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DynamiteVixen
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Country: Canada
State: Alberta
Metro: Calgary
Birthday: 12/19/1983
Gender: Female
Interests: Photos
Album 1 and Album 2
beyond.ca
Eat/Sleep/Live dog (Kato)
Mini Eskie
Posts begin:
November 15, 2005
Places to visit:
Europe: France (Paris), England, Spain, and Greece
Asia: China & HK *Dec 25-Jan 16 (05)
Jamaica
Mexico *Mayan Riviera/Cancun (again)
New York
Vegas, LA *again
Expertise: Double degree'd (economics/history: European and Military/Diplomatic)
Communications/Phone'd
Internet savy
Fun Facts:
5'5" tall (or short)
Licensed to: ... kill ... (just kidding) - drive an auto/standard car (class 5) and ride a motorcycle (class 6) *vrrrooom*
Homework? What homework?
Go Judges: give 'em that verdict!
Crappy curls!
Slow French/Mandarin
Braces * 2
Freckle'd
Teeny bopper pop songs
Artistic when motivated
Glasses > contacts
Radiance ( Moonlight)
J'adore romantic comedies
Possess'd heart
Patience = nil
No longer "Spellbound" --> Word XP
Require budget constraints
Not your typical GIRLIE girl:
Hip Hop/Funk *current*
Past sports
Muay Thai Kickboxing
Yoga
Cheerleading
Rugby
Wrestling
Gymnastics
Track and Field
Cross country
Occupation: Student
Industry: Research
Message: message me
Website: visit my website
MSN: rainpanda@hotmail.com
Yahoo:  LadieLovelie
Member Since:
11/7/2005
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| | Monday, December 25, 2006 | I suggest that you take the time to read through this article. It's a longer read but well worth it. Definitely some food for thought. Leave me your comments below.
Foreign brides will change China forever
By Gwynne Dyer
December 9, 2006
We all know about the problem of China's missing girls: the tens of millions of female babies who were selectively aborted after their sex was determined by ultrasound, or were born and then just allowed to die, as families seeking sons took drastic measures to cope with the one-child-per-family rule. By 2020, China will have about forty million more men of marriageable age than it has women for them to marry. But I have just realized where the solution will come from.
Other Asian countries have a deficit of daughters, too, especially where the families of brides are still expected to provide a dowry on marriage. But nowhere else has decreed that there can be only one child per family, as China did in 1980, so the dearth of girls is far more acute in China than it is anywhere else.
It took the new law a while to be enforced nationwide, and until the mid-1980s the gender ratio in Chinese newborns remained stable at about 108 boys to 100 girls. That suggests that there was already some female infanticide going on, since the global average is about 105 or 106 male births to 100 females, but it wasn't hugely different from elsewhere. Males die in greater numbers at every age, so more male babies mean that the gender ratio is more or less even for people in their 20s and 30s (and very old people are overwhelmingly female).
By the later 1980s, the ratio in China was beginning to skew sharply in favor of male babies, and by 2000 there were 117 boys born for every 100 girls. In some mainly rural counties, according to the latest official statistics, the ratio is now up to 132 to 100. The one-child policy has been a success in curbing runaway population growth -- officials estimate that it has prevented the births of about 300 million children, who would have swollen China's current population of 1.3 billion by almost a quarter -- but the price has been very high.
That price was initially paid almost entirely by girls, but in the end there is a price to be paid by the boys as well. The children born in the late 1980s, the first to be seriously affected by the growing gender imbalance in births, are now in their late teens or just turning twenty. Almost any girl who wants a husband will find one -- but millions of the boys will not find a wife. The girls who might have married them were never born.
Two years ago, a prominent Chinese demographer publicly addressed the problem for the first time. Li Weixiong, who advises the Political Consultative Committee on population issues, warned that "such serious gender imbalance poses a major threat to the healthy, harmonious and sustainable growth of the nation's population and would trigger such crimes and social problems as abduction of women and prostitution." But it could be worse than that.
Even if the one-child policy were abolished tomorrow (which will not happen), the next twenty years will see some forty million spare males for whom there are no females reach maturity. And the "social problems" do not necessarily stop at occasional acts of abduction or a rise in prostitution.
No sane government would want to rule over a country where there are forty million unattached males between the ages of twenty and forty rattling around with nobody to go home to in the evenings. That is a recipe for riot or even revolution. So if China has not made enough girls, it will just have to import them.
China is not a country that welcomes immigration, for obvious demographic reasons but also for deeply rooted cultural reasons. There is great pride in the long history and the cultural and even racial homogeneity of the Han Chinese population, which often verges on a polite form of racism. Foreign brides often have a hard time fitting into Chinese families who are less than delighted by their son's choice. But China as a whole no longer has a choice in the matter.
Here, in China, are tens of millions of men who are condemned to lives of loneliness and celibacy, or at best furtive visits to prostitutes. But they live in a economy that is rapidly growing richer, and out there, in the poorer countries of Asia, are millions of young women who would be happy to ease their loneliness and share their prosperity. The solution is obvious, and no government on earth could stop it. No sane government would want to.
The implications of this impending huge influx of foreign brides are very large. China has never seen immigration on this scale before, and it is bound to resist the big cultural changes that come with it. Tens of millions of the next generation of children born in China will have foreign mothers, and relatives abroad who expect to be visited or to come and visit once in a while. There will be some personal tragedies, and a great deal of happiness, and at the end of it all China will be a changed place.
Changed for the better, for the most part. It's just a pity about all those Chinese girls, aborted, killed as infants or allowed to die of neglect, who won't be around to see it.
Gwynne Dyer is a London-based independent journalist. Jakarta Post |
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| | Sunday, December 24, 2006 | -Edit- I decided to add the handstand picture after the comment I received. So here it is! And also more photos added!
Wow, I'm sure overdue for an update. I've got two coming up: this one as well as a birthday post (my birthday was on Dec 19th). I can't believe that I am heading back to school so soon (beginning of January) but I am sooo ready to be a student again. I love being a student! ha ha ha. Recently I've been in Cuba. I love it there, it was too bad that we had really poor weather w/ only one day with nice skies but it was still a fun and unforgettable trip!
Please note that the descriptions are not to explain the photos. I just interspersed the photos between my daily break down to make it a funner read! Here's how our days went:
Day 1: This day was left to be a beach day but there was no sun and it was a bit chilly. I can't believe how much weather affects the beach. Without the sun, the white sands looked brown and the water was turbulent which caused it to be a dark brown-blue colour. Spent the day sitting around and playing tennis.
Day 2: Havana tour, we had an amazing tour guide (Orlando), I was also super hung over this day - super disgusting. We went to see Tropicana (the Vegas style show) and spent the day sight seeing. Also had some time to wander around old Havana on our own. Strange thing is that I found myself feeling safer in old Havana at night than I did in daylight in actual Cancun (away from the tourist area). One thing that bothered me in Havana was the amount of people who outright asked for money. I was blown away when at a museum, a government worker kept saying "money" for a donation. She was in charge of one of the rooms that had articles on display. Just strange.
Day 3: We were still in Havana on the over night tour, spend the day doing more sightseeing as well as shopped at the flea markets. This was also the day that I learned exactly who Che (the guy you see on Cuban merchandise very often) was and why he was so idolised in Cuba. Our tour guide was so knowledgeable and unlike the Mexican tour that I took, I truly believed everything that Orlando said. Just to explain this last sentence, when I took the Chitzen Itza tour in Mexico, I felt like our tour guide was making things up but on this Havana tour I believe that Orlando knew what he was talking about. Funny thing is that many of the tour guides possess university degrees.
Day 4: Jeep tour day - we visited the countryside, went snorkling, went swimming in a freshwater underground cave, went horseback riding, and went for a boat ride down a river. Since I'm allergic to horses, I took some benadryl but didnt remember to buy the non-drowsy one, so I passed out after horseback riding. A super eventful day and fun to drive around in Jeeps in Cuba. Each one of us took turns at the wheel driving around the back country in Cuba.
Day 5: Catamaran. My favourite day, went on a catamaran ride, went snorkling, swam with dolphins, played on a beach. We had amazing weather during the day but unfortunately we were heavily rained on when we were coming back. This day made me super happy because I finally got my white sand/blue water day that I had wanted so bad and ooo I have to say that Cuba's beaches easily rival those of the Mayan Riviera!
Day 6: This was another beach day but we didnt have sun again. Decided to visit the actual town of Varadero on a horse pulled tour. Visited more flea markets. The markets in Cuba are much cheaper than the ones in Mexico and it was so much more relaxed. The whole atmosphere was really laid back and casual and I didnt feel pressure to buy things.
Hmmm... a couple of comments on the resort itself since I guess I haven't written anything about it. I heard that the food was absolutely terrible in Cuba but I found the food to be great and was as good as the food in Mexico. Food was flavourful! Other vacationers that we met didn't like their food... so I believe that it was just because of the resort we were at (Iberostar Varadero). The pool is spectacular there, you can see it in some of the photos. And even though it is rated the best hotel in Cuba, I was still pretty skeptical about the claim until I went there... I was pleasantly assured that what I read was correct.
It was a super fun and an amazing trip. I made a scrapbook of it as soon as I came home and worked tirelessly to get it finished before my birthday dinner! I can't wait to go back! I love tropical vacations so much!
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