Chinese Heirs as phoney as Milli Vanilli

In the comment thread of this recent post, long time WAIW follower Kent pointed us toward this BBC News piece, “China Database to Track Children.”

It’s good to see that something is being done to help reunite kidnapped children with their parents.

A few passages of interest:

Correspondents say the children of migrant workers are usually targeted. They are traded for a few hundred dollars and few are ever found.

As if life for migrant workers isn’t tough enough.

And…

In a society that favours male heirs, it is often boys who are taken.

I understand the heir thing. Our children are our thoughts and ideals, our immortality. But kidnapping your heir? That can’t come with the gut-level sense of continuity. I’m not saying that heirs are less “heiry” when they aren’t flesh and blood. Adopted children can carry a family’s torch just as well as unadopted children.

It’s just that stealing your heir is cheating in my book, like…

Winning Best in Show with someone else’s dog.

A bully wining the science fair with the nerd’s volcano.

Winning a Grammy for lip-syncing, “Blame it on the Rain.”

Got any other analogies you’d like to share?