DeRobbio CP #1

I met with my conversation partner, Alice, for the first time today. She had an outgoing personality, and it was very easy to keep a steady conversation with her. She has high levels ranging between 6-8 in grammar, composition, reading, and speaking, but is only a 4 in speaking. She is originally from China and is temporarily here on a one year visa. She has only been in the States for two weeks and she says the hardest part is navigating her way around. I asked her if she had a license and a car back home and she told me no, but it is not usual for someone so young to have a car with public transportation. I asked her if she had any siblings and she told me she didn't, but wishes she did. I told her she was crazy. I was curious about the policy of children in China since I know there is a law about how many you can have but didn't know the actual statistics. Alice tells me that you are only aloud to have one child per family since the law was passed about forty years ago. There are exceptions if both of your parents are an only child, than the family is aloud to have two children. I asked her what happens if a family has more than one child anyway. She tells me if this happens than the family must pay a large amount of money for the second child, which many families that have farms along the countryside will do. This allows them to have a large family to work for them. If they do not pay the fee than the child will have no identification number, in the United States this would be like never having a social security number. I thought this was very interesting and a great way to regulate which I often wondered about.