Eric's Beijing Diary

Took the bus into town today to get something to eat. There is a student cafeteria here on the campus, and also a small coffee bar/restaurant, but the roadside restaurants in Beihai are very inexpensive, and serve very good food. After dinner, I took a bicycle rickshaw to the square and did some studying at McDonald's. A woman with her small child sat down next to me and wanted to talk. She was asking me if. American women had to work like Chinese women. I told her that actually, China and America were quite similar in that respect. The main difference is that in China, children are cared for by their grandparents, while in America, they are taken to a day care center, and thrown in with a bunch of other children. She agreed. Her child is also cared for by her parents. I told her that I thought young children needed to be with their mothers. She agreed, but she said that most families could not afford to live on one income. I told her that America is the same way.

Japan is different. Flying back from Tokyo to Beijing, I met a woman who grew up in China, but who is married to a Japanese, and has spent the past ten years in the US and Japan. She told me about her frustration at going to job interviews in Japan and having prospective employers ask her, "Does your husband allow you to work?" That question wouldn't go over very well with many American women, either.

Labels: Women