一个自由译者的生命记录

Happy families? --by Dawanr （很发人深思的一篇短文）

                                      

“Family is very important to Chinese people.”

It’s one of those cliches that’s repeated so often you sort of assume it’s true. However, I started to wonder just how true it is lately, as I have encountered more and more friends, colleagues and acquaintances in China who explain their family situation something like this:

“I’m living in Beijng, but my husband is working in Shanghai - and our 12 month old baby is with my parents in Shaanxi.”
or
“I’m living in Beijing but my wife is in the US for 5 years doing her PhD, and our child is with her parents in Guizhou.”
or
“Me and my mum are here in Beijing but my dad works at a university in Germany.”

If family is so important to Chinese people, why do they seem to voluntarily separate their families like this? Chinese friends and colleagues have given me one of two explanations:
(1) Modern life is too complicated, apartments too small, city life not good for kids and parents too busy working, so it’s easier for the kids to grow up with their grandparents out of town.
or
(2) People do it because they want a good education and a good career to earn money and build a better life for their family.

At first I had assumed that, whichever explanation you prefer, this lifestyle choice was a modern phenomenon, resulting from the increased mobility, employment and education opportunities of China’s economic modernization. However, as I thought about it, I realised that this isn’t too different to the men who left behind families in southern China in droves in the 19th centruy to seek their fortunes on the goldfields of California and Australia. Nor is it too different from the 1960s and 1970s, when couples were “sent down” to the countryside, often to locations at the opposite ends of China, and children had to either go with one parent, or were left to be raised by grandparents or other family members (although in that case the move was rather less voluntary).

It does seem to be something that is particularly “Chinese”. I don’t know of many western married couples who choose to live in different countries and foster their child out to grandparents for the sake of education or career. In the west they would be maligned for putting their career above their family!

Of course, another cliche is that China always takes a “long term view” of history (4000 years of continuous civilization, baby!) - so perhaps 5 years of separation for the sake of an education or career is seen as an acceptable sacrifice for the long term prosperity of the family.

Although one sort of wonders whether that will continue to be the case — divorces in China are much easier following the introduction of new “on-the-spot” divorce procedures, the abolition of the requirement for “work unit” permission for divorce, as well as changing social attitudes which no longer attach as much opprobrium to divorce. And all this seems to be having an impact — as was widely reported back in March, the number of divorces in China increased by 21% for the year 2004, and anecdotally, a number of Chinese friends and acquaintances living in these sorts of situations have divorced recently.

Perhaps the “family is important” and “long term view of history” cliches will not be able to peacefully co-exist for much longer.

【作者: 翰唐】【访问统计:】【2006年01月5日 星期四 16:38】【 加入博采】【打印】