Speaking of China

Ruzhui, where Chinese men “marry into” the wife’s family and have the child carry her name, turns Chinese marriage tradition upside down.

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When I told my Chinese mother-in-law I loved her ring, I never guessed I would have one of my own less than 24 hours later — a ring of compliments.

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When my Chinese husband was born, the neighbors wanted to swap him for their baby daughter. I couldn’t help but wonder what this said about women in China.

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Nestled in the sun-kissed hills of central Hunan, there’s an ordinary yellow mud-brick peasant house with a not-so-ordinary neighbor — a permanent People’s Liberation Army guard station. That humble — and now fortified — abode was laojia (老家, home) to one of China’s most commanding (and controversial) figures of the 20th century: Mao Zedong. In [...]

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When a noisy Shanghai city works project brings migrant workers into our home — literally — I begin to wonder: just whose life is being disturbed?

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I wondered why Er Ge — the second oldest brother of John, my Chinese boyfriend — was so painfully quiet. Learning his story was like a window into the pressures of young unmarried Chinese in the countryside.

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Er Ge, my second-oldest brother-in-law, wanted to marry for life. His bride in 2005 was a lovely, lithe girl of 18 from Guizhou who worked in a local sewing factory, often evenings. I never forgot her almost ubiquitous smile in my presence. It was inscrutable, a smile that remained far too long to be just [...]

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This is the first in a four-part series of articles providing a snapshot of modern life in China ahead of October 1, 2009, the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China. It was published September 20, 2009 in the Insight section of the Idaho State Journal. ———— Zhongshan, Tonglu County, Zhejiang, [...]

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