Gendercide

On this cozy Sunday summer afternoon I am served with Egg Benedict and Earl Grey tea at Brunch Club. Sipping the tea with a freshly touch of lemon slices I am reading the sample edition of The Economist. A little piece entitled Gendercide caught my eyes.

The piece talked about a fact well-known to us Hong Kong people, that many girl babies in China were killed or aborted. The writer opined three reasons for the happening of this. The preference for sons; a desire for smaller families; and technologies that identify the sex of a fetus.

The article was enriched with data that in China, for the generation of the early 2000s, there were 124 boys to 100 girls. China alone will have as many unmarried young men as the entire population of young men in America. But China is not a lonely planet. Taiwan and Singapore, though they are relatively rich and have open economies, they have a distorted sex ratio, too. Wealth does not stop it.

South Korea, however, has managed to change the pattern, as the writer said. In the 1990s South Korea had a sex ratio almost as skewed as China's. But now, South Korea is getting to a normal one.

Being one of the many cities of PRC, Hong Kong was not particularly mentioned in the article but according to local authority, we are having more women than men. So are we of a society advanced and civilized enough to get rid of the so-called Gendercide?

No, as a woman living in this city, I shout "NO!"

Last week I went to a "networking" party at a club (hummm okay it was merely a clubbing event). After some merry-go-around with some nice gentlemen, there I stood besides a Frankenstein. Frankenstein said Hong Kong girls are having some tough times because everyone wanna to be wanted by some men and being asked to be married. He smiled at me like a cat got a mouse caught. Rude and irritating.

I know we should not allow ourselves to be irritated in front of someone who means to irritate us. But I wanted to show my anger. I took a step backward, attempted to be on the same eye level with this Frankenstein, wore a confident smile, with guard up.

I REALLY HATE TO BEHAVE LIKE THIS. Nevertheless, I had to because not only I felt irritated, but also being intruded being attacked being poked fun. I will call it sort of Gendercide.

Gendercided ... so I escaped from the club.

Mr. J B, do you know that this was what just happened before the moment I met you on the escalator? And it was one of the reasons why I was there with teardrops on my face.