薮下研究室

Reading Drill No.3
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It has been three decades since China’s one-child policy was introduced as a temporary measure to slow the country’s population growth.  But there is rising opposition to the policy because it is creating another population crisis.  The trends are best seen in the city of Shanghai, which has the lowest birth rate and the highest proportion of senior citizens in China.

As two-year-old Maomao and her ten-month-old brother Lulu play in a Shanghai park, little do they realize that they are a change from three decades of strict family planning.  Although many rural Chinese have two children, China still limits most urban families to just one child.  Because Maomao and Lulu’s parents are both only-children themselves, they are among the fortunate few city couples allowed to have two children.  “I was lonely as a child,” says their mother Zara.  “I was jealous of friends who had brothers and sisters.  Now my friends are jealous of my two children.”  Statistics support this: a recent survey showed that 69 percent of Chinese would support a proposal to end the one-child policy.  But Zara and her 81-year-old mother-in-law both support China’s efforts to control its population.  “Our leaders have thought a lot about the country’s policies,” the mother-in-law says.  “Whatever they say is right.”

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