Our preferred driver 马师傅 has 3 children. It is already rare to see a family with 2 children, let alone 3. Luckily his no. 3 is a boy, else he will most probably try for no. 4. I didn’t asked the exact amount, but he must have be fined at least a few tens of thousand RMB. He is fond of his girls as much as his boy, but somehow, he must have a boy in the family.

And when our ayi 黄姐 gave birth to her first born, who happens to be a girl, her mother-in-law didn’t even bother to visit her or help her out during her confinement month until her own mother came to her rescue.

The idea of having a male heir is still very prevalent, especially among the rural countryside. Remember that hard sell man who did the cleaning demo for my flooring 2 days ago? He too has a daughter and is going to try for a second one, a boy in particular. He said both his parents and in-laws wanted them to try for a boy, to carry on the family name. According to him, couples are entitled to try for a second one if their first born happens to be a girl (in the rural countryside). So, what happen if it happens to be a girl? He said they could always do an ultra sound scan to check the fetus gender. Isn’t that illegal? Well, money could solve the problem. It could be done at around 2000RMB.

If they managed to conceive and give birth to a boy, this little prince will carry both his and his wife’s family name. His family name is 李 (Li), and his wife is 赵 (Zhao), the son will bear the combined surname of 李赵 (Li Zhao). The interesting part is, his father-in-law will have to pay him 20k RMB for that grandson to co-carry his family name of 赵. This is the first time I heard of such practice, but it must be something common among the countryside.

To us, having more children means additional responsibilities and higher cost. To many of the Chinese country folks, more children means more protection when they grow old, 多一个孩子，老来就多一份保障。Such differing mentality. Forget about relying on the children, I would be glad if my kids don’t give me additional problems when I grow old.