While reading Ha Jin’s short story, “The Woman from New York”, I began to question when this story was taking place. I have always been aware that China had a one-child limit to help slow the population growth and it had continued for decades and was only recently lifted. According to this article from 2015, the policy was lifted and families were allowed to have two children instead of only one. The one-child policy was enacted in 1979 to help slow the population growth rate and is estimated to have prevented 400 million births. Those who had violated this policy were fined, however over the years, some provinces had become more relaxed about the policy. Overall, the policy had “led to forced abortions, female infanticide, and the under-reporting of female births”. This then caused an imbalance in genders with more males than females. This was due to the fact that males had a higher status in the Chinese culture as we have seen in many of the readings for class. I have found it interesting that the Chinese government has the ability to tell families how many children to have and what people should study as seen in the short story “An Official Reply”.
I know that at times, I had thought that it would have been nice if someone had chosen my major, or if someone told me what my job should be, but I know that I would have also resented anyone who told me that I was going to be a certain thing and I had to study a certain topic in school. I know that the government in China is different than the United States, and that it has changed over the years, but looking back on this time in history, it seems extreme for “officials” to tell teenagers that they are going to study one thing in college and then will use that skill in the job that is being assigned to them. I can now understand why many Chinese students come to the United States for college. If you want to read a story by the New York Times about a boy who came to the US for school, read this article.