@DeWang already addressed this topic, but I felt it appropriate to add a more visual perspective on this, and a simple commentary to the last blog entry simply does not suffice. I did an image search on the term “Hong Kong education protest”, and here are just a few of the numerous pictures that appeared. The question that comes immediately to my mind is: Anyone notice all those little kids that came out to protest?
As I mentioned in my commentary, I find it hilariously hypocritical and ironic that those who protested against the supposed “evil chi-com brainwashing” made their children march, hold signs, and shout slogans. Some of those kids could not be more than 5 years of age, while others cannot even walk independently. Please don’t tell me they can actually grasp the political issues at hand well enough to make an informed & voluntary decision on this, or any form of political participation. I wasn’t born yesterday, although a few of these kids may not be far off.
Tseng Kin-Wah says
It pisses me off when political scumbags use children to advance their cause. Suffice to say that HK is dominated by western controlled media masquerading as free press. The British, masters of subversive propaganda (honed from their 2 World Wars), have made sure that what they left behind is professional enough to destabilise HK. With the majority of local journalists being members of a Union headed by a woman with a clear anti-China agenda, what else can you expect? Derogatory reports on China are squeezed to their last drop with editorial comments even coming from odd angles. So with this curriculum protest, there can be no rational discussions & only one outcome – I think.
pug_ster says
Exactly, brainwash the Kids in Hong Kong how the British came in and liberate China like some kind of white man’s burden. I mean I have never seen the Hong Kong Media have any subjective news about the Brutality of Hong Kong under British rule.
Zack says
couldn’t agree with you more, Tseng kin-wah. Absolutely disgusting how low these anti China stooges will go to achieve their aims. Using children for a political campaign is the lowest of the low. No fucking shame whatsoever.
Charles Liu says
Agree or disagree, in a civil society there’s no questioning of government’s legitimacy in establishing the official narrative, since it falls under state’s rights to national prerogative.
What is the difference between brain washing and indoctrination and “mainstream” ideal and historical perspective? Very little and it happens everywhere.
Take US history book, look up the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and see what our kids are being brainwashed with.
jxie says
The world is many shades of grey, but to grade school students, it’d better less complicated because otherwise the students’ heads will explode. In other words, one way or the other, you need to brainwash them — it just depends on which narrative and whose narrative. For the small minority of the learning type who wants to research the history further, for the benefit of a society, the academia should be allowed to pursue alternative viewpoints. For that, as far as I can tell, the academic debates for hot topics such as the Great Leap Forward, and the Cultural Revolution are far more vibrant inside of China than outside. As a matter of fact, the debates of these topic in the English-speaking world are so monolithic that they are often shockingly bad to those who are exposed to different facts, figures and theories. Case in point, Frank Dikotter on the Great Leap Forward.
Outside of China, in the case of the US, the grade school students are being fed this type of sheer lie about Jess Owens, but in reality it’s more like this. Well, for grade students, the historical truths are so messed up that if they aren’t told the airbrushed version of lies, their simple minds will be bound to suffer.
On the other hand, in a post-modern society such as Britain, the grade students must be taught the correct history — since the great Winston Churchill was really a sexist and a racist and a bigot in today’s standard, we’d better mention him less. Well, good luck to those post-modern societies. Glad that neither the US nor china is one yet.
wtlh says
This is a typical case of the brain washed unable to comprehend reality. The West has been much more successful at comprehensively brain washing its subjects than anybody has ever done in modern history. I pity those children, whose parents obviously has a skewed idea about how to raise their own.
wtlh says
May I also add, that it would be impossible to tell all-sides of the story in any education system. The whole point of a curriculum is to emphasis the knowledge that is deemed to be important for the person’s well being and also the well being of the society. So only telling perhaps one side of the a story should not be automatically be labelled as brain-washing. Any government is entitled to promote values that may be regarded as good citizenship and cultural identity. What constitute brain washing in an education system can be best gauged by the level of open-mindedness of the students, i.e. the students’ ability to at least accept the existence of views from the other side.
From my interactions with the mainland students, and compared with students that grew up in typical western education establishments, I would say in general students from the mainland are more open-minded and are able the accept both sides of arguments better in the different political models or ideologies/values, and are generally more interested in the alternative interpretations to historical events, and most importantly are more critical/sceptical about his/her information sources. The western educated students (since very young) seems to have key Western values such as individualism, liberal democracy etc deeply entrenched to a degree akin to a religion. Whether it was intentional or not, the current Chinese education system definitely is not succeeding in brain washing anyone. The same cannot be said about some education systems in the West, and judging from their actions (which were filled with prejudice towards a phantom ideological foe) definitely not the education system that these protesters went through.
YinYang says
@wtlh
Interesting insight. The other thing is outside the formal education system, Western media narrates individualism, democracy, and human rights like religion. Kissinger observed that the Chinese tend to see things in more grey whereas Westerners tend to see in black and white. So, Westerners have a tendency to view their definition of these things are ‘good’ and any other interpretation is ‘evil.’
These also contribute to how open one’s mind appear.
I’d also add, Westerners are relatively more cocky. Partly because their media implicitly says other peoples are cheats or inferior in some way. Partly because they are so damn rich compared to others, and people have a tendency to look down on the poor.
Guo Du says
In the HK system, giving kids a more comprehensive view on democracy, in words that remind me of more of Plato than Mao, is “brainwash.” Whereas teaching children the world was created a few thousand years ago by a barefooted god in six days (and night?) is religious freedom. It prompted me to start a satirical Cultural Revolution a la HK (http://guo-du.blogspot.com/2012/07/4-hongkong-cultural-rev-posters-day-4.html ).