Our Worst Day in China

Today is by far the worst day we have had in China. It brought to us the clearly inhumane treatment many of the Chinese people suffer on a daily basis. Our ayi, the lovely woman who comes to help me with the house and kids (very common here in China--see previous blogs) told us that she was pregnant. While normally this would be joyous news, in China it is not. This is because she is already a mother. She has a wonderful son who is 13 years old. In China you are only allowed one child. Therefore, she had to go to the doctor and have an abortion. This is nothing short of TORTURE!!!!

I, of course living in China and even before living here, was well aware of the one child policy that they have in place. However, it has taken knowing a person going through this pain to realize how messed up this policy is for the people of China. First, most people here desparately want more than one child. People actually look into ways to get around it, like getting a divorce because you can in some situations have another child legally when married again. Additionally, they are not given contraception or surgery to "tie their tubes" so a pregnancy would not occur. They are penalized for having a second child and penalized if they give that child up for adoption. Finally, they have to pay for the procedure to terminate the pregnancy.

I cannot imagine having to go through such torture and then have to pay for it as well. Insane!!! No wonder she told Dustin she was not only grieving the loss, but was angry.

Yet, with many things in China there is no place to funnel this anger. No representative, no courtroom to hear the case, no newspaper to write to about your injustice. Many Chinese have gotten very bold online where they have been able to be anonymous. Yet, I have read recently that China is trying to take that away. They won't shut down the site (although they have done that before), no they are seeking to take the anonymity away. This way China feels they can say, "Look our people are free to share their thoughts online jut like the rest of the world." What they won't say, but every Chinese person and hopefully the rest of the world knows, is that if there is someone disagreeing with the government, a couple of things may happen--they may disappear, they may be detained and "questioned" or they may be sent to be "reeducated" at a work camp (i.e.--the two elderly people that petitioned the government for something before the Olympics). No one is left complaining or voicing an opposing opinion for long, so taking away the anonymity of it, takes away the people's ability to complain or object to something.

There is not even a system of social assistance. Counseling. You can forget about it. It is a society that has been taught to suck it up and move on. In fact, I would go so far to say that they have to be careful to talk to anyone other than close family, because just regular venting about a subject could lead to one's detainment or worse. Therefore, most Chinese people are very reserved and rarely share their views on subjects, especially to outsiders like ourselves or even neighbors.

While forcing someone to take contraception or have their tubes tied is extremely invasive in a person's life and rights, it does in China's situation seem downright humane compared to the current method they impose. I personally would take this method over having to have an abortion every time I became pregnant during my reproductive years. How many abortions must a Chinese woman have to endure during her life?

Living in China we will obviously be faced with many heartbreaking and frustrating situations like this one (not being able to do something to directly solve it for our ayi and other woman), and while Dustin and I questioned how we could even work in a country like this one after hearing this news from our ayi. We are left with the fact that even in our small way, we are affecting China in a positive manner. We are living there, sharing our values and our views and whether we are in China or in the US we alway have the most powerful tool that God gives to each of us. Prayer. While I currently feel like storming into a building screaming about the injustice and torture that is occurring, I know my true power comes from me getting on my knees and bowing my head. It may seem like an ineffective method to some, but I can assure you that my life alone has been an example of the power of prayers and the answers from God. I will be praying daily for this issue as well as true freedom for the Chinese people. I ask each and everyone of you that reads this blog to please pray about this situation. Even a quick prayer (what I like to call a "flare prayer") is heard by God and answered.

Answers and change may not come quickly, but it will come. May God bless the Chinese people and their leaders. May God bless you and open all our eyes to the gift we have been given in living in the Western world, especially the United States of America.