One-child Policy

China 1983

One-child Policy

When preparing these pages, I was pondering to show all China photos in black & white, but because of the presentation it was going to be in color. Starting with the very colorful 'Little Emperors' you will see the clothes of the kids change to the 'Mao-blue', or army-green worn by the adults and elderly. Back then the streets were filled with people walking or on bicycle, dressed in blue or green. All women wore trousers, most had short hair and many a stainless steel hairpin, much like the women during the Khmer Rouge years in Cambodia. The only women I saw in a dress or skirt were in Uyghuristan, or Xinjiang province, worn by the muslim women (over their trousers).
The strict One-Child Policy was at the time already showing its disastrous effects with families over-feeding and -pampering their only child, creating the so called 'Little Emperors', and newspapers reported back-then already regularly on the selective abortions of girls, in favor of the preferred boys.