A Daughter Adopted from China

choi

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Scott Simon, How to Say Thanksgiving in Mandarin; Jewish-French-Irish-
Chinese: a modern American family. Wall Street Journal, Nov. 24, 2009.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704204304574545663620908966.html

My comment:
(a) Both daughters of the author are adopted from China, possibly of even
minority ethnicities of China; in this op-ed, he does not say if he has a
boy.
(b) monkey bars
http://www.fun-kids.com/store/images/monkey-bar-1-W.jpg


-------------------Separately
Peter Harmsen, Taiwan's dwindling birth rate causes concern. AFP, Nov. 23,
2009.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20091123/lf_afp/lifestyletaiwanpopulationbirths_20091123161650
("Five years ago, each classroom at her middle school in downtown Taipei had
28 students, but now it is 20, and the trend shows no sign of abating.")

My comment:
(a) A middle school is a junior high school, which in Taiwan has pupils from
ages 13-15 (equivalent to grades 7-9 in US).
(b) Back in old days (up to late 1970s when I paid attention to this issue),
a class had sixty. We dreamed about small classes that American children
enjoyed. The dream has come true, but the way to reach the goal, low birth
rate, was not anticipated.
(c) For the past two years, Taiwan has been said to be with the lowest
fecundity of the world, by number of children (1.12 for Taiwan) a woman will
bear in her lifetime (as opposed to birth rate, which measures number of
childbirths per 1,000 people per year).

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