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Thread: Difference in handling family ties between Chinese and Westerners

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[quote=APAULT,258792]I am alarmed at how often this distortion of the truth is repeated in China.  I don't deny the importance of family in China but I would suggest that it exists in the west too.

My parents do not want to live with my sister who lives nearby, they want to retain their independence, that is far more important to them.  My sister is always available should they want help and I would return to the UK if she were not there.  I also phone regularly.  Another example: the west is often criticised for having so many elderly in homes, but part of the reason is that we can afford to do so and can provide the elderly with a better standard of care.  The second reason is that with the better medical facilities  we have, more people live to a point where more intense professional care is needed.  The way we go about caring for the elderly is different but the intention and commitment to the elderly is the same.

I live thousands of kilometres from my parents: does that mean I don't care?  No. They encouraged me move away when an opportunity arose. They said their job was to get me to the point where I could make my own life, they did not bring me into the world so that I could look after them in their old age.  Yet I have often been told that  many Chinese have children to look after them in their old age - isn't that selfish (to use a word that one person used earlier)?

A young lady of 23 that I know is being forced by her family to marry a man she positively hates.  Is that caring for family?  I don't understand how it is, but I expect her parents think they are doing the right thing.

Chinese parents make their children study for ridiculously long hours.  My students are yawning and putting their heads on the desk they are so tired - and of course learn less than if they had been allowed to stop working earlier play some football or chat on the net.  To many westerners this obsession with quantity over quality is child abuse, but I know that Chinese parents think it is the right thing for their children.  In Australia, the kids tend to do their sports practice first and then fit in some homework after it.  The culture is different, but both are caring.

There are more divorces in the west it is true, and so there will be in China in the future.  The reality is that divorce parallels wealth.  So compare China today with a western country at the same stage of economic development. Then we will see that western countries had lower divorces then too.  On the internet I have talked with women who wish they could divorce and are very unhappy.  In some cases they may be being mistreated.  In China divorce levels are low but many are unhappy in their marriage and then  children often suffer too.  Which is better, suffer or divorce?  There is no clear answer but it is a simplistic argument to say that it shows the west is less caring about family than in China.

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