The Little Emperors

China has a one child policy as many of you know. The family I am with has one twenty year old daughter, Bo. For a few days I thought she had a sister in California at Stanford but it turned out Dad, Yong Chao, was using the word sister for cousin. Alto-gether though our communication is pretty good considering. Despite the one child policy the population still seems to grow and I was told will probably reach 1.6 billion before a noticeable decline is observed. The math behind that somewhat puzzles me. However I have noticed that several families have twins. While shopping at the market we ran into two sets within five minutes. Apparently parents wishing to circumvent the law use fertility drugs which are readily available at the drug store, ironically. No matter, the one child families are predominant and parents often dote on their kids. Not always a good thing in the long run and articles in the China Daily have been musing on the psychology of this long term for society. Several times I have been tricked by large crowds in the streets thinking from a distance there was a major happening. Each time it has turned out to be a mass of parents waiting at the shool gate to collect their dear ones {ha ha ha}. The little emperors (and female equivalent if there be such a thing) do work hard though since school sometimes has classes at night and on the week-ends. Yesterday I was guest of some friends of the family who took us to the site of the stronghold of the Tang Dynasty Emperor Qin who unified China in 200 B.C. I got a great photo of a little emperor all decked out in yellow in his communist Easter Sunday best.