"Post-Totalitarian Stress Syndrome"

[kyllo_in_china]

For, indeed, the paradox of Russia is that as life has become miserable in many ways, the economy has grown at an impressive clip. We can look back on this and begin to see a pattern that might be called Post-Totalitarian Stress Syndrome

Comments

[riz_reyes]

Is this "To Live" the book that inspired the movie??

R

[kyllo_in_china]

Yes, it is.

The movie is good, too. But I prefer the book because Zhang Yimou altered the message when he filmed it. I wrote a whole essay last year about the difference between the book and the movie, but in short, he stripped it of its existentialist meaning. "Chinese existentialism" is pratically an oxymoron, which part of what is what makes this book so outstanding to me. Parts of it are very funny, and other parts make me want to cry.

One child policy overstated

[anonymous]

The one-child policy in China is wholly overrated. People often talk about it as though it were a strict regulation; it never was. It was a stupid policy that encouraged abuses, but in fact almost all the reduction in China's fertility rates since the 1960s (6 children per women) took place in the 1970s, when voluntary family planning measures were instituted. Since 1979 when OCP sprang up, the fall in Chinese TFR has stagnated because the OCP-- a system of payments and fines rather than strict rules-- has never applied to rural regions, and in urban areas couples generally want only one to two children anyway. By focusing on the OCP, China neglected more effective family-planning methods like old-age pensions and better rural schooling (which India has used to great success), with the result that-- little surprise-- Chinese rural couples are back to having 5 and 6 kids on a regular basis. So the whole damn policy has been a lot of hot air, both by its proponents and the melancholiacs here in the US (like David Brooks) who cite

Re: One child policy overstated

[alissah]

I won't say that isolated occurences of the scenario you put forth has never happened...BUT your scathing criticism of the one-child policy seems a bit over the top. Being part of a one-year university exchange in China, I've met a good number of young people born after 1979. Except for one set of twins, none of them have siblings. Granted, a lot of them are from urban families. However, they have often brought up the one-child policy to me (especially when they find out I have a brother) and they themselves remark on how extensive the policy is. If a they know a family with more than one-child, they will talk about it (like the twins many of friends know). Of course there are some exemptions, which I understand include some rural people and minorities. But I've yet to meet or see anyone who is an exception to the rule even though I have travelled through rural areas in Shaanxi and Sichuan provinces. And I am really skeptical that such a radical situation that you suggest could be realistic. You say people hide children when