LA Times article, China: A future nation of bachelors? By Joshua Kurlantzick The country's love of male children may create a dangerous underclass and prematurely gray the population.

Usual points brought up: 120 boys for every 100 girls born due to cheap ultrasound. One child policy. Same thing is happening in India, Korea, and Taiwan. In Taiwan and Korea, there are advertisements to go Vietnam to get a wife. In Taiwan, many men go to China to get a wife. Article did not mention that boys are a form of Social Security and when women marry, they are seen as becoming part of the groom's family.

What was new:
Nien Rebellion - happened about same time as Taiping rebellion, and the article suggests that part of the reason was the imbalance of men to women. Book that mentioned this issue is Bare Branches: The Security Implications of Asia's Surplus Male Population Excerpt from the book:

Population dynamics have a way of catching people unaware, and sometimes producing havoc. The worldwide baby boomers, born between 1945 and 1965, began coming of age in the late 1960s and produced an equally worldwide epidemic of violence. From the anti-Vietnam War movements to the Chinese Cultural Revolution, it was the great surge of young people taking to the streets who produced the violence. More recently, population aging has caught the attention...

Peter Drucker commented that you could look at the average age of a society, and it could tell you a lot about it. Peter's example I remember from one lecture was in the 1960's in the US, there was a lower average age that led to a lot of changes (Baby Boomers). Now America is growing older that is leading to less changes.

For those interested in related products for Children, hmmm, The Mouse Bride Cute book about a mouse and her suitors.

Labels: Chinese Culture, Chinese Demographics

I have noticed the emergence of huge houses in many cities where there are a lot of Chinese. Typically they have tiny yards, two stories, usually some type of pillar in the front, stucco, tile room, good school districts, and are much bigger than the original housing, usually ranch style in the area. Places I have seen this are Cupertino, Arcadia, Temple City, San Marino, etc. I thought of this when I cam across an article in the WSJ The Mega-Mansion Comes to Beijing that mentioned this was happening also in China with the super rich. What has happened in California cities, is an older house is bought, then torn down and replaced with a mega mansion. To appease city codes (that have been getting smarter), often one wall of the old place is kept so it is not a new construction, but just a remodel (on steroids). I was looking for articles about this, but could not find any. New areas don't have these issues since there are often new developments in gated communities with monster houses. I can think of one in Rowland Heights (Balan and Fairways).

Here is the only article I could find: Building Ethnoburbia: The Emergence and Manifestation of the Chinese Ethnoburb in Los Angeles' San Gabriel Valley that requires a username/password or a visit to a subscribing library.

No wait, another mention (just have to use the right keywords) that has a nice definition - mostly:

The San Marino area has coined the phrase "mansionization" to reflect the desire of Asian residents to construct large homes that overwhelm surrounding buildings in both size and design. For Asians, this is a means of accommodating their extended families and a reaction to the limited housing space available to them in their native countries.


I am not sure I agree with the sentence I highlighted in red. To me that has nothing to do with it. Extended families - yes, that makes sense. Limited housing in their native countries - no, it's more about what they can afford in the US, which has to do with cost of housing, not availability.

Labels: Chinese Culture, Chinese Demographics, Chinese Housing

Article from the LA Times Will an aging population defang China? Basic point of the article is China is growing older because of the one child policy which in the future will impact economic growth.

A point that I believe will be challenging in the future will be the lack of females in China, India, and Korea due to abortions because of sex testing. From an economic sense where females are required to provide dowries and become part of the grooms families, this makes a lot of sense when boys provide a form of Social Security. Will there be an increase in violence in those countries due to this? I wonder what Dr Satoshi Kanazawa thinks. He also has a new book out. He has written some fascinating papers such as Engineers Have More Sons, Nurses Have More Daughters: An Evolutionary Psychological Extension of Baron-Cohen's Extreme Male Brain Theory of Autism and Its Empirical Implications. Hmm, so I have an Engineering background, I am pretty empathetic, and have a daughter. What does that say about me based on his research :-)

Labels: Chinese Demographics