Thoughts on the abusive student video
It started off as a simple YouTube video, and now it’s even on the front page of the Drudge Report, which has a link to it’s frequently-used news service Breitbart.
The video has struck a chord with many people in China, and if you haven’t watched the video yet you can do it here, or watch one with English subtitles here.
In brief, the video shows several students from Beijing’s Haidian District Art Vocational School abusing their 70-year old teacher. Excellent summaries of what happened can be found on EastSouthWestNorth and in the Jiefang Daily (hat-tip to Shanghaiist). I would get into the details here, but the case is already fairly well-known in China. I also blogged about it a couple of days ago. But I thought I would post an interesting email from my Chinese girlfriend, who works for the Beijing Youth Daily and is a born-and-bred Beijinger:
I don’t like the beijing boy title of the video. Not all Beijing boys are like that.
There are some updates about this story in beijing media.
There are lots of internet users are so pissed off after watching the video. Yesterday, a few people went to the school to show their anger. There is a culture thing. In china, we have a tradition that all the teachers should be respected, like fathers should be respected in a family. In the old times, when there were no public schools, only rich people can afford to have a tutuor. The tutor is like the student’s father. Students have to take care of the teacher for his whole life. The student has to pour the urina pot and wash feet for his teachers.
So such a thing caused a lots of discussion about the value systems of young people in china.
The teacher is 70 years old, when he interviewed by reporters, he said, "they are all young people, I think it is sort of my fault that I
didn’t teach them well."I really disappointed by what they did. I think the whole Chinese society went crazy, Chinese people’s value system has been distorted.
Is this because of the reforming of the society? Now in China, the only thing that matters is money. Being a successful business man is
a dream for more and more young people. The media does contribute lots to it. See all the TV shows. Teachers, researchers are not any
more a respected profession. Because they are not rich! If this thought can not be changed, there will be more and more beijing boys!
When money and social stutas become the priority of all the things in a society, I can not see any hope in the country.
