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Letters and Blogs

Updated: 2007-07-17 07:08




Civilized behavior

People need to queue up because only when everyone behaves this way will
everyone get what they want (as counter-intuitive as that sounds). The
government should budget more money to educate citizens and hire more
officers to enforce civilized behavior. Leaving people to their own
devices (through lack of enforcement) will not solve the problem.

Crossing road junctions any- where in China, even in "civilized"
Shanghai, can be hazardous because drivers (including public transport
drivers) always seem to be able to "turn right on red" without heeding
pedestrians. Also at road junctions, right-turning vehicles compete
head-on with oncoming traffic for use of the junction space. Why can't
China have a traffic light system where time is allocated specially for
turning traffic instead of having these two kinds of drivers competing
head-to-head for space on the road? China has so many smart people in
government, surely this flaw should be apparent to everyone.

Alvin Confused foreigner

Via e-mail

Aging problem

Comments on "Most people free to have more than one child" ( China Daily,
July 11).

The essential problem with our population now is not a "population
surge", but the aging of the entire society. Just imagine that maybe one
day in the future most of the population would consist of old fellows
tottering on the streets!

Jazzboy

On the China Daily website

We still have a long way to go before the whole nation is reasonably well
protected by a social security system, which depends as much on
individual contributions as the performance of the economy.

Without such a safety net, it will be impossible to convince poor farmers
that they can live through their sunset years without at least one son
taking care of them.

And let's not forget the ancient belief that only the son carries on the
family name, or the blood-line. Call it part of our Chinese heritage if
you will because it has little to do with one's upbringing and even less
with wealth.

Only people who have led a dehumanizing existence for so long that a
normal family no longer makes any sense to them can afford to ignore
their generational duties. Whether most of them do so is another story.

What really scares me is not over-population or a gender imbalance, but
the fact that we are already showing signs of becoming an aging society
when we are at least a couple decades short of being capable of dealing
with the problem gracefully.

Jim

On the China Daily website

The new regulation is useful just to city people, not to the rich or to
poor people in the countryside.

Without the regulation, some Chinese people would have more than one
child.

The government should solve this problem.

Free

On the China Daily website

Readers' comments are welcome. Please send mail to Letters to the Editor,
China Daily, 15 Huixin Dongjie, Chaoyang District, Beijing, 100029 China.
Send faxes to (86-10) 6491-8377. Send e-mail to opinion@chinadaily.com.cn
or letters@chinadaily.com.cn or to the individual columnists. China Daily
reserves the right to edit all letters. Thank you.


(China Daily 07/17/2007 page11)
















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