His or hers, that's the question
The upcoming Spring Festival traditionally means a happy get-together with family members for Chinese people. But for a newly-married couple like Sun Qijie and Wu Yonghua, it means 4,000 kilometers of travel and shuttling between three cities in seven days.
Sun and Wu have been together for five years. Classmates at Peking University and employed by the same company based in South China's Hainan Province after graduation, they spent their previous Spring Festivals separately because they are both the only child in their families.
But after tying the knot in November 2006, things are different this year.
The Spring Festival means a big family reunion on New Year's Eve.
The question is: With which family should the young couple spend New Year's Eve?
"We discussed the question before getting married and came to an agreement with each other and with our parents," said 26-year-old Sun.
They will spend New Year's Eve at the wife's hometown in East China's Fujian Province and on February 19, the second day of the Lunar New Year holiday, they will go to Zhejiang Province to spend the rest of the holiday with Sun's parents. Next year, they will repeat the operation in the other direction, making Zhejiang their first port of call.
"Fortunately, our parents are considerate and supportive," Sun said.
However, not all parents are as understanding.
On Tsinghua University's online forum, a 28-year-old civil servant who identified herself as Ada Zhang asked desperately: "My husband's grandma and my own grandma are both ill and they both want us to go home during Spring Festival. What should I do?"
Zhang said she had already quarreled with her husband several times because he insists that Zhang accompany him.
Nearly 100 netizens took part in the discussion. Most of them said Zhang should go back to her hometown in Northwest China's Shaanxi Province, but she finally chose to disappoint her parents, as her husband's grandma's is more seriously ill.
One-month-old Tan Yimin enjoys his first Spring Festival with great-grandmother, grandparents and parents at their home in Zigui County of Central China's Hubei Province on February 9, 2005. For the Chinese, having four generations under one roof is seen as a great blessing. Traditionally, daughters-in-law spend the first few days of the Spring Festival holidays in their husbands' homes. Zhou Guoqiang |
Other couples have run into difficulties over the same question.
Many wives have to spend the holiday apart from their husbands because the families on both sides want them back and neither is willing to compromise.
Tradition stipulates that a wife should spend Spring Festival at her husband's home. Prior to the 1990s, most Chinese families could spend New Year's Eve with at least one of their children.
However, the "only child" generation, who now have their own families, has complicated things. The parents often feel lonely and unhappy during the family reunion if their only child cannot be with them.
China introduced the family planning policy in the late 1970s to curb rapid population growth. It has helped reduce the country's population by more than 400 million, according to official statistics.
Chinese families have been shrinking in size ever since. In 1982, a family had 4.4 people on average, but the number fell to 4 in 1990 and is now down to 3.6.
It is estimated that seven couples in ten in Beijing and Shanghai will be "only children" couples by the year 2035.
Xia Xueluan, a professor with the Department of Sociology at Peking University, said the problems faced by some from "only-child" families about which side to spend the festival with may reflect a self-centered upbringing and an inability to deal with family relations.
Xia said such couples have to learn to be tolerant with each other and get along well with their spouse's family members when they visit their homes, showing "practical filial piety".
"What to do and how to behave in their parents-in-laws' homes is more important than where to go," Xia said.
Xia said the economic and emotional burden on adults such as Sun Qijie and Wu Yonghua, who treat each other and their families equally, are heavier than before because they have more family members to support.
"But they don't really need to tire themselves out so much. They can show their filial piety in daily life, with a letter or a phone call," he said.
Wu Yonghua said that they intend to invite their parents to spend the Spring Festivals with them in Hainan after they move into their new apartment in 2009.
However, she is already worried that this is not an ideal solution because their parents are not accustomed to life far from their hometowns and their relatives and friends.
She said she would definitely enjoy Spring Festival more if she had a brother or sister.
"We've decided to have two children of our own," she said Chinese law has already granted the country's "only child" couples the right to do so.
(China Daily 02/14/2007 page20)
