Family Guide
Thursday, 09 July 2009 08:07
Written by Daisy Wakefield

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Liu and Song go driving with their daughter on the weekends, sometimes to visit grandparents, sometimes on excursions just beyond the city. Their car is a Volkswagen Passat, which they both learned to drive when they bought it two years ago. Their home is an upgrade from their tiny newlywed digs which they were able to sell at a good price, since they had bought it before the real estate market skyrocketed.

Liu is Shanghai born and raised. He has seen the evolution of this city from his youth, and with it, an evolution in himself. He quit his job of eight years as a journalist to start his own market research company. Leaving a stable career to become an entrepreneur would have been unthinkable in his parent’s day. But Liu sees the opportunities and wants to tap them, taking risks while he’s still young. So far the hours have been long, and the payoff minimal.

Song is from Yunnan Province, and came to Shanghai to attend college. She met Liu through mutual friends, and in marrying him, transplanted permanently to Shanghai. She misses the laid back atmosphere of Yunnan, but like Liu, sees that the opportunities available in Shanghai are unparalleled. She teaches German at a local college, and her income provides a stable base for the family to live on.

Their daughter is seven years old and in the first grade. Like most her age, she is already under heavy academic pressure. On average, she has three hours of homework to complete each day. Her teachers admonish the class parents to monitor and help their child with this responsibility. Since Liu works from home and is more flexible in his schedule, he has taken on this duty. While the girl’s classmates have packed weekend schedules with extracurricular classes, Liu and Song have their daughter in just one class on the weekend – art, which she loves. They want her to enjoy her childhood as long as possible, but they realize that it is quickly fading as societal pressures mount.

Liu is reticent to tell his story – he says that their family is not extraordinary, only one among many Chinese middle class families. He’s right – but for the fact that the Chinese middle class is a newly-sprouted plant -- with home- and car-ownership unexceptional, and mid-life career changes attainable. That makes his story, along with that of many millions of others, quite remarkable indeed.

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