I would somewhat agree with Liam Neeson's character's analysis of the situation. That is what happens with every religion in every culture, arguably every idea with every person, which is why there are different versions of every religion. Interpretations also change over time which also lead to variations.
Chinese tradition, ceremony,culture
- Thread starter Hendrik_2000
- Start date
I would somewhat agree with Liam Neeson's character's analysis of the situation. That is what happens with every religion in every culture, arguably every idea with every person, which is why there are different versions of every religion. Interpretations also change over time which also lead to variations.
Equation
Lieutenant General
I believe it's just the old ways of practicing religion and morals are dying out and a new version of either the same thing or some thing else comes along becomes more popular due to growing population disgruntled of the old institutional order.
Hendrik_2000
Lieutenant General
I always think it is stupid for Singapore government to ban dialect. Singapore used to be lively cacophony of dialect where you can make fun of your friend using dialect swore word
Now No one speak good english nor good mandarin and they can't even speak their own dialect which is a shame Loosing your mother tongue mean loosing your past, At one time they even want to mandarin baby name but most Singaporean reject it So until today they use Dialect name
But slowly they are reviving dialect
In Singapore, Chinese Dialects Revive After Decades of Restrictions
There is only one problem: The youngest and oldest generations can barely communicate with each other.
Lavell, 7, speaks fluent English and a smattering of Mandarin Chinese, while her grandmother, Law Ngoh Kiaw, prefers the Hokkien dialect of her ancestors’ home in southeastern China. That leaves grandmother and granddaughter looking together at a doll house on the floor, unable to exchange more than a few words.
“She can’t speak our Hokkien,” Mrs. Law said with a sigh, “and doesn’t really want to speak Mandarin, either.”
This struggle to communicate within families is one of the painful effects of the Singapore government’s large-scale, decades-long effort at linguistic engineering.
Starting with a series of measures in the late 1970s, the leaders of this city-state effectively banned Chinese dialects, the mother tongues of about three-quarters of its citizens, in favor of Mandarin, China’s official language.
A few years later, even Mandarin usage was cut back in favor of the global language of commerce, English.
“Singapore used to be like a linguistic tropical rain forest — overgrown, and a bit chaotic but very vibrant and thriving,” said Tan Dan Feng, a language historian in Singapore. “Now, after decades of pruning and cutting, it’s a garden focused on cash crops: learn English or Mandarin to get ahead and the rest is useless, so we cut it down.”
This linguistic repression, and the consequences for multigenerational families, has led to a widespread sense of resentment — and now a softening in the government’s policy.
For the first time since the late 1970s, , which in the 1970s was the first language of about 40 percent of Singaporeans. Many young people are also beginning to study dialects on their own, hoping to reconnect with their past, or their grandparents.
Photo
Students learning the Hokkien dialect at a community center in Singapore.CreditSim Chi Yin for The New York Times
And in May, the government endorsed a new , with the minister of education making a personal appearance at the film’s release, unthinkable just a few years ago.
The government’s easing of restrictions amid public discontent makes Singapore something of case study for how people around the world are reacting against the rising cultural homogeneity that comes with globalization.
“I began to realize that Hokkien was my real mother tongue and Mandarin was my stepmother tongue,” said Lee Xuan Jin, 18, who started dedicated to preserving Hokkien. “And I wanted to get to know my real mother.”
For Singapore’s first generation of leaders, those sorts of ideas sounded like sentimentalism.
At the time of the founding of the Republic of Singapore in 1965, it was led by a charismatic and authoritarian prime minister, , who was a self-taught linguist. A product of the English-speaking elite who rarely spoke Chinese dialects, including Mandarin, Mr. Lee held the popular idea, discredited by linguists, that language was a zero-sum game: speaking more of one meant less mastery of another.
In short, he considered dialects a waste of the brain’s finite storage capacity when it should be filled with, above all else, English.
“He felt that since he couldn’t do it, the rest couldn’t do it,” said Prof. Lee Cher Leng, a language historian in the China studies department at the National University of Singapore, referring to Mr. Lee’s inability to fluently speak multiple languages. “He felt it would be too confusing for kids to learn the dialects.”
As the government considered which of Singapore’s many languages to focus on, Mandarin Chinese and English were the logical choices. China, although more than a thousand miles away, was the ancestral homeland of most Singaporeans and was embarking on economic reforms that captivated Mr. Lee. English, the language of Singapore’s elite since the British established a trading port here in 1819, was the dominant global language of culture and commerce.
You agree to receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services.
But neither language had much to do with the people who lived in Singapore when the government launched its policy in the 1970s.
Then, as now, roughly 7 percent of Singaporeans came from southern India and most spoke Tamil. Another 15 percent spoke Malay. The ethnic Chinese, who then as now make up 75 percent of the population, had immigrated over the centuries from several mostly southern Chinese provinces, especially Fujian (where Hokkien is spoken) and Guangdong (home to Cantonese, Teochew, and Hakka). Only 2 percent spoke Mandarin.
Although called “dialects” by the government, some of these Chinese tongues are at least as different as the various Romance languages. The government’s policy was something like ordering Spaniards, French and Italians to abandon the languages they grew up with in favor of Portuguese.
The policy was rolled out in waves. In 1979, the government launched a “Speak Mandarin” campaign. In some schools, pupils who spoke dialects were fined and made to write out hundreds of times, “I will not speak dialects.” The population was bombarded with messages that dialect speakers had no future.
Photo
The government clamped down on Chinese dialects like Hokkien for decades, but now many young people are eager to learn them. CreditSim Chi Yin for The New York Times
Now No one speak good english nor good mandarin and they can't even speak their own dialect which is a shame Loosing your mother tongue mean loosing your past, At one time they even want to mandarin baby name but most Singaporean reject it So until today they use Dialect name
But slowly they are reviving dialect
In Singapore, Chinese Dialects Revive After Decades of Restrictions
There is only one problem: The youngest and oldest generations can barely communicate with each other.
Lavell, 7, speaks fluent English and a smattering of Mandarin Chinese, while her grandmother, Law Ngoh Kiaw, prefers the Hokkien dialect of her ancestors’ home in southeastern China. That leaves grandmother and granddaughter looking together at a doll house on the floor, unable to exchange more than a few words.
“She can’t speak our Hokkien,” Mrs. Law said with a sigh, “and doesn’t really want to speak Mandarin, either.”
This struggle to communicate within families is one of the painful effects of the Singapore government’s large-scale, decades-long effort at linguistic engineering.
Starting with a series of measures in the late 1970s, the leaders of this city-state effectively banned Chinese dialects, the mother tongues of about three-quarters of its citizens, in favor of Mandarin, China’s official language.
A few years later, even Mandarin usage was cut back in favor of the global language of commerce, English.
“Singapore used to be like a linguistic tropical rain forest — overgrown, and a bit chaotic but very vibrant and thriving,” said Tan Dan Feng, a language historian in Singapore. “Now, after decades of pruning and cutting, it’s a garden focused on cash crops: learn English or Mandarin to get ahead and the rest is useless, so we cut it down.”
This linguistic repression, and the consequences for multigenerational families, has led to a widespread sense of resentment — and now a softening in the government’s policy.
For the first time since the late 1970s, , which in the 1970s was the first language of about 40 percent of Singaporeans. Many young people are also beginning to study dialects on their own, hoping to reconnect with their past, or their grandparents.
Photo
Students learning the Hokkien dialect at a community center in Singapore.CreditSim Chi Yin for The New York Times
And in May, the government endorsed a new , with the minister of education making a personal appearance at the film’s release, unthinkable just a few years ago.
The government’s easing of restrictions amid public discontent makes Singapore something of case study for how people around the world are reacting against the rising cultural homogeneity that comes with globalization.
“I began to realize that Hokkien was my real mother tongue and Mandarin was my stepmother tongue,” said Lee Xuan Jin, 18, who started dedicated to preserving Hokkien. “And I wanted to get to know my real mother.”
For Singapore’s first generation of leaders, those sorts of ideas sounded like sentimentalism.
At the time of the founding of the Republic of Singapore in 1965, it was led by a charismatic and authoritarian prime minister, , who was a self-taught linguist. A product of the English-speaking elite who rarely spoke Chinese dialects, including Mandarin, Mr. Lee held the popular idea, discredited by linguists, that language was a zero-sum game: speaking more of one meant less mastery of another.
In short, he considered dialects a waste of the brain’s finite storage capacity when it should be filled with, above all else, English.
“He felt that since he couldn’t do it, the rest couldn’t do it,” said Prof. Lee Cher Leng, a language historian in the China studies department at the National University of Singapore, referring to Mr. Lee’s inability to fluently speak multiple languages. “He felt it would be too confusing for kids to learn the dialects.”
As the government considered which of Singapore’s many languages to focus on, Mandarin Chinese and English were the logical choices. China, although more than a thousand miles away, was the ancestral homeland of most Singaporeans and was embarking on economic reforms that captivated Mr. Lee. English, the language of Singapore’s elite since the British established a trading port here in 1819, was the dominant global language of culture and commerce.
You agree to receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services.
But neither language had much to do with the people who lived in Singapore when the government launched its policy in the 1970s.
Then, as now, roughly 7 percent of Singaporeans came from southern India and most spoke Tamil. Another 15 percent spoke Malay. The ethnic Chinese, who then as now make up 75 percent of the population, had immigrated over the centuries from several mostly southern Chinese provinces, especially Fujian (where Hokkien is spoken) and Guangdong (home to Cantonese, Teochew, and Hakka). Only 2 percent spoke Mandarin.
Although called “dialects” by the government, some of these Chinese tongues are at least as different as the various Romance languages. The government’s policy was something like ordering Spaniards, French and Italians to abandon the languages they grew up with in favor of Portuguese.
The policy was rolled out in waves. In 1979, the government launched a “Speak Mandarin” campaign. In some schools, pupils who spoke dialects were fined and made to write out hundreds of times, “I will not speak dialects.” The population was bombarded with messages that dialect speakers had no future.
Photo
The government clamped down on Chinese dialects like Hokkien for decades, but now many young people are eager to learn them. CreditSim Chi Yin for The New York Times
Last edited:
Hendrik_2000
Lieutenant General
(cont)
By 1981, television and radio were banned from broadcasting almost all dialect shows, including popular music. That left many people cut off from society.
“Old people suddenly couldn’t understand anything on the radio,” said Lee Hui Min, a writer whose best-known work, “E,” recounts those decades. “There was a sense of loss.”
Then, in 1987, to foster unity across Singapore’s three major ethnic groups, Chinese, Indian and Malay, English became the main method of instruction in all schools. Today, almost all instruction is in English except for a class in the student’s native tongue: Tamil and Malay for ethnic Indians and Malays, and Mandarin for ethnic Chinese.
The dominance of English was captured in that showed English is the most widely spoken language at home, followed by Mandarin, Malay and Tamil. Only 12 percent of Singaporeans speak a Chinese dialect at home, according to the survey, compared with an estimated 50 percent a generation ago.
“Sometimes people say the Singaporeans aren’t too expressive,” said Kuo Jian Hong, the artistic director of , an influential theater founded by her father, the pioneering playwright and arts activist . “I feel this is partly because so many of us lost our mother tongue.”
But as Singapore has prospered, many are searching for their cultural roots, a trend that has picked up since Some are trying to , others , or passionately a local patois of English, Chinese dialects and Malay.
For some, it means committing to learn their ancestral language.
At the , a community center founded in 1840 to promote education and social welfare among immigrants from Fujian Province, classes have been offered for the past few years in the Hokkien dialect.
One recent Friday evening, about 20 people sat in a small classroom learning phrases like “reunion meal,” “praying for blessings” and “dragon dance.” Three students were doctors specializing in geriatric care who wanted to understand older patients. Others were simply curious.
“I think it’s to understand our roots,” said Ivan Cheung, 34, who works in Singapore’s oil refining industry. “To know our roots you have to know dialect.”
The head of the community center, Perng Peck Seng, said that it, too, had seen the effects of the government policy. When he joined in the 1980s, all meetings were held in Hokkien and Mandarin. Now they are held in English and Mandarin because too few people, even in his organization, speak Hokkien fluently enough to conduct meetings.
But Mr. Perng stopped short of criticizing the government. Instead, he said Singaporeans themselves had to take responsibility for the loss of their language diversity.
“Sometimes I think we are too docile,” Mr. Perng said. “Leaders said if you speak too much dialect it’ll affect your success in life, so many people dropped it on their own accord. The biggest problem is our own consciousness.”
By 1981, television and radio were banned from broadcasting almost all dialect shows, including popular music. That left many people cut off from society.
“Old people suddenly couldn’t understand anything on the radio,” said Lee Hui Min, a writer whose best-known work, “E,” recounts those decades. “There was a sense of loss.”
Then, in 1987, to foster unity across Singapore’s three major ethnic groups, Chinese, Indian and Malay, English became the main method of instruction in all schools. Today, almost all instruction is in English except for a class in the student’s native tongue: Tamil and Malay for ethnic Indians and Malays, and Mandarin for ethnic Chinese.
The dominance of English was captured in that showed English is the most widely spoken language at home, followed by Mandarin, Malay and Tamil. Only 12 percent of Singaporeans speak a Chinese dialect at home, according to the survey, compared with an estimated 50 percent a generation ago.
“Sometimes people say the Singaporeans aren’t too expressive,” said Kuo Jian Hong, the artistic director of , an influential theater founded by her father, the pioneering playwright and arts activist . “I feel this is partly because so many of us lost our mother tongue.”
But as Singapore has prospered, many are searching for their cultural roots, a trend that has picked up since Some are trying to , others , or passionately a local patois of English, Chinese dialects and Malay.
For some, it means committing to learn their ancestral language.
At the , a community center founded in 1840 to promote education and social welfare among immigrants from Fujian Province, classes have been offered for the past few years in the Hokkien dialect.
One recent Friday evening, about 20 people sat in a small classroom learning phrases like “reunion meal,” “praying for blessings” and “dragon dance.” Three students were doctors specializing in geriatric care who wanted to understand older patients. Others were simply curious.
“I think it’s to understand our roots,” said Ivan Cheung, 34, who works in Singapore’s oil refining industry. “To know our roots you have to know dialect.”
The head of the community center, Perng Peck Seng, said that it, too, had seen the effects of the government policy. When he joined in the 1980s, all meetings were held in Hokkien and Mandarin. Now they are held in English and Mandarin because too few people, even in his organization, speak Hokkien fluently enough to conduct meetings.
But Mr. Perng stopped short of criticizing the government. Instead, he said Singaporeans themselves had to take responsibility for the loss of their language diversity.
“Sometimes I think we are too docile,” Mr. Perng said. “Leaders said if you speak too much dialect it’ll affect your success in life, so many people dropped it on their own accord. The biggest problem is our own consciousness.”
Hendrik_2000
Lieutenant General
I don't know when I first attend Beijing opera I did enjoy the body movement,acrobatic and the costume but the music ? It is hard on the ear specially the cymbal
But here is much courtly music from China past imperial tradition that you can hardly see in any other province of China
Only in the South far away from Beijing is the traditional court music still alive
When I live in Singapore some time I attend this street theater and you can hear this Lam Kuan
It is sad to see that modern Chinese does not know where this music come from? including this CCTV reporter
Here is what one commenter said about the music
Nanyin or Lam Kuan is alive in singapore, malaysia and taiwan. Lam kuan is tang dynasty court music, still practiced in the royal courts of Japan and in Korean cultural shows. It is not from Quangzhou, it was from Changan. Min nan peoples came from. Henan, Changan, and were expelled to Fujian, after the fall of the Tang dynasty, but retained our ancient Han music as we were far away from Mongols and Qings Manchu.
But here is much courtly music from China past imperial tradition that you can hardly see in any other province of China
Only in the South far away from Beijing is the traditional court music still alive
When I live in Singapore some time I attend this street theater and you can hear this Lam Kuan
It is sad to see that modern Chinese does not know where this music come from? including this CCTV reporter
Here is what one commenter said about the music
Nanyin or Lam Kuan is alive in singapore, malaysia and taiwan. Lam kuan is tang dynasty court music, still practiced in the royal courts of Japan and in Korean cultural shows. It is not from Quangzhou, it was from Changan. Min nan peoples came from. Henan, Changan, and were expelled to Fujian, after the fall of the Tang dynasty, but retained our ancient Han music as we were far away from Mongols and Qings Manchu.
Hendrik_2000
Lieutenant General
Xiamen one of the best city to live for in China
It was said Xiamen has higher percapita CDP than St Peters-burg or Brasilia
It was said Xiamen has higher percapita CDP than St Peters-burg or Brasilia
Hendrik_2000
Lieutenant General
I don't know why is NY times carping on private school financed by Xi family for disadvantage children in poor area
They are no difference than fundamental christian school who insist on their side of righteousness
Instilling patriotic duty and traditional value is not something that should be derided as propaganda
And yet when food scandal broke out they criticized the lack of moral and social responsibility among the masses. Now that the CCP reintroduce chinese Traditional value as curriculum exactly to inoculate young mind against unbridled materialism. They called it propaganda
I guess in their mind the only right education is western education with emphasis on twisted and perverted sense of extreme freedom. China should just ignore this unwarranted western critic of ideology
To Inspire Young Communists, China Turns to ‘Red Army’ Schools
By OCT. 15, 2017
Textbooks are getting a larger dose of Communist Party lore, including glorified tales about the party’s fights against foreign invaders like Japan. Schools are adding courses on traditional medicine and Confucian thought to highlight China’s achievements as a civilization. The government is scaling back discussion of iconoclastic writers like , amid concerns that exposing students to social criticism may inspire disobedience.
In a , the party ordered schools to intensify efforts to promote “Chinese traditional and socialist culture” — a mix of party loyalty and patriotic pride in China’s past. Under this new formulation, the party is presented less as a vanguard of proletarian revolution and more as a force for reviving China and restoring it to its rightful place as a world power.
But the demands have run into opposition, and even mockery, from some parents and educators, and not just the “tiger moms.” Many see political indoctrination as an anachronism in an era when China’s more than 181 million schoolchildren need a modern education in math, science and liberal arts to get ahead.
They complain that Mr. Xi, who is expected to strengthen his hold on power at a party meeting this month, is turning public education into a self-serving propaganda exercise. Some say the president seems more concerned about defending the party’s legitimacy than educating the skilled work force that China needs to compete in the global economy.
Such frustrations recently came to a head in Zhejiang, a wealthy coastal province, where parents protested a decision by education officials to make traditional Chinese medicine a required course for fifth-grade students.
Deng Zhiguo, 40, a software programmer who has two children in primary schools there, said he worried that the changes would come at the expense of instruction in subjects like biology and chemistry.
“It’s like learning Darwinism in the morning and creationism in the afternoon,” he said. “How do you expect children to process that?”
Mr. Xi’s educational campaign has also extended to universities, where officials have that promote “Western values” and punished professors for straying from the Communist line. Some scholars describe restrictions on free speech in the classroom as the most severe since the aftermath of the massacre around Tiananmen Square in 1989.
Photo
A student at the Yang Dezhi Red Army school in Wenshui, in the southern province of Guizhou. President Xi Jinping, himself the son of a Communist revolutionary, has hailed Red Army schools as a model for the nation. CreditFred Dufour/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Critics say Mr. Xi may be raising the volume in patriotic education for fear that the party’s message is getting drowned out in younger generations immersed in social media and the internet. But he faces significant challenges. A this year by Chinese and American researchers found that students appear to be tuning out shrill propaganda. .
The study, based on the results of a 2010 national opinion survey, found that the “incessant ideological indoctrination by the Chinese government turns out to be counterproductive,” with trust in the government actually falling among those who received higher levels of education.
Carl Minzner, an expert in Chinese law and governance at Fordham University in New York, said the party’s socialist rhetoric had become “water-cooler banter and fodder for jokes” among educated Chinese.
“The party of revolution is now the party of the wealthy and powerful,” he said. “They’ve got to stand for something. They’re worried about the moral void at the core of Chinese society.”
Mr. Xi has passionately defended his push for positively portraying China’s past, chastising schools for removing ancient poems from the curriculum and calling traditional culture “part of the Chinese nation’s blood and genes.”
This fall, the Chinese Ministry of Education began new textbooks in history, language, law and ethics across primary and secondary schools. The new books include studies of 40 revolutionary heroes, writings by revolutionary leader Mao Zedong like his 1944 speech “” and lessons on China’s territorial claims in the disputed South China Sea, a pillar of Mr. Xi’s .
also features prominently, part of Mr. Xi’s efforts to glorify the early days of the party and its role in defending China from foreign invaders. A second-grade lesson tells the story of the “little hero” , a 13-year-old cattle herder who is said to have died in 1942 while trying to protect the offices of a Communist newspaper from Japanese soldiers.
Photo
Students at the Yang Dezhi Red Army school. The Communist Party sees the schools as charity projects that help disadvantaged children. CreditFred Dufour/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Experts say the party is seeking ways to justify its hold on power in an era when its founding goal of proletarian revolution no longer seems relevant. While Mr. Xi is hardly the first Chinese leader to turn to patriotism as a substitute, he has pushed a version that plays up the party’s role as a force for restoring China’s greatness.
“The party’s theories lack vitality and innovation,” said Zhang Lifan, a historian in Beijing and a frequent critic of the party, “so the only thing they can do is to try to use the past to seize the next generation.”
The government has set up 231 so-called Red Army schools as models for its approach. One is Ms. Xie’s Workers and Peasants Red Army Elementary School, located in Yuqing County near the site of a former Communist revolutionary base in Guizhou, a mountainous southern province.
They are no difference than fundamental christian school who insist on their side of righteousness
Instilling patriotic duty and traditional value is not something that should be derided as propaganda
And yet when food scandal broke out they criticized the lack of moral and social responsibility among the masses. Now that the CCP reintroduce chinese Traditional value as curriculum exactly to inoculate young mind against unbridled materialism. They called it propaganda
I guess in their mind the only right education is western education with emphasis on twisted and perverted sense of extreme freedom. China should just ignore this unwarranted western critic of ideology
To Inspire Young Communists, China Turns to ‘Red Army’ Schools
By OCT. 15, 2017
Textbooks are getting a larger dose of Communist Party lore, including glorified tales about the party’s fights against foreign invaders like Japan. Schools are adding courses on traditional medicine and Confucian thought to highlight China’s achievements as a civilization. The government is scaling back discussion of iconoclastic writers like , amid concerns that exposing students to social criticism may inspire disobedience.
In a , the party ordered schools to intensify efforts to promote “Chinese traditional and socialist culture” — a mix of party loyalty and patriotic pride in China’s past. Under this new formulation, the party is presented less as a vanguard of proletarian revolution and more as a force for reviving China and restoring it to its rightful place as a world power.
But the demands have run into opposition, and even mockery, from some parents and educators, and not just the “tiger moms.” Many see political indoctrination as an anachronism in an era when China’s more than 181 million schoolchildren need a modern education in math, science and liberal arts to get ahead.
They complain that Mr. Xi, who is expected to strengthen his hold on power at a party meeting this month, is turning public education into a self-serving propaganda exercise. Some say the president seems more concerned about defending the party’s legitimacy than educating the skilled work force that China needs to compete in the global economy.
Such frustrations recently came to a head in Zhejiang, a wealthy coastal province, where parents protested a decision by education officials to make traditional Chinese medicine a required course for fifth-grade students.
Deng Zhiguo, 40, a software programmer who has two children in primary schools there, said he worried that the changes would come at the expense of instruction in subjects like biology and chemistry.
“It’s like learning Darwinism in the morning and creationism in the afternoon,” he said. “How do you expect children to process that?”
Mr. Xi’s educational campaign has also extended to universities, where officials have that promote “Western values” and punished professors for straying from the Communist line. Some scholars describe restrictions on free speech in the classroom as the most severe since the aftermath of the massacre around Tiananmen Square in 1989.
Photo
A student at the Yang Dezhi Red Army school in Wenshui, in the southern province of Guizhou. President Xi Jinping, himself the son of a Communist revolutionary, has hailed Red Army schools as a model for the nation. CreditFred Dufour/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Critics say Mr. Xi may be raising the volume in patriotic education for fear that the party’s message is getting drowned out in younger generations immersed in social media and the internet. But he faces significant challenges. A this year by Chinese and American researchers found that students appear to be tuning out shrill propaganda. .
The study, based on the results of a 2010 national opinion survey, found that the “incessant ideological indoctrination by the Chinese government turns out to be counterproductive,” with trust in the government actually falling among those who received higher levels of education.
Carl Minzner, an expert in Chinese law and governance at Fordham University in New York, said the party’s socialist rhetoric had become “water-cooler banter and fodder for jokes” among educated Chinese.
“The party of revolution is now the party of the wealthy and powerful,” he said. “They’ve got to stand for something. They’re worried about the moral void at the core of Chinese society.”
Mr. Xi has passionately defended his push for positively portraying China’s past, chastising schools for removing ancient poems from the curriculum and calling traditional culture “part of the Chinese nation’s blood and genes.”
This fall, the Chinese Ministry of Education began new textbooks in history, language, law and ethics across primary and secondary schools. The new books include studies of 40 revolutionary heroes, writings by revolutionary leader Mao Zedong like his 1944 speech “” and lessons on China’s territorial claims in the disputed South China Sea, a pillar of Mr. Xi’s .
also features prominently, part of Mr. Xi’s efforts to glorify the early days of the party and its role in defending China from foreign invaders. A second-grade lesson tells the story of the “little hero” , a 13-year-old cattle herder who is said to have died in 1942 while trying to protect the offices of a Communist newspaper from Japanese soldiers.
Photo
Students at the Yang Dezhi Red Army school. The Communist Party sees the schools as charity projects that help disadvantaged children. CreditFred Dufour/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Experts say the party is seeking ways to justify its hold on power in an era when its founding goal of proletarian revolution no longer seems relevant. While Mr. Xi is hardly the first Chinese leader to turn to patriotism as a substitute, he has pushed a version that plays up the party’s role as a force for restoring China’s greatness.
“The party’s theories lack vitality and innovation,” said Zhang Lifan, a historian in Beijing and a frequent critic of the party, “so the only thing they can do is to try to use the past to seize the next generation.”
The government has set up 231 so-called Red Army schools as models for its approach. One is Ms. Xie’s Workers and Peasants Red Army Elementary School, located in Yuqing County near the site of a former Communist revolutionary base in Guizhou, a mountainous southern province.
Last edited:
Hendrik_2000
Lieutenant General
(cont)
The school’s curriculum recounts the experience of Mao’s soldiers during the early years of the revolution, who are portrayed as heroically fighting to free China from rapacious warlords and Japanese invaders. As at some Red Army schools, students wear military uniforms around campus; in Ms. Xie’s classroom, that is a privilege reserved for the best students.
Even math classes are infused with party history. Students are asked such questions as calculating the distance of the , Mao’s epic 1934-36 retreat across China. (The answer is about 6,000 miles.)
Teachers tell students that loyalty to the party can help them overcome personal difficulties and live a meaningful life.
“While other countries are suffering from war and people are still starving in Africa,” Ms. Xie said during a recent lesson on perseverance, “please don’t forget the sacrifices made by the Red Army soldiers.”
Photo
A student walking home in Wenshui. Critics, including parents and educators, have derided the Red Army schools’ methods as brainwashing. CreditFred Dufour/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Mr. Xi, himself the son of a Communist revolutionary, has hailed Red Army schools as a model for the nation. He and his mother, Qi Xin, have given the equivalent of tens of thousands of dollars to the schools, records show. A Red Army school in northwestern China is also named for Mr. Xi’s father, Xi Zhongxun.
The party sees the schools, which serve tens of thousands of students in its former revolutionary bases in 28 provinces, as charity projects that help the most disadvantaged children.
While the patriotic appeals have found fertile ground among working-class Chinese hungry for a sense of pride, some experts warn that placing too much emphasis on nationalistic education has its own risks.
Jiang Xueqin, an education consultant in Beijing, said fanning national pride could quickly “mutate into a fierce and militant nationalism” that is difficult to control.
Mr. Xi’s vision of patriotic education is already in full bloom at the Workers and Peasants Red Army Elementary School, which was founded in 1788 but only became a Red Army school in 2012.
Classes begin with Red Army songs, and students take turns reciting revolutionary stories featuring Japanese spies as villains.
“The blood in the past gave us the life we have today,” said Kuang Yanli, 11, a sixth-grade student. “A lot of other countries want to invade our country again, so we have to study hard and make sure that doesn’t happen.”
Local officials are sensitive to the idea that the school is indoctrinating students, and the police blocked journalists from The New York Times from reporting after being alerted to their presence.
Mr. Xi himself has also become a part of the curriculum. Several times a week, the school’s more than 1,400 students line up in the cement-paved courtyard to sing an ode to Mr. Xi’s signature phrase, the “Chinese dream”:
Chinese dream for 1,000 years,
Chinese dream for 100 years,
The dream carries on, the dream embraces all,
For the revival of China, for the revival of China!
The school’s curriculum recounts the experience of Mao’s soldiers during the early years of the revolution, who are portrayed as heroically fighting to free China from rapacious warlords and Japanese invaders. As at some Red Army schools, students wear military uniforms around campus; in Ms. Xie’s classroom, that is a privilege reserved for the best students.
Even math classes are infused with party history. Students are asked such questions as calculating the distance of the , Mao’s epic 1934-36 retreat across China. (The answer is about 6,000 miles.)
Teachers tell students that loyalty to the party can help them overcome personal difficulties and live a meaningful life.
“While other countries are suffering from war and people are still starving in Africa,” Ms. Xie said during a recent lesson on perseverance, “please don’t forget the sacrifices made by the Red Army soldiers.”
Photo
A student walking home in Wenshui. Critics, including parents and educators, have derided the Red Army schools’ methods as brainwashing. CreditFred Dufour/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Mr. Xi, himself the son of a Communist revolutionary, has hailed Red Army schools as a model for the nation. He and his mother, Qi Xin, have given the equivalent of tens of thousands of dollars to the schools, records show. A Red Army school in northwestern China is also named for Mr. Xi’s father, Xi Zhongxun.
The party sees the schools, which serve tens of thousands of students in its former revolutionary bases in 28 provinces, as charity projects that help the most disadvantaged children.
While the patriotic appeals have found fertile ground among working-class Chinese hungry for a sense of pride, some experts warn that placing too much emphasis on nationalistic education has its own risks.
Jiang Xueqin, an education consultant in Beijing, said fanning national pride could quickly “mutate into a fierce and militant nationalism” that is difficult to control.
Mr. Xi’s vision of patriotic education is already in full bloom at the Workers and Peasants Red Army Elementary School, which was founded in 1788 but only became a Red Army school in 2012.
Classes begin with Red Army songs, and students take turns reciting revolutionary stories featuring Japanese spies as villains.
“The blood in the past gave us the life we have today,” said Kuang Yanli, 11, a sixth-grade student. “A lot of other countries want to invade our country again, so we have to study hard and make sure that doesn’t happen.”
Local officials are sensitive to the idea that the school is indoctrinating students, and the police blocked journalists from The New York Times from reporting after being alerted to their presence.
Mr. Xi himself has also become a part of the curriculum. Several times a week, the school’s more than 1,400 students line up in the cement-paved courtyard to sing an ode to Mr. Xi’s signature phrase, the “Chinese dream”:
Chinese dream for 1,000 years,
Chinese dream for 100 years,
The dream carries on, the dream embraces all,
For the revival of China, for the revival of China!
PiSigma
"the engineer"
What do you expect, its NYT. Probably one of the worst papers in the world for biases.(cont)
The school’s curriculum recounts the experience of Mao’s soldiers during the early years of the revolution, who are portrayed as heroically fighting to free China from rapacious warlords and Japanese invaders. As at some Red Army schools, students wear military uniforms around campus; in Ms. Xie’s classroom, that is a privilege reserved for the best students.
Even math classes are infused with party history. Students are asked such questions as calculating the distance of the , Mao’s epic 1934-36 retreat across China. (The answer is about 6,000 miles.)
Teachers tell students that loyalty to the party can help them overcome personal difficulties and live a meaningful life.
“While other countries are suffering from war and people are still starving in Africa,” Ms. Xie said during a recent lesson on perseverance, “please don’t forget the sacrifices made by the Red Army soldiers.”
Photo
A student walking home in Wenshui. Critics, including parents and educators, have derided the Red Army schools’ methods as brainwashing. CreditFred Dufour/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Mr. Xi, himself the son of a Communist revolutionary, has hailed Red Army schools as a model for the nation. He and his mother, Qi Xin, have given the equivalent of tens of thousands of dollars to the schools, records show. A Red Army school in northwestern China is also named for Mr. Xi’s father, Xi Zhongxun.
The party sees the schools, which serve tens of thousands of students in its former revolutionary bases in 28 provinces, as charity projects that help the most disadvantaged children.
While the patriotic appeals have found fertile ground among working-class Chinese hungry for a sense of pride, some experts warn that placing too much emphasis on nationalistic education has its own risks.
Jiang Xueqin, an education consultant in Beijing, said fanning national pride could quickly “mutate into a fierce and militant nationalism” that is difficult to control.
Mr. Xi’s vision of patriotic education is already in full bloom at the Workers and Peasants Red Army Elementary School, which was founded in 1788 but only became a Red Army school in 2012.
Classes begin with Red Army songs, and students take turns reciting revolutionary stories featuring Japanese spies as villains.
“The blood in the past gave us the life we have today,” said Kuang Yanli, 11, a sixth-grade student. “A lot of other countries want to invade our country again, so we have to study hard and make sure that doesn’t happen.”
Local officials are sensitive to the idea that the school is indoctrinating students, and the police blocked journalists from The New York Times from reporting after being alerted to their presence.
Mr. Xi himself has also become a part of the curriculum. Several times a week, the school’s more than 1,400 students line up in the cement-paved courtyard to sing an ode to Mr. Xi’s signature phrase, the “Chinese dream”:
Chinese dream for 1,000 years,
Chinese dream for 100 years,
The dream carries on, the dream embraces all,
For the revival of China, for the revival of China!
Hendrik_2000
Lieutenant General
It depend on the journalist sometime they do have good article like this one except I don't like the conclusion
China effort to rebalance the culture has nothing to do with politic It has more to do with filling up the spiritual void left over by the death of communism. President Xi now elevated the traditional culture and value as replacement for those communist ideal. I think this effort should be applauded Chinese culture is humanistic and based on reason. It provide light of civilization to wide swath of Asia that is even relevant in modern times. Put it this way it is no chance that today the most dynamic part of the world is east Asia
GUIYANG, China — Nearly 500 years after he died, the Chinese philosopher Wang Yangming once again wielded a calligraphy brush, carefully daubed it into a tray of black ink and elegantly wrote out his most famous phrase: “the unity of knowledge and action.”
A crowd murmured its approval as his assistant held up the paper for all to see.
“I respect Wang Yangming from the bottom of my heart!” blurted Cao Lin, 69, a retiree.
Watching the scene unfold was Zhou Ying, who manages Wang — or at least a very realistic robot that not only looks like Wang but is able to imitate his calligraphy and repeat more than 1,000 of his aphorisms.
“This is exactly what we’re hoping to achieve with the robot,” Ms. Zhou said as Wang began writing another saying. “We feel this is a way to get people interested in these old ideas.”
Promoting these old ideas has been a priority for President Xi Jinping, who has rekindled enthusiasm for traditional culture as part of a broader push to fill what many Chinese see as their country’s biggest problem: a spiritual void caused by its headlong pursuit of prosperity.
And when China’s most powerful leader in 40 years endorses a philosopher, even a long-dead Confucian one, people rush to take action.
The epicenter of Wang’s revival has been this city of four million people perched on a plateau in China’s mountainous south. When Wang spent three years in exile here in the early 16th century, Guiyang was a remote outpost on imperial China’s southern border.
Today, as the capital of , it has and is trying to position itself as — and traditional culture.
Since Mr. Xi began promoting the philosopher three years ago, officials in and around Guiyang have built a Wang Yangming-themed park, constructed a museum to showcase his achievements, turned into a shrine in his honor and, yes, commissioned a robot to bring him to life.
Photo
In honor of Wang, Guiyang has built a museum, a park and even a robot that looks like him, and that replicates his calligraphy. CreditLam Yik Fei for The New York Times
“It’s a way to promote moral behavior in society as a whole,” said Larry Israel, a scholar at Middle Georgia State University in Macon who has .
Restoring a sense of public morality has been a policy goal of Mr. Xi, who is set to be reappointed as Communist Party leader at the party’s 19th congress starting Wednesday.
In his efforts to address the country’s spiritual shortcomings, Mr. Xi has spoken , praised and presided over a that were once condemned as superstitious.
But he has seemed most comfortable praising the life and works of Wang Yangming.
Born in 1472, Wang was a scholar with a promising career in the imperial court in Beijing when, in 1506, he spoke out against the cruelty of a well-known courtier. That offense earned him banishment to faraway Guiyang.
During his years here, Wang ran a post house on the edge of town. That gave him time to meditate on the philosophical problem that would define his legacy: understanding how people know right from wrong. His conclusion: People have an inborn conscience that they must act upon, regardless of the consequences.
Photo
The philosopher’s calligraphy, as replicated by the robot. Wang is at the center of a new propaganda drive by Xi Jinping, China’s strongest leader in decades. CreditLam Yik Fei for The New York Times
It was this advocacy of moral action that apparently appeals to the no-nonsense Mr. Xi, who has cracked down on vice and corruption within the party’s ranks. Mr. Xi frequently refers to Wang, who regained favor in 1509, and then loyally served the emperor as a military leader who quashed a rebellion.
However, some see Wang, with his emphasis on following one’s internal moral compass, as a risky thinker for an authoritarian state to embrace.
“Wang Yangming can pave the way for a philosophy of autonomy — that standards don’t come from outside. that they are inner,” said Sébastien Billioud, co-author of . “And of course autonomy is always dangerous for authoritarian regimes.”
During the first decades of communist rule, Wang’s works were banned as “bourgeois.” Even into the 1990s, it was still risky to talk about him at academic conferences.
“We held small private meetings” to discuss Wang, recalled Zhang Xinmin, a philosophy professor at Guizhou University on the city’s outskirts. “We were monitored the whole time,” he said.
Photo
The cave where Wang lived near Guiyang. Mr. Xi hopes Wang’s philosophy will fill a moral void in an increasingly wealthy China. CreditLam Yik Fei for The New York Times
The ban on Wang began to lift around 2000 with a revival in the popularity of Confucian studies. Then, in 2014, Mr. Xi explicitly to promote Wang’s thoughts. Suddenly, Wang Yangming was China’s hottest philosopher since Marx.
“It was completely unexpected,” Professor Zhang said.
Wang’s rehabilitation has turned Guiyang into a hive of activity. One reason is that until a recent promotion, the province was led by one of .
Mr. Chen’s loyalty is on display at the , a vast complex of museums, fountains, dioramas and lecture halls on the city’s outskirts. When it opened in 2013, it made little mention of Wang. But now there is a museum devoted to him nearly as big as the hall to Confucius himself.
“Both Uncle Xi and Chen Min’er love him,” said Xu Qi, the party official in charge of the museum.
Guiyang’s embrace of Wang can also show how much work Mr. Xi still has before him.
On the city’s north side is the Yangming Cave, where Wang taught and whose name he adopted as his own. (His name at birth was Wang Shouren.) The cave is now encircled by a cultural park that is the centerpiece of a 600-acre real estate project of luxury high-rises and malls.
A senior local official, who asked not to be identified because of the delicacy of the issue, said the project was being investigated for corruption. When asked what he intended to do about it, however, his answer didn’t seem exactly in keeping with Wang’s advocacy of independent moral action.
“We are waiting,” he said, “until after the 19th Party congress to see how to proceed.”
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