中國(guó)人口老齡化問(wèn)題凸顯,政府將規(guī)定子女必須定期看望父母寫入法律
測(cè)試中可能遇到的詞匯和知識(shí):
desperate 絕望的[?desp?r?t]
miscreants 惡棍[ ?m?skri?nt ]
depress 壓低[d??pres]
meddle 干涉[?medl]
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China’s children are legally bound to respect their elders(752 words)
By Patti Waldmeir – Shanghai Notebook
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The older China becomes, the more desperate the Chinese Communist party is about its silver problem.
Earlier this month, a mandarin in Shanghai threatened local residents who neglect their elderly parents with being put on a credit blacklist, being refused a bank account or loans — and even with losing their library cards. Hit them where it hurts: in the pocket that holds the library privileges.
It must be such fun being a government official in China: apparently nothing is off limits. Imagine if Donald Trump could say: Muslims can’t get bank loans. Or Hispanics can’t get Visa cards. Or “bimbos” can’t borrow library books.
Last week a certain Luo Peixin, deputy director of the Legal Affairs Office of the Shanghai Municipal People’s Government, took it upon himself to remind Shanghainese that they can face all these restrictions under the law if they don’t visit their old parents regularly. That puts them in the same category as hit-and-run drivers, or those jumping subway ticket barriers, according to the official China Daily newspaper, which said all such miscreants could find themselves on the credit blacklist, along with the unfilial.
More and more Chinese elders now live separately from their grown children, and a national law passed in 2013 decrees that Chinese offspring who don’t visit elderly parents regularly can be sued. Silvers can go to court to force them to be attentive, and if they win, the court can enforce the judgment by hitting them in the library card, etc. As of May 1, nursing homes in Shanghai will have a legal right to call the kids up and shout at them if they don’t visit often enough.
I turned 60 myself this year, so I’m looking into how this law affects foreigners: maybe I can use it to force my two Chinese teenaged children to turn up for family dinners, or respond politely when spoken to (or at all). I’ll tell them they’ll never be able to get a mortgage if they don’t.
Filial piety laws are serious business, though: China has a massive elder overhang, because of the same one-child policy that helped depress population growth for years and allow the economy to grow so fast. The state can’t afford to look after all those elders so it has to use moral suasion (backed by credit score threats) to force grown children to help. Shanghai has a particular problem: last year, says China Daily, it became the first city in China to pass the crippling 30 per cent mark for population aged over 60. That’s nearly twice the 15.5 per cent for over 60 population nationally in 2014, the last year for which national figures are available.
But as we all know, money can’t buy you love and, apparently, neither can filial piety lawsuits. In the three years since the new law requiring grown children to visit elderly parents was passed, very few elders have sued successfully under it. Last February, the official Xinhua news agency reported that a 90-year-old mother had sued her six children, all in their 50s and 60s, asking the court to force them to pay her nursing home fees and visit weekly. Up to then, the report said, her three sons visited occasionally, her daughters less, and eventually no one showed up for months. The “kids” all said they were busy. A court mediator arranged a deal where the six would visit Mum once a week by turns. Xinhua hasn’t reported how that’s working out.
The state is even meddling more and more when children try to pay their respects to elders who have already passed over. A report in state media over the recent “tomb-sweeping” holiday in early April, said local government officials in Beijing had confiscated 200kg of “bank notes for the afterlife”: fake paper money traditionally burnt at the graveside to wish the ancestors prosperity in the next world. It seems it is illegal to print anything that looks like a renminbi note, even if it’s just for burning (which is frowned on environmentally, anyway). The safest thing might be the new fad in “tree” burials: placing a loved one’s ashes in a biodegradable urn under a tree, where they can become one with the soil, without taking up cemetery space.
Those who plan to pay for the funeral with a credit card will want to visit ailing family elders often, to make sure they keep that credit line. Remember: only the filial inherit the good credit rating (not to mention granny’s library card).
請(qǐng)根據(jù)你所讀到的文章內(nèi)容,完成以下自測(cè)題目:
1. When did the law decrees that Chinese offspring who don’t visit elderly parents regularly can be sued pass?
A. 1992
B. 1998
C. 2013
D. 2015
2. What is the punishment to those who don’t visit their parents regularly?
A. They will not be able to get a mortgage
B. They will be fined
C. They will be put in prison
D. They will be restricted to go abroad
3. According to China Daily, which per cent is the population aged over 60 in Shanghai?
A. 12
B. 18
C. 25
D. 30
4. According to official Xinhua news agency,what did a 90-year-old mother ask for?
A. Ask government to pay her pension
B. Ask department related to provide her a apartment
C. Ask hospital to treat her free of charge
D. Asking the court to force her child to pay her nursing home fees and visit weekly
[1] 答案 C. 2013
解釋:2013年,規(guī)定子女不定時(shí)看望父母會(huì)被起訴的法律得以通過(guò)。
[2] 答案 A. They will not be able to get a mortgage
解釋:不定期回家看望父母的人會(huì)失去在銀行的信用,而影響他們貸款的申請(qǐng)。
[3] 答案 D. 30
解釋:上海年齡超過(guò)60歲的上海人占總?cè)丝诘?0%,成為全國(guó)第一個(gè)達(dá)到該比例的城市。
[4] 答案 D. Asking the court to force her child to pay her nursing home fees and visit weekly
解釋:這位90歲的老人請(qǐng)求法院強(qiáng)制她的幾個(gè)孩子每周去看望她并付養(yǎng)老費(fèi)。