Since I still can't post pictures, I'll share a few stories I heard on the tour I took today since I don't really have pictures to go with it anyway. Whether these are fact or fiction is anyone's guess.
Okay. We've already touched on the one child rule here in China. The Brazilian couple I was with today were brave enough to ask about birth control and consequences. It was all very convoluted, but our tour guide said that if the government found out a woman was pregnant with a second baby, they would take her away and abort it. I'll believe it, though I can't really imagine it.
A little harder to believe was the story I heard as I looked at a piece of pottery that looked like a small urn, about the size of a Big Gulp. The urn had a lid and the tour guide joked that it was an early MP3 player. Apparently the wealthy kept crickets in them and listened to the chirping before they then fought them in cricket matches. The champion cricket could bring in as much money as 2 or 3 houses. Seriously????
Last but not least in the too-hard-to-believe stories today was the reason for the raised entry ways of the doors. The logical reason would seem to be to keep rising water out, but the better story I heard today was to keep out zombies because everyone knows zombies don't have knees.
I imagine it does happen (forced abortion)... but I also don't think that's the norm, from what I understand. More often, people who can pay the fines do that, and the people who can't will choose to abort, or else they kill the baby after birth (if it's a girl), or else they abandon their "extra" child/children or give them up for adoption.
ReplyDeleteAnd actually, I think the cricket story is true too. Not the mp3 player part, but the idea that they were kept in little cages/urns, because they are supposedly good luck. Perhaps they fought to see whose luck was stronger?
The zombie thing is definitely fiction, lol. I've never heard of Chinese zombies. Hungry ghosts/spirits, yes, but not zombies.