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Letters and Blogs
(China Daily)
Updated: 2009-08-21 07:57 Money not the only hope for kids Comments on "Invest in kids and get a big return" (China Daily website) With rapid economic advances, the pace of life is quicker than ever before. Due to the family planning policy, more and more people have one child or none. The material life of children is much better than before. Small families make parents focus on the investment on babies. But it might be a double-edged sword. First, money is not the only need of kids. In fact, children need love more than money. Second, children should learn to do things independently. In the US, many parents of rich families never give money to their children, but ask them to live on their own. Their children must find work. In this way they experience the real life earlier. Last but not the least, if we believe that money is the only desire of the kids, then they cannot be happy when they are poor. Therefore, besides money, we should provide love to children, teach them how to love and to be loved, cultivate their interests in studies, and lead them in the right direction. In this way, a girl or a boy can understand the essence of life. Zang Hanfen via e-mail Expat paranoia The first time I came to China was 1983. The occasion was the Canton Fair. I still remember vividly all the "incidents" that occurred to my commercial companions and me. The first unexpected sight was the Chinese soldiers standing at attention, with rifles and bayonets on their shoulder around the aircraft in the scarcely illuminated atmosphere of the airport. I was not totally ignorant of China. By the way, I was a co-founder and secretary of the China Friends Association based in Rome, for years. Later on, I have experienced all the good and bad sides of China during its decades of development, so I can understand the discomfort of the author of the item "Bartering comes with a heavy price in Beijing". He wrote that "the incident still haunts me", referring to a failed trade transaction in the Panjiayuan flea market. And he added he was afraid "what revenge the trader was conjuring up, should we ever meet again down a dark alley". Come on! That is a gross exaggeration of the daily reality expats and tourists regularly experience in Beijing! What foreigners expect from China Daily is objectivity, not unleashed subjective emotions, which cause trepidation. They need balanced judgment of facts, grounded in verifiable evidence. And, of course, personal reports, especially if funny and interesting, about the average and typical experience of the majority of people living in China, foreigners included. Claudio Cervini via e-mail (China Daily 08/21/2009 page8) |
