I suppose I should finish what I started.

China reminds me of a kid who has just been given an expensive toy and is unsure what to do with it. Everyone has nice, shiny cars here because driving is such a new phenomenon. In short, there's no late-90s Corolla's cruising around, because in the 90s nobody knew anyone with a car. Like any kid would do, they love playing with the horn, cruising up on sidewalks, oncoming lanes of traffic, you name it. I wish foreigners could drive here, because I feel that after surviving the streets of China you are ready for ANYTHING the western world could throw at you. Speaking of kids, the one child policy.

Perhaps not so well know is that the one child policy actually has a lot of exceptions. Anywhere considered rural, or ethnic minorities are exempt from it. With most of China living near the east coast, you'd probably be okay with having more than one child in the majority of China. Hong Kong and Macau are also not subject to it. Unfortunately the Hangzhou area is.

To get more personal, the suburb I live in, Xiaoshan is to Hangzhou as Indian Hill is to Cincy. It's where all the well-to-do folks live and they commute into town. So, with each family being comparatively wealthy, and having only one kid, most of them are pretty spoiled. With kids being so important here for financial security in older age, the world does kind of revolve around them. Sure kids will be kids, but there are some things they pull that would just NOT fly back home. Like today, for example, I had to take two toy guns. One shot little plastic pellets that would probably sting a decent amount. In the US that'd be a pretty serious punishment, here it's little more than "You can have it back at the end of class."

Something a lot of people don't realize is that the one child policy isn't new. It's over 30 years old now, so the first batch of those born under it are now in the workforce. I'm interested in what China is going to look like 10, 20 years from now when the pre one-child families start exiting the workforce. I'm hoping it doesn't create a financial difficult to support their disproportionally large elderly population.

<fingers crossed> Grandpa can't go back to being a cab driver at 70. He won't see that car driving up the sidewalk.