By EO Editorial Board
News, cover
Issue 572
Jun 4, 2012
Translated by Laura Lin
Original article: [Chinese]

On the eve of the International Children's Day on Jun 1, The Beijing News published a series of special reports. One in particular concerned the 11-year-old son of a cleaning woman.

When asked about his hopes for the future, the boy replied that he dreams of becoming an actor and making huge sums of money. He'd then buy his mother the biggest house in the world and she wouldn't have to work any more.

He also said he'd arrange the best job for his sister, and then promote her so she could also make big money along with him.

Such answers from a child are honest. The boy lost his father at a very young age and struggles to survive, with his mother and sister, at the very bottom rung of society. In some senses, his dream is both natural and plausible.

We should be grateful for the progress that has been made, it's now possible for such a realistic representation of a boy's dream to be presented in his original words, rather than being edited down to one size that fits all.

When our parents were children, everybody said that they wanted to "grow up to serve the motherland" (长大了报效祖国) - nobody dared to say that they had their own dreams.

There's nothing wrong with wanting to make big money. In a healthy society, everybody can dream of becoming rich.

If the driving force of wealth creation is killed, there would be no Bill Gates and his Microsoft kingdom, no Ingvar Kamprad and IKEA, no Apple, no iPhone or the many other colorful innovations that surround us.

Nothing is wrong with a boy wanting to make money to enable his family to live a comfortable life; it shows filial piety and compassion for his siste

What is disturbing, however, is the concept expressed by the phrase "arrange the best work for my sister and then promote her so that she can make big money along with md." It epitomizes the logic that money leads to power and that having power allows you to enrich those around you.

Nepotism is Child's Play

In these words we realize how the hidden concept of nepotism in Chinese society has taken root in our children's minds. It is through an innocent child's mouth that we are truly awakened to this reality. Something has become universal knowledge in Chinese society without us realizing that it is - in fact - wrong.

We need to ask ourselves what's gone wrong with our education and values?

According to the the 18th-century French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, "Society is the book. Reality is the teaching material ..." , Rousseau believed that people were born innately good, but were corrupted by society.

We must reflect on the real world we have exposed our children to, here in China.

It is common practice that when one's child goes into kindergarten, every parent will give a present to the teacher in return for better care. In primary school, influential parents are able to get their children elected as class leaders. There was a report of a child who had changed school from her rural birthplace to an urban area and after only one term didn't want to go to school anymore. When asked why, she said that she had twice been forced to move her seat further towards the back of the classroon. The first time was because another classmate's parents had given the teacher a box of ham and their daughter moved closer to the front of the class. The second time was because another student's parents had lent their car to the teacher.

Apart from the corruption in the high-ranking political sphere, all sorts of "hidden rules" exist in Chinese society that today are taken as simply a form of common sense.

How can one expect a child who, since a very early age, has a familiar sense of these "hidden rules," to grow up to be an official with clean hands?

Do As I Say (Not As I Do)

In 2010, a drunken young man crashed his car into two female students on a campus, killing one and injuring the other. When security guards arrested him he thought he could evade responsibility by invoking the name of his powerful father, a high-ranking police official. We tell our children that they must be fair and just, but the real world tells them "My father is Li Gang."

We tell our kids that they should behave well, but they live in a world where even their teachers drop hints about how students need to enrol in the expensive tutoring classes they run after school.

We tell children that they have to respect life, but we ignore the value of human life and rush in embarrassment to bury a crushed train carriage without fully inspecting whether there are still people aboard.

We tell our children to be honest, but the milk we buy for them contains melamine, the capsules we feed them contain industrial-grade gelatine and even the rice is tainted.

We teach our children to be responsible, but our officials can't say what they really mean.

Chang Hsiao-Feng (张晓风), the well-known Taiwanese essayist, once wrote an essay called "I hand you my child" - it described her feelings about her son's first day at school.
She asked: Today, I hand over to you a child who is cheerful, honest and bright. What sort of youth will you give me back in a few years?

The kind of youth that our society forms will determine the future of our country.

If we wish to live in a world that is full of justice, trust and love, then we have to give our children such an environment today.

Only if parents, educators and other adults are willing to build a moral society, can we possibly offer the best care to our young and the best hope for our nation's future.

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