One-child policy prunes China's family trees
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E-mail Xinhua, September 25, 2012
Family trees are proliferating on the Internet, becoming popular with young people working out the complexities of Chinese family dynamics, yet their presence has triggered worries about the possible disappearance of traditional kindred bonds.
![One-child policy prunes China's family trees.[File photo]](http://images.china.cn/attachement/jpg/site1007/20120925/001372acd0b511cb543302.jpg "One-child policy prunes China's family trees.[File photo]") |
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One-child policy prunes China's family trees.[File photo] |
The family trees have reminded people of the changing dynamic brought about by China's one-child policy.
"I finally understood all the family relations and names for relatives after I saw the chart," said Xiaoxue in an online comment. "I've saved it on my computer to remind me to call my relatives in the correct way."
The "correct" way is a bit more complicated than simply using the words "aunt" or "uncle." Each relative has a unique nickname based on age or position in a family hierarchy, making it easy to be confused by the abundant and complicated relations. An uncle on the father's side of the family is known as shu shu in Chinese, while an uncle on the mother's side is referred to as jiu jiu.
Xiang Ningjie, 23, who works in southwest China's Chongqing, was easily able to recall the names of his closest relatives, including 10 uncles and six aunts. Xiang said he spent a great deal of time with his family as a child.
Luo Xian, 22, a woman from the same city, said that although she knows how to refer to her family members, they don't care about the titles very much.
"I believe the appellations should be simplified. Maybe people can use shu shu to refer to all of their uncles, no matter which side of the family they are on," Luo said.
In recent years, the one-child policy has loosened, and one-child families have been allowed to have another child in many rural areas. But young parents in some cities don't plan to have more children because of career demands or the pressures of daily life.
The structure of modern-day Chinese families has therefore undergone significant changes, with families becoming smaller and family trees much simpler.
"Since the 'single-child generation' era has arrived, kindred relations will become simpler and will face the prospect of fading away," said Wang Zhongwu, a sociology professor at Shandong University.
However, Kong Lingshao, 58, a 76th-generation descendant of Confucius, doesn't think the problem is so serious. "Even though many young people are from one-child families, there are still some people from rural areas where parents are permitted to have two children, so the number of relatives will perhaps be reduced but not disappear," he said.
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