Buy Me the Sky: The remarkable truth of China’s one-child generations

I love the writer. It's like I've got a friend telling me hers and her friend's life stories. Gives you also a great insight into the lives of Chinese families.

This book looks at the effects of the one child policy and how it doesn't prepare them for independence.

Really interesting accounts of how the one child policy is changing society and family relationships in China.

Brilliant book

Lovely

Very disappointing with no sound analysis of an important social policy affecting

Good description, speedy delivery, thank you

It was the first time that I've ever read this Chinese-born lady, Xinran's work. I've heard about one-child policy, which was imposed to control the volume of the population in China. Having been born and brought up in the Communist era and experienced the country's reform, Xinran witnessedand heard a number of setbacks, adversities and dilemmas caused by one-child policy. This adverse policy seemed to have ruined good Chinese saying and rules, the Dizingui, which all the Chinese people learned by heart and let them respect elderly members of family and neighborhood in the past, and has resulted in people losing friendship within families and relatives and widening the gaps between the poor and the rich in the vast country. It's true that money cannot buy or gain everything. We need to support and understand each other to grow the relationship in the families, communities, and workplace. We keep praying for people who delivered babies and were born during the one-child policy and for their wellbeing.

As a first generationer of one child policy myself, I don't like the general picture this book is depicting.The 10 cases are carefully selected. However, they are to some extent similar to each other. To make it worth, it comes to me that most of the cases are more 'dramatic' than 'typical', which serve well to spice up the conflicts and troubles in the one-child families. Think about this: there are millions of one-child families in China, are they all represented by these conflicts and troubles depicted in this book? Or is it more sensible to acknowledge the ups and downs in a daily family life, be it Chinese or western?Moreover, the conclusions reached by the author are kind of vague. The stories are not so logically structured - I often feel at loss regarding the connection among stories that happened to the same person. And the conclusions are kind of far reached. Then it won't be surprising some of them are not very convincing.However, nothing is more pathetic than the perspective of the story-telling that is perhaps 30 years old. In the stories the author has numerous examples of how Chinese make a fuss over issues like pre-marriage sex, balance between individuals and family, parents and children, male and female, which are partly true and resistant throughout the generations. Call it the culture if you will. Unfortunately (and fortunately) the Chinese have witnessed dramatic changes regarding the social structure and traditional values in the past 30-40 years. Most of the personal views in the books belong more to the generations born in the 80s and 90s. As for the new generations after the new millennium, let's say they are not so different from the younger generations in the rest parts of the world. And the first generationers of one child policy are becoming parents. Many of them have reflected a lot on these issues and relations, and they are definitely raising their own children differently from the older generation! So, if you, as a reader, are preying on the exotic and peculiar values that are typically presumed in an "oriental" society, this is the right book for you. Personally, I prefer to interpret these issues in a humanitarian way rather than a cultural one.

Great read

Beiing a foreigner living in Beijing for more than 4 years, I consider this book a must read for everyone who strives to grasp contemporary China. I am myself a mother of three and watching Chinese parents and grandparents making such a fuss about their one-and-onlies had always made me wonder in which way the one-child-policy would influence society as a whole.

Greatly influenced by the author's own opinion, her comtempt is everywhere, talking like she's a "native English", standing on the moral high ground. how could she not understand the only-child's parents while she was a journalist in China and she has an only-child of her own?

Very thought provoking and informative. Format of chapters a little too formal and needed to concentrate.

As a woman of 75 and a mother of three I found it an amazing and informative read

This provides a sobering picture of the difficulties experienced by the one-child generation of Chinese children in the early 1990s. In particular they appear to lack empathy. As treasured children they have had their every need anticipated. All that was required of them was to study hard and do what little their parents arranged. Most have not been raised to honour their parents and none of them have been expected to share either duties or pleasures with others. My one hesitation about this generalised picture is that the children discussed are all on their first trip overseas in which they had experiences that they were not prepared for. My suspicion is that young people from other countries on their first occasion in a foreign country where people did not speak their language would have difficulties, if not the same ones these young people did.

A very well written book. The author experienced just what effect the 'one child per family' rule had on both parents and child. She was directly involved although had been apart from this culture. It is emotional with frustration, concern, and realisation of just how unprepared these offspring are for the real world. How ridiculously protective and dominating the parents had become. Then the rebellion the child feels when introduced to the western world and how they have to fight to be free of cosseting.Well worth reading.

Interesting book giving an idea of the thinking of young Chinese people. I am aware that the 10 people are only a small sample size of this section of chinese society but it does give some useful and interesting insights.

Outstanding story

I have never read such an honest and real account of the outcome of 'one child families' in China. Xinran is to be proud of her insight and courage to write such stories.

Quite an interesting story giving a useful insight into the one child policy in China. I found the storytelling somewhat repetitive but overall an easy and enjoyable read.

Awesome

Very interesting dynamics. Thought provoking.

Very Interesting - if you are interested in finding out how culture is changing China this is a very informative read.