Agree with all the comments above. All our cats who are indoor cats have a microchip and no vet would ever do anything to cat before looking for a microchip. I don't think this woman is really a reputable breeder - most breeders I know keep their cats inside would definately have their cat microchipped. Also a siamese-bengal wouldn't really produce any 'purebred' kittens I think - so any alleged loss of income is pretty tentative.

On a more personal note our neighbours cat was coming round to our house and spraying all the time. In the end the neighbours cat's behaviour triggered one of our cats to start spraying :(

Please keep your kitties inside. Not only is it safer for your cat, your roaming cat can have unintended consquences for your neighbours!

I laughed so hard at this article. I'm Chinese and I agree with what Jo said. Yes, it's a gross generalisation but it does ring a little true. Like Jo, not going to university was not an option but my mum was a little 'western' in thinking and let me not go to tutoring until I was in senior school!

It was my dad who was the one who constantly nagged about my academic performance and my weight not my mum; a thing he does now even though I'm all grown up :)

That all said I don't think Chinese parents are superior - they're just different from 'western' parents because of the upbringing and culture they have. It is perfectly acceptable to talk about a person's weight and how much a person makes from their job on the first meeting with someone which is something that is a big 'no no' in other cultures.

A side note is when 'Chinese' and 'Western' is used they are incredably large generalisations. Shanghai's norms and customs are different to Hong Kong's and Hong Kong's is very different to Taiwain so to say 'Chinese' is to cover a huge group of people. This of course, goes the same for 'western' cultures.

@Le Putsch - I normally think of French and Germans as 'European' but that could be just me :)

I think we need to consider it from a Japanese point of view here. The Japanese have fairly rigid (by western standards anyway) gender roles and expectations of people to fulfill their gender roles. I think what we are seeing here is a manifestation of people breaking out of their gender roles and embracing the characteristics that don't fit into those roles.

For example, my father in law stayed with a Japanese family for a home-stay recently and the lady-of-the-house was horrified when he tried to clean up and help with the washing up. She said that it was women's work and that he shouldn't do it.

That being said I love this part 'In the streets of Harajuku, Alex Fujita explains why he is not interested in taking it [relationships with women] any further.

"Nowadays, women have more education and enjoy working. Women are scary now," he says.'

What I love about his comment is this - He is happy to break out of his gender role but finds it uncomfortable for women to break out of theirs. Consider what he is saying. He's not saying that the women are agressive or uncouth; he is saying that women are educated and like to work which makes them 'scary' to him.

I don't remember it taking very long to learn cursive. In fact I could write in cursive much better than I could print. Despite the advances of technology we do still need to be able to write quickly and legibly. I often jot down ideas on a note pad rather than type because you can place ideas on a piece of paper and rearrange (with arrows everywhere!) them as the work takes place.

Computers have their place but so does hand writing.

I think she may have a point. Her argument is not 'ban these networking sites and computer games' but that we should pay more attention to them and to young people. We should keep an open mind as to how these things may be affecting our society and whether these effects are desirable.

For myself (I'm now in my mid-20's), I can certainly recognise some changes in my attention span that I can attribute partly to the internet. I have lost the ability to sit down and read a big book in one sitting. My mind turns to other topics constantly. This means I wil be reading 3 or 4 books at the same time, going from one book to the next - much like flipping between articles on different tabs of my webpage :)

So I think her argument has some merit but should not be taken as proof that the internet is ruining our children!