they will dwell there or they will definitely be funded if the pension should not be sufficient. China’s state welfare system is meagre and full of holes, if at all existent, but the private family social network is tightly woven and strong.
Not only in terms of the social network, China is very different from Germany, but also in terms of what is common or not in the rearing of children. Beginning with the notion that young mothers are not allowed to leave the apartment for the first one month after childbirth (after return from hospital), may not have a shower, are forced only to rest, eat, drink and breastfeed a baby (if I got that right from my football friends, that’s really everything they are tolerated to do, even my friends were not allowed to do anything else besides ...). The grandmothers hold sway.
In many families, even the babies may not get out at the open air. If they live with their grandparents in colder regions of China, they are wrapped in warm clothes in a way that perceiving that with German eyes we would be worried to death – how are they supposed to move? They barely can, not to mention learning how to crawl.
But ultimately, they will learn, and they all learn how to walk. According to our understanding this may in part happen a little later “than usual”, but many Chinese toddlers are dry much sooner than our German counterparts. First of all they learn (through imitation) very early to squat in most stable manner. For us, the squatting position in general is unstable, if not painful. Chinese squat to relax, it is the next thing their young children learn after walking.
I am tempted to think that Chinese have developed other knee forms than we have, for my knees cannot stand this for long. But the squatting position is not only helpful to relax (at least for Chinese), but also for the completion of digestion.
So we are almost at the point of understanding why Chinese toddlers get dry faster than German ones: during the day they are (unlike our babies and young children) not wrapped in nappies but dressed in thin pants with opened crotches (from far forward to far back), being just cut apart. As soon as the first signs are visible that the child is going to pee (or worse), he or she is either prevented from or, if able to can stand and squat autonomously, urged to squat, so as not to soil the panties.
The apartments are usually
not covered with carpet. The toddler can thus do business just on the floor, the tiles are then wiped clean. The more the child finds out about the physical reactions, relatives will encourage letting them know when to bring the pot, the child squats and exercises control over the call of nature – and
Grandpa and granddaughter are tired.
thus it is not uncommon for 12 or 18 months old children to be almost “dry”, at least
during the day (at night they get nappies.)
These are obviously for Chinese parents and grandparents the smallest problems.
SunLi ponders this way and that how to balance work, family constraints, and her role as a mother which she has not even assumed properly. The alternatives, a “nanny” or a “minder”, as we would call them, she has ruled out so far. There is a lack of confidence, she does not know anyone who knows anyone who can be trusted in this matter. Her network cannot help, no experience in this subject present.