A Chinese Childhood

Chinese in the twentieth century, intent on modernizing their country, condemned their inherited culture in part on the grounds that it was oppressive to the young. The authors of this pioneering volume provide us with the evidence to re-examine those charges. Drawing on sources ranging from art to medical treatises, fiction, and funerary writings, they separate out the many complexities in the Chinese cultural construction of childhood and the ways it has changed over time. Listening to how Chinese talked about children--whether their own child, the abstract child in need of education or medical care, the ideal precocious child, or the fictional child--lets us assess in concrete terms the structures and values that underlay Chinese life.

Tracking ideas of the child in Chinese society across the twentieth century, Kate Foster places fictional children within the story of the nation in a study of tropes and themes which range from images of strength and purity to the murderous and amoral.

One morning Achilles, a young crocodile, insists that he will eat a child that day and refuses all other food, but when he actually finds a little girl, she puts him in his place.

A professional study team's observations on and evaluations of the development of Chinese children in the home, nursery, kindergarten, and primary and middle schools, language development and education in China, and delivery of health care to Chinese children

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