ABSTRACT
It’s hard not to be spoiled when your parents dote on you. As a consequence, many Chinese children I met were spoiled, like a ten year old named Helena from one of several private academy classes I taught, who sizzled with pride and self-confidence about herself and her future. But then Helena was a natural beauty, the kind destined for the adulation of many, and she knew it. This may be why she got away with attending my classes week after week while not managing to learn a single word of English other than a pert “hello.” Chinese children, I quickly learned, were not expected to do anything around the house any more. Cooking and cleaning and such were for parents (i.e., mothers) or grandmothers to do. On the other hand, these children were very lonely, millions though there might be, because Chinese children, as a rule, did not have time for playmates. And of course siblings were no longer allowed. Chinese minorities, who tended to live in the countryside, remain exempt from the One Child law.
