I've been catching up on Lacnet emails having just spent the last month and
a half travelling in China with my husband and son with a new daughter
joining our family there- 3 year old Xiaoling.

I though that some Lactnetters might be interested to hear some
breastfeeding related observations from China.

Not directly breastfeeding related but certainly a relevent cultural
difference was the way in which children are carried everywhere. We were
actually in China for a bit over 5 weeks. In that time I saw 5 strollers or
prams in total- three of those were other foreigners adopting children, one
was an overseas Chinese familiy and the other was a local maybe I guess.
Otherwise children were in arms or slings (on the back usually but sometimes
on the front). I bought one of the Chinese slings and spent quite a bit of
time walking behind women who were wearing one trying to work out how to put
it on. One day I saw a woman by the side of the road putting her toddler on
her back and was thankful for the demonstration. Often children were carried
not just by their mother but by a grandmother or grandfather.

Like many of you I guess I am always on the lookout for breastfeeding
pictures/sculptures etc. In Australia it is very rare to find anything. In
fact my collection to date has consisted of an African sculpture that I
bought here. What I found in China was that paintings of women breastfeeding
was not uncommon and paintings of women and children was extremely common. I
actually came home with three breastfeeding paintings (one is huge- we have
to build the house before I have room for it) and there were several others
that I would have like to buy (one I am kicking myself for not buying- a
wood etching print of a fishing women breastfeeding with the nets in Suzhou-
should have got it!!).  I don't know if the greater frequency of such
paintings demonstrates a greater value of mothering or if children greater
integrated- not so separate and so are painted as part of life? I really
don't know but it was really marked how frequently women and children were
painted together.

I was also looking out for the formula companies and advertising etc. Nestle
was ubiquitous and omnipresent in China. My 7 yo old was able to read Nestle
in Chinese characters after only a few days. There was also one
advertisement for Promil that got my hackles raised in one of the subway
stns in Beijing- I can't read Chinese but I didn't need to. Obviously it was
saying that Promil helps your child reach for the stars. Unfortunately the
message has been well absorbed by some and the guide we had for the adoption
part of the trip (otherwise we were on our own) who was a young woman with a
university education and a 2 year old son, told us about how she had bought
the expensive special formula for her son with the DHAs. She had bought it
hook line and sinker. Although I saw many babies and mums in China I didn't
see one child being breastfed but did see plenty of bottles :-(

The final thing that has me tickled pink is a call I got yesterday from a
friend who adopted a 3 yo from China just a couple of months ago. This
little girl was probably breastfed and has persisted with her new mum in
wanting to breastfeed- her mum was holding out a bit but now has given in
and is breastfeeding to sleep every night. What a lucky little girl and a
lucky mum too!

Karleen Gribble
Australia
(Sleep deprived- it's harder work than a newborn but oh such fun too with
little Xiaoling!)

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