By the numbers

Greetings,

The rich make money. The poor make babies.

Only two percent of Chinese women practice birth control. About the same here give or take a number depending on the fear and educational level of the woman. In Vietnam with a population of 85 million, 50% are under 30. That's a lot of babies.

You see them everywhere, driving taxis, motorbikes, buses, boats, trucks, planes, cooking along the road, selling fruits and vegetables in the market, building new super cities in the suburbs, hauling cement and bricks, fixing broken machines, waiting in empty shops, selling anything and everything possible with an infant on their hip, chopping down forests for kindling to make fires and hunting animals until they become extinct.

Babies become extinct? Yes, if they don't run fast enough.

Humans are the only animals that work. This is why monkeys are afraid to talk.

You have to work to make a baby and then, more sooner than later the baby has to work to take care of you. It's a business deal with severe heavy emotional guilt overtones. Marketing and branding. The "one child" policy does not apply here. You can have as many babies as you want, like grains of rice.

You can hear parents and grandparents whispering to their children, "Accelerate Production!"

The bitter fruit, this legacy of love. Love is a legacy and it's more about sheer practicality than emotional love. It's a pure and simple matter of numbers and pragmatic reality. Long term child investments with a human savings plan.

Metta.

Say hello to tomorrow.