The violence and poverty

My cousin had a baby in 1990, China. She is eight years older than her husband. They had the baby a year after their marriage. I did not visit them that often back then, and I was too little to know what was going on too. One or two things that I remember was sometimes when I went to visit my untie, my cousin Fang would come too with tears and the baby in her arms. I did not ask anything, and my parents were talking to her, while I was playing with the baby. Later on in 2 years, I started to notice what was going on. Baby's dad beat the mom the the baby at home. Mom tried to protect the baby, and she normally got hurt worse. I was shocked. I also noticed that baby did not understand too much, but whenever someone said or showed the sad expressions, baby was about to cry every time. Now when I recall what happened, I think actually baby could feel exactly what was going on in the family, and he was hurt physically an mentally. Now the baby was a young man, but I still can feel the strong sadness from him. He is never too happy or too excited about anything. He is always very very close to his mom. His parents divorced when he was six. He does not want to see or even talk about his father at all. I should say the violence that he had in his early childhood had really bad influence on him. I am also glad that he has the infinite love from his mom which supports him to grow up and face the world.
He is very sentimental and sensitive. He does not like people talking in a loud voice, especially when he was little. He would cry if someone talked in a loud voice, because he would think people were arguing or quarreling.
Poverty is another big issue in China, especially in the Southwest. Children live in mountains, they do not have fresh meat or vegetable to eat, they do not have proper shoes to wear and they do not have roads for them to walk on. Children there  basically eat pickles all year long. If they need to go to school, they have to walk 10km per day on the mountains, and they do not have hiking or even proper shoes. Those children are tinier than the other children of the same age, as they do not have enough nutrition for them. The living environment can be bad as well. Therefore, most children will have health problem. China's government is trying to help them in different ways, but it is going to take a long time to solve the problem and improve their living condition.

access to healthy water

I chose this topic, as I had an unforgettable experience when I was 10 years old. I was ten, and I went to Qingdao, a coast city in China, with my parents for traveling. I had a fist sip of the water there and I spilt it out of my mouth straight away. It was not the water that I normally drank before. I did not know why and I refused to drink any water after that. Now, I know that water was from the sea, and it was not perfectly purified. I went back to Qingdao again maybe five years ago, and I had my go to taste the water again. This time the strange taste has gone. I know the water standard has been improved in this area and people have had the access to the clean water. Because of my own experience, I pay more attention to this health issue. The unhealthy water would cause long term consequences. Contaminants in water are more likely to cause chronic health effects - effects that occur long after repeated exposure to small amounts of a chemical. Examples of chronic health effects include cancer, liver and kidney damage, disorders of the nervous system, damage to the immune system, and birth defects. On Christmas, I went to Philippines,

they have plenty of water resources, but they do not have enough fresh water resources for the whole nation. On the way from city to city, I could see children and women are carrying the buckets with them to go to the certain spot to gather  fresh water for the family use. They do not have the tap water going on at home. If they want to have fresh water, they have to go and collect it with the buckets.

My current job is a kindergarden teacher, I used to isolate my mind in my classroom to think how to benefit the children in my class. Now I know there are more children in the world that they do not have the access to go to school, and they even do not have access to a healthy life style. What I can do by myself might be a little, but I can do as much as I can to think of and help those children who do not have access to the clean water. 

Reference:

 Sandra A. Zaslow and Glenda M. Herman Health Effects of Drinking Water Contaminants

My cousin's birth experience

My cousin, Ying, 23 years old. She found out she was pregnant before she made the final decision to get married with her boyfriend. I was with her all the time, as we have been the close friends since we were little girls. She was anxious at the beginning as she was not ready to be a mom, and she did not know whether the family was ready for that either. China is still very traditional and conservative in that way that women should not be the single moms. However, her family turned out to be very supportive, and her boyfriend proposed to her as well. She decided to keep the baby. I went to hospital with her regularly as I love children, and I was happy for her to be a mom. She paid attention to her diet more carefully, kept to be optimistic during her pregnancy, walked around the lake next to her compound everyday, and talked to the fetus and touched it when it moved. Her husband was been supportive as well. They went to the classes to learn parenting for new-born babies together, read about the books about babies, and went to the hospital to gather too. Her husband did not smoke anymore during the pregnancy time. On Aug.27th 2011, their baby came to this world. A beautiful girl! This is one of the common case of the births here in China nowadays. Prenatal development is getting more and more popular in China, which you would not be able to think of it in 40 years ago.
I chose this case, as her experience was really different from the experience of my mom's generation in China. I was lucky that I was born in the hospital, but the majority of Chinese babies were still born at home back to 1970's. In the past 30-40 years, China is experiencing the great change with the development of economy and education. More and more people are well-educated now, and they realize the importance of the prenatal development for children. Back to the old time, parents were struggling with their living so they did not have sense of prenatal development, or they could not afford any good diet for the pregnant women.
My generation, it is easy to tell that we are the transitional generation. Most of us did not have good nutrition in prenatal stage, so we are still not that tough when we grow up. Look at the generation now. Their parents paid more attention to the diet and the health of the fetuses. When this generation in their teens, they are really tall and healthy looking. I should say it must have something to do with the prenatal development.
Thinking of the countries in Africa, China and Africa are still fighting against the poverty in certain areas. The pregnant women are not being taken good care of. Children are born with deformed bodies or disease from the parents are pretty common in Africa. China has the same problem, but the government is trying to get this situation under control. More and more hospitals are built in rural areas in China, and the workshops are held in those areas as well to wake up the awareness of the importance of being a healthy pregnant woman. I do appreciate it. I hope that could happen in more African countries too.