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Prizing Girls: Like Father, like daughter
珍惜女兒：有其父必有其女
How South Korea learnt to love baby girls.
韓國是怎么學會愛女嬰的。
“I cried when I heard,” writes one blogger, recalling the moment she learned that her baby was a boy.
一個博主回憶當她知道她懷的是個男孩兒的時候，寫道:“當我聽到這個消息的時候我哭了”。
Those were bitter tears.
這是苦澀的淚水。
The woman was “so envious” of a mother who had just given birth to a daughter.
這個媽媽嫉妒那些剛剛生了女兒的母親。
She was not at all unusual.
這并不是特例。
South Koreans of reproductive age now prefer girls to boys.
現在韓國生育年齡階段的人們喜歡女孩多過于男孩。
They have created a new term, “ddalbabo”—“daughter crazy”—for men who go loopy over their female offspring.
他們創造了一個新詞，"ddalbabo"——女兒狂——那些瘋狂喜歡女兒的父親們。
Until the early 20th century failure to bear a son was grounds for divorce.
直到20世紀初，未能生育男丁還是離婚的理由之一。
Koreans greatly preferred boys, who could not only support their parents financially but also carry out ancestral rites.
朝鮮民族非常偏愛男孩，男丁不但可以經濟上贍養父母，還能延續先祖的宗法。
When ultrasound technology became widespread in the 1980s, many South Koreans used it to detect female fetuses and then have them aborted.
當超聲波技術在20世紀八十年代廣泛應用時，許多韓國家庭借此檢查胎兒的性別，打掉女孩。
Sex ratios became skewed.
因此性別比率出現了傾斜。
In 1992 twice as many fourth babies were boys as were girls.
1992年的時候，男孩是女孩的兩到四倍之多。
In response to these trends the South Korean government made it illegal for doctors to reveal the sex of a fetus.
韓國政府為了應對這些趨勢，將醫生向準父母告知胎兒性別列為非法行為。
It produced pro-girl slogans: “There is no envy for ten sons when you have one well-raised daughter.”
并提出了支持女孩的口號：“養好一個女兒，勝過十個男孩”。
That may have helped, but not as much as economic change.
那或許有些幫助，卻不如經濟變化的作用大。
Following the Asian financial crisis of 1997, many women took part-time jobs to supplement the family income.
隨著1997年亞洲金融危機的到來，許多婦女通過做兼職工作來補貼家用。
Parents noticed, and began to invest more heavily in educating girls.
父母們都意識到了，并且加大對女孩們在教育方面的投資。
In 2015 three-quarters of South Korean female secondary-schoolers went to university, compared with two-thirds of their male peers.
到2015年，已經有四分之三的中學女生進入大學深造，相比較而言中學男生大學升學率是三分之二。
Aborting girls simply because they are girls has become so unthinkable that the law has been relaxed.
僅僅因為懷的是女孩而墮胎，已經變得無法想象，因此上述法律也被放寬了。
Since 2009 expectant parents have been allowed to know the sex of their baby after 32 weeks’ gestation.
自2009年，準父母在懷孕32周后可以知道他們孩子的性別。
Many will have found out before, from doctors who trust that parents’ attitudes have changed.
許多準父母也能更早的從醫生那里得知，這些醫生相信父母們的觀點已經改變。
