babies

What’s on my mind is the escalating craziness from North Korea and the latest Avian Flu outbreak.  I hope for the best, like everyone else.  

On a brighter side, the weather in Chongqing is exceptionally wonderful right now with warm temperatures, cleaner air, and even bits of sunshine.  After the dark, polluted, cold, bleak, depressing winter, this change is welcomed by everyone.  I see people smiling, walking, playing badminton.  And, I see babies all over the campus, kind of like calving season in Idaho. 

One thing I really enjoy about living on my campus is that it feels like a mini community.  Many generations live here in tall, on campus apartment buildings because at universities in China, teachers buy their apartments.  When this was first explained to me, I understood that they were given their apartments; maybe the way it used to be during the “iron rice bowl” days.  Now, I’m told that they all get an apartment to buy at a very low cost, but of course there’s a hierarchy about how that happens; it sounds very confusing.  Mostly, people buy and stay in their apartments for life.  Changing jobs and moving is not common in China.  The result is a campus community of students, parents, grandparents, and kids. 

a proud grandmother on campus

Grandparents take care of the babies.  There’s no daycare here, so when I talk to people about the American childcare system, they are genuinely confused: “You leave the babies with other babies and small children in a place with only a few grandparents to watch them?”  They are confused because here the grandparents quit their jobs to cover childcare, knowing that their child, and then their grandchild, will take care of them as they age.  The traditional Chinese retirement system is having a child.

China’s one child policy creates a situation where the grandparents’ and parents’ future hinges on one child.  That child becomes the center of family attention; even my students admit they are spoiled.  With that spoiling comes great pressure to succeed and later to provide financial support for retired family members.  For my students, it means their parents are involved in their daily lives, often dictating and directing decision making in a way that would seem extremely overbearing to American college students.   

Around campus, I see grandparents gather in small groups with their precious little ones, fussing over each tiny bundle.  As I walk near and around these gatherings, I’m watching the ground to avoid any baby poopoo.  Actually, public pooing is a problem here and I think it starts right from day one with the babies who wear split pants instead of diapers.  All that pee and poo has to go somewhere, so babies and toddlers are held in a squat position wherever, whenever.  Sometimes they’ll put down paper on the ground, mostly they don’t.  The toilets in China are disgusting, beyond description; it’s truly a national problem.

wicker baby backpack 

I’m kind of squeamish in this department.  I almost barfed when I came out of Starbucks to see a 5 year old squatting on paper while the world walked by.  I know Starbucks has a great bathroom, and the very close by mall has good bathrooms.  But that time wasn’t as bad as the time when I was sitting on a bus next to a woman who had a baby in a wicker backpack, and that baby pooed out of the basket and onto the seat.  Every PCV has at least one revolting baby poo story.

Today, Arianna told me that near her campus she sees people bring out buckets of human waste to dump on their gardens.  They take that produce to the markets, where we buy it.  

(Sorry Novel! Women, I know you've been expecting my comments on this topic, right?)