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Chinese Couple Sells Kids To Fund Online Gaming
A Chinese couple who really like to game are under arrest for selling their kids and converting the money into game currency. From the article: "In 2009, Li Lin and Li Juan welcomed their second child, a baby girl, and came up with the idea to sell her for money to fund their online game obsession. They did so, receiving RMB 3,000 (less than $500), which they spent entirely shortly after. The couple then proceeded to sell their first child and got 10 times as much for him -- RMB 30,000, or about $4600. Upon having their third child -- another boy -- the parents followed in their previous footsteps and also got RMB 30,000 for him." I wonder what the "kid seller" achievement looks like?
What exactly would that be in wow gold?
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
Three? That's far more children than your average non-Chinese WoW player could produce. Industrious folks, those.
I believe that looks like a jail cell.
The couple clearly should not have any kids. It's good that other, hopefully more capable, people will properly care and provide for them.
Cash for games AND more time to play them? Living the dream.
How can we judge whether or not this was a good decision without the requisite information?
Working...
First, derailed trains due to incompetent engineering. ....God Dammit, China..... It's like Abbot and Costello over there!
Next it was banning WiFi for their own companies.
Now they are selling children for online games??!!
With a billion people in China, and rampant starvation, who the heck would pay that much (relatively) for a child?! Did they sell to a foreign couple or what?
A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/
People have been selling their kids since, well, people have been having kids. I'll admit this is the first time I've heard of it strictly for gaming purposes, but they didn't trade in their kids for games - they sold them for money - only what they did with the money is different.
No link to original source? And original source is supposedly Chinese state-run media??
Don't believe everything you read on the Internet.
You have earned the Achievement: "Know When to Hold 'Em, Know When to Gold 'Em!"
Thanks to various social and political pressures over the last 30 years there is a gender gap, this has created a market for girls in China that is being filled at home and abroad (in places like Vietnam).
This is hardly shocking news (sad news maybe, that must be one great game, but not shocking).
my ass
Even just birthing a child costs money (hospital bill, excess food bill for the mother, etc.), I don't know the exact figures though, was it really worth it?
What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
I think I know of way to better enable international traders to buy and sell their childrens.
Imagine of single currency in the world! Let us call it World Currency Unit (WCU). It'll simplify world monetary system. We don't need to calculate currency rate of change anymore. On traveling, we don't need to spend time at money changer. In computer, how many bytes can we safe by excluding currency field. Implementing WCU, we can cut one half of our thought about money. But for some speculators, it'll cut their opportunity.
I hope this idea can be realized soon. People from China can sell children to people of America without need for currency conversion, and problem like this can be avoided.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
they didn't seem to regret their transaction(s) because they sold three kids (and not all at once). They seem to have gotten better at it as they went along, getting higher and higher prices. (Or maybe the later ones were just cuter/harder working).
http://www.pcworld.com/article/229318/kid_sells_kidney_for_ipad_2_regrets_transaction.html
...a gold farm is shopping for more child slave labor to produce more virtual crap to sell to negligent parents.
pi = 3.141592653589793helpimtrappedinauniversefactory7
Keep in mind that this does not just happen in China. I can think offhand of human trafficking rings in the United States (Times Square, San Diego, LA, Ohio, Florida, the DC-Maryland Corridor, New Jersey, and many other places), Europe (Germany, Britain, Italy, Albania, Moldova, to name a few), Asia (Russia, China, Korea, Tawain) and more.
In the United States, for example, several hundred thousand teens are at high risk of being trafficked each year.
See River of Innocents for a good primer on the subject.
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
Eventually, the husband will sell the wife or vice versa.
the correct question is - what did they sold the children for. And the answer ...
No link to original source? And original source is supposedly Chinese state-run media??
Don't believe everything you read on the Internet.
Here is a link from the English China Daily which is state run. And here's a tabloid branch of the People's Daily running the story but usually this paper focuses on global issues.
My work here is dung.
DISREGARD CHILDREN, ACQUIRE CURRENCY.
Okay not really, but the joke had to be made.
The more you know, the more you have to say and the more you should listen.
http://games.slashdot.org/story/11/05/25/2215206/China-Alleged-To-Use-Prisoners-In-Lucrative-Internet-Gaming
Can I run that the other way? I have some game gold I've saved up for a pet.
I know if they were white and living in the US, we'd say "white trash" or "trailer trash." I can think of no such name for these people though. Most asian stereotypes are actually pretty positive. The frequent addiction to gaming/gambling and drugs doesn't get much discussion, but China's history in that regard is extreme and goes back thousands of years.
uh. they do worse things to baby girls because of the "one child" law (you can only have one.. face stiff fines for every extra kid) boys are traditionally "worth more" as evidenced by the selling price(s)
that baby could have been killed simply for being the "wrong" gender.
now, sqeezing puppies as source of income is fucked up.. but less fucked up than killing girls.
Child Farmers!
So short sighted thinking! All they'd have to do is sustain them for about 5 years and show them how to farm gold.
tststs, people slaughtering the goose that lays the golden eggs...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
PFFT...amateurs
China is the Florida of Asia
At least they didn't just drown them all.
Usually in China, when a woman is pregnant and the couple already has a male child, the newborn ends up in a river. Anyone commenting on how terrible these people are really don't know the whole story.
At this rate and at which they sell them there going to be out of money very soon. They should look into maybe renting the kids instead of out right selling them. Also they need to get on having more kids, you can have a kid every 37 weeks, well plus 2 for recovery, so every 38 weeks you could making a new "cash cow/kid" hybrid. If you sell out right you could be making a lump sum of 15,000 us dollars, 10,000 for the defected ones. But in the renting idea I stated earlier you could charge by the week, month, or even year, for as little as 128 a month, that's a cheap car payment, but you would have a steady income. Also there's a leasing plan, and i don't have to go into details on the payments for that one but if they default, you get to take the kid back and keep what they have already payed out plus the interest earned, that could amount to about 25g's! But then they already know all of this, they're Asian for god sakes, i think they just don't realize how easy this money making plan is.
-VWC
Whenever I read about these stories from china, I wonder... how much is true? It's sourced from a Chinese paper, which means it could very easily be a government plant. An effort to scare the people away from western MMORPGs and the internet in general, where they may be exposed to non-Chinese culture. It wouldn't be the first case of a government creating a moral panic for political reasons, and when it comes to manipulating media and population China has perhaps more skill than any other government.
M-M-M-M-Monster douche!
I8-D
Currently there is a min scandal running in China where officials sized “illegal” children and put them in an orphanage. Western couples would then adopt the kids, paying a lawyer to handle the paperwork – because in an opaque legal system like China you can’t do it yourself. And you can’t tell the difference between a legitimate fee and one that is not. The lawyer would kickback a portion of their fees, and the orphanage would kickback funds to the official who sized the ‘illegal” child.
So the kids tend to wind up in fairly good shape – if you discount the fact they are ripped away from their original families.
Seriously, how does this selling of kids even work? Is there a section for that on Chinese eBay? Is this just a payment for the permission to adopt, paid by infertile parents? Do adoption agencies bid on them, hoping to "remarket" them with a profit?
First, China strongly discourages people from having more than one child. I personally know people who left China to come here so that they would be allowed to have a second child. So the claim that this couple allegedly had three seems suspect.
Also, this news appears to be coming from a Chinese news source, and from what I've read China has been demonizing computer games (claiming it is an addiction and putting people into institutes to 'cure' them). Now they claim that this behavior was to not simply to make money, but specifically to fund a computer game habit?
Sorry, this sounds more like propaganda than news to me...
i just read in 'the economist' this week that the chinese government has been taking 'illegal' babies and selling them to adoption agencies and taking percentages or kickbacks when they do so. So whats the difference really...
Bloop!
Achievement Unlocked
Sold A Child - 50G
Scissors and needle + thread. Cut his off, sew hers up.
Done
Pretty horrific if you ask me as a father of two young children. I worry about my kids health and safety all the time and they bring more joy to me than anything else ever has. If you can't take care of the kids, or don't want to, learn to use birth control. One of the reasons there are so many f***ed up people in this world is that they had parents that didn't care about their existence.
I know that's all I got from this story.
The invisible hand of the market has spoken and proclaimed men 10x better than women!
Please, there's no such thing as 'rampant starvation' in China. Yes, it's still relatively poor and backward, especially in the inner areas, but it's not a starving country.
Why is it wrong to sell your kids. People give them away all the time, and have little say in what happens to them after. What harm is done if they make some money on it?
I'm not saying, "what harm could ever possibly happen," of course anything is possible. I'm asking what harm is done merely by accepting payment? Most women who plan to give their kid up for adoption while pregnant are often well cared for by the adoptees. That's a form of payment as well, but we allow for it. It's not so different.
I thought the Chinese were only allowed 2 children max? After that it was forced abortion and imprisonment for having more. Did they change their policy?
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/26/world/asia/26china.html?_r=3
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-07-25/ge-healthcare-moves-x-ray-base-to-china-no-job-cuts-planned.html
http://blogs.forbes.com/raykwong/2011/07/25/friends-dont-let-friends-become-chinese-billionaires/
As opposed to all the other child selling and slavery issues going on in that end of the world? And yet this story is special? HOW?
Many caring people adopt (a.k.a. purchase) children from other countries, which would certainly lead to a better life for the purchased child.
Legitimate licensed adoption agencies (a.k.a. child trading organizations) are expected to vet the buyer's ability to take care of the child, and they strictly limit the types of expenses that an agency may include in the price of the child.
Water will break at the start of labor, but does not imply that the labor will necessarily complete in the home.
That depends of course on how far it is to the nearest birthing clinic and what means of transport are available. For example, public transit might not run at a given hour, on a given day of the week, or on a given holiday.
Huh?
The conservative side of the USA places an extremely high value on sex. Remember, virginity is a blessing that should be preserved until marriage. If you're not a virgin when you marry, you shouldn't wear white. It's highly valued here, as a result of our warped morals.
These are the same people crying 'think of the children.'
The USA would seem to confirm the GP's point.
I want to try to be serious for a moment here, rather than shooting for the coveted "Funny" mod. I'm sure these "parents" are not far removed in time or generation from the era of Mao's cultural revolution where many, many rural families did the calculation and made the terrible decision to murder their baby daughters for socio-economic reasons that appeared (to them, their relatives, their neighbors, and ultimately their government) to be quite reasonable and rational. The Chinese society still reverberates with this sort of thinking. On a recent trip to a more rustic inland area of China, as opposed to the coastal cities that are benefiting from all of the economic growth, I was taken to a football (we'd call it soccer) match in a large rickety stadium. When an energetic group of what were unmistakably cheerleaders ran onto the sidelines with big slingshots, my first reaction was, this is the same all over the world -- I could just as easily be sitting in the stands of a St. Louis Cardinals game -- people are the same all over. It was a very comforting thought that was shattered when I saw that rather than rocketing cheap tee shirts into the crowd, they were launching infant girls. How can we ever bridge this gap?
My 5-year-old cousin could.
http://sbm.temple.edu/ccg/documents/adoptionLandesPosner.pdf
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gCYVevUX_Y&feature=channel_video_title