23 November 2015
For many readers, no matter where they come from, the collective childhood experience begins with the line "Once upon a time" - reading and playing with their siblings and parents. Imaginations are ignited in infancy by fairy tales drawn from diverse cultures and languages, carried far and wide by the wonders of storytelling.
However, for Chinese children there is something missing in the social experience: a sibling. In 1979, the government introduced the family planning policy, limiting each family to one child. Ever since then the "single child" generation (Balinghou in Chinese - literally, young people who were born after the 1980s) has missed out on the experience of playing, sharing and growing up with siblings.
