The group is off to a roaring start. Here are a few issues that may merit clarification and perhaps discussion:

-- Basic issues of structure:
While the multigenerational household was held up as the ideal, it was exceedingly rare. Most households divided household property and lived separately soon after the second son married. The most common form of household is the stem family (grandparents, parents, children). Having two married couples of the same generation living together was and is unusual.

In cities the trend towards nuclear families is a strong one.

Rough numbers: rural households have an average of 4.3 people; urban households have an average of 3.2 people.

-- The Family as a Economic Unit
Families are both production and consumption units. How have economic changes (even rural people increasingly engaged in industrial or construction work, the post-49 shift from household to collective and back to household production, family commerical ventures stopping in the 1950s and resuming in the 1980s, and so on) affected family structure, roles, etc.

Families' consumption needs often drove/drive production decisions. Even if the economic return on one's labor was low, one might still take on more work (e.g., weaving cloth, selling vegetables, working as a hired hand) because every little contribution to family income was essential. Students can see this in the US in many settings, including immigrant-owned businesses where the whole family works for low hourly returns in order to meet consumption needs.

Chinese statistical yearbooks provide details on family spending patterns (what % on housing, etc.). This would no doubt be interesting for students to compare with trends here.

-- Penetrating the Household
One of the remarkable achievements (for good and bad) of the post-49 state was its intrusion into the Chinese household. Regulations on age of marriage, freedom of marriage, ability of spouses to cohabitate (household registration rules), and number of children a couple could legally produce all influenced family structures, rituals, and strength. Some have argued that political campaigns weakened families (children denouncing parents, etc.), but others suggest that the unit was strengthened as people concluded that in such moments families learned to hang together.

Note that under communes/production brigades families received a lump sum payment each year. While the contribution of all workers (including women and adult children) was included in the sum, the payment went to the family head (usually the senior male). This reinforced the focus on the family as a production unit.

-- It didn't start in 1949
It is important to recognize changes that took place in family structures and practices prior to 1949. And the Socialist State wasn't the first to seek to influence what happened in households. My first serious if short essay on Chinese history argued that Shang Yang's pronouncement in the Qin state during the Warring States period (ca. 350 bce) that families had to divide property or face double taxation had profound economic and demographic ramifications for China. Closer to today, some warlords and the Republican State under Chiang Kai-shek also initiated measures geared towards changing family practices.

-- China's big and diverse
Lineages were stronger and more important in Southern China than in the North. What role did these play in rituals, in providing economic guarantees, in funding common concerns (namely education)? Did/do Tibetans, Mongolians, Hakka, Uigyhur, and the dozens of other ethnic groups organize themselves differently? Religion is one possible factor, what are some others?

APOLOGIES for droning on -- the nice thing is in the forum, you didn't have to suffer through this unless you were interested.

Hi, Shelly!! Good to hear from ya. Sure is warm down here in So Cal!! Alison 8)

Hi Family Group and others,

I'm sure everyone is working diligently and quietly on the project. Ordinarily, I drop new web resource discoveries into the "Asia in My Classroom" forum, but in my crazy campaign to get you talking, I thought I'd put this one here:

http://weber.ucsd.edu/~dkjordan/chin/hbfamilism-u.html

The author, David Jordan, is a recently retired UCSD anthropologist. It is a good outline of traditional family structure.

Robin recommended this film during our session Sunday and I quite concur. It is a bit melodramatic and plays up a few stereotypes of its own, but is quite good. I'd love to have someone in this group write a teaching-oriented review of it. If you do, please post it in the Asia in My Classroom forum so that all teachers will have access to it.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00006I04I/103-0018456-3399045?v=glance

The Amazon box cover features a different picture than I remember on the film's poster. That image had a fellow drinking a soft drink (Coke?) in front of a red background (the flag?).

Some other resources:
Internet Movie Database (IMDB.com)

Rotten Tomatoes

New York Times

Finally found some time to come back to the listserv.....though I don't know how many are using or checking it.....hello again to all that are.....Clay I know you at least are out there in Cyber forum.

The Taiwan marriage story is interesting......I am also surprised at the number of Chinese women looking to marry a foreigner/Westerner. This may be restricted to the bigger cities but I know here in Shanghai and I am sure the same is true in Beijing. I also met an interesting couple who both are divorced with 1 child each and though they are not married they all live together and act quite like a family. As far as the one child policy I saw a recent article that announced that the one child policy is no more and that there are so many exceptions and loopholes that it's not worth mentioning anymore. However among Chinese who have been overseas that is the question they feel they most often end up answering.

Happy Thanksgiving