Crumbling school in Guangdong
The Most Run-down School in Guangdong Province
On December 25, 2008, the South.cn's Guangdong Development Forum carried a series of photos of the perilous conditions at the Jiutang Elementary School in Zijin County, Heyuan City, Guangdong Province. The school was called as the "most run-down school in Guangdong province."The person who made the post also divulged: "Jiutang Elementary School has witnessed 60 years of storms under which the helpless children attempt to learn. During the rainy season, the teacher and his students lived in fear. The relevant government departments paid no attention to them. Can the young flowers of the motherland be neglected this way?" In the same post, there were also photographs of the majestic buildings of the relevant government departments in Zijin county. This was a way for expressing the anger over the long-term negligence of the problems at the Jiutang Elementary School.
This story about the bitter lives of these children was shocking. Within a few days, the photos became red-hot on the Internet.
But many Chinese people clearly do not have knowledge about the uneven development within Guangdong province. Given the "aura of the number one province in terms of the economy," many netizens were skeptical about these photos who looked like as if they belong in western China. "Can there be places that are this impoverished in Guangdong province?"
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The old schoolhouse, which looks hand made out of bricks and mud and beautiful wood rafters, is about a million times more beautiful than any of the new construction that they show, which is big, blocky, concrete state architecture.
There's got to be a way to fix the leaks without destroying the beauty of the interior.
the thing is, even in crappy rundown schoolhouse like that, they train better future engineers and doctors and what have you; than most of the ''developed'' world does in their million dollar computerized eductaion establishments.
After all, China is better than North Korea. I always wonder if they have a school.
looks like your average former wal-mart (I kid, but Cory even made a post less than 48 hours ago about abandoned buildings in the US - happens everywhere)
Wealth cheek by jowl with poverty?
Are you sure this is not in NYC?
There are plenty of private schools as well. Having been going to South China for over 8 years its really not all that different from here; there are plenty of Rich and also poor. Knowing how rich most chinese are in this area I have a hard time with the sympathy note.
Most of the better off move to the USA or Hong Kong.
Use which ever words you want (you're an author), but isn't 'modulo' a bit obscure and 'jargony' (not all of your readers are mathematicians), when you could use a fine word like 'notwithstanding/despite/in spite of' etc instead?
I'm an English teacher. I didn't recognise this word, and couldn't find it in any non-technical dictionaries.
Want to see the real China? Take the train from Guangdong to Hong Kong, preferably the late evening train. The number of families living under the glorious new overpasses and in the shanty towns will surprise you. While everyone on our train was complaining about the toilets and the spotty internet access, there's a whole world out there that is missing the ride.
My neighbors are from the Guangdong province, I don't see them moving back anytime soon.
#Futureman , What is it you are trying to say? There may be many private schools in the province but these children are obviously too poor to attend them. Unless I'm missing some weird Chinese way of doing things where rich parents send there kids to a deathtrap school. They may not have your sympathy but for what it's worth they have mine.
@Futureman, I really don't get what your point is either.
there are plenty of Rich and also poor
Why does the fact that there are rich people watching the poor kids risk their lives everyday to get an education, make the situation less worthy of your sympathy?
What's the problem? somebody is spoiling those kids. They have natural lighting, fresh air and water, nice desks. I bet they even have a two-seater. They don't honestly believe getting an education is going to be enough. Nobody's that stupid.
I guess I was expecting something worse - I'm underwhelmed. The building's a bit run down, but I've seen scarier inner-city schools in the US. And the children all seemed to be dressed well -- not in rags. There's still poverty in China of course, but this seems hardly the most shocking example.
Is anyone really surprised that there are poor people in China? And are we really to take this single (gorgeous) photo as evidence of some giant, systemic failure?
As Malcolm Gladwell's recent piece in the New Yorker pointed out, teacher quality is by far the most critical aspect of learning. If we're going to probe, let's look at that.
I'm surprised the government allowed that picture to be taken. Doesn't that come under the heading of "subversive propaganda"?
Probably nothing will get done about the school building until it actually collapses and kills a number of the kids. And, only then if the occurrence is reported on international news.
Consider that many chinese feel that in spite of these conditions there are many who are doing 4X better than before and thus it's a workable compromise.
A lifetime of conforming and suddenly it bears fruit; you play along, out of fear of retaliation and the lure of the new. It's a different world.
Bonus points for the use of the word 'modulo' (we know at least one person looked it up and now knows what it means). But it would have been better if you used it correctly.
In those photos I see at least one broken square roof beam and at least one broken round roof beam. These may or may not be life threatening, depending on everything we can't see. Also, most of the kids are at desks that are way to tall for them to easily write on.
I think this raises more concern in China than in some other places because China seems to have more understanding of the importance of education.
In the US, I think we've gotten so used to K-12 being an assembly line for future workers that there's a lot of cynicism around primary education.
In the big earthquake in China recently, the fallen houses where taken as an understandable tragedy. But the fallen schools were taken as a shocking government failure.
Count me underwhelmed. The hole in the roof of that schoolhouse reminds me of the hole in the roof of my silicon valley garage. And the next door neighbor was the CEO of a hundred million dollar company. There's plenty of slightly neglected but functional classrooms here in the bay area. Just walk around CCSF.
I'm generally surprised to learn when I see things like this that the kids don't end up having a class in "roof leak fixing".
They have all that free labor there.... And I'm sure massive improvements could be made in the building's ability to provide shelter using just found materials.
(The 5th-9th grade school I went to had no janitorial or maintenance staff. There was a 1-hour period every day where the students did the work.)
Further to my previous post, and with reference to yesterday's Tilt-shift post on bb, I ran the image above through tiltshiftmaker.com. It turned out to be an ideal candidate!
Now, I have an image that is both deeply affecting, vis-a-vis the state of schools in China, and semiotically charged with faint hints of Vonnegut's Chinese miniaturization program from Slapstick.
I can't upload it here so you'll have to take my word for it, or try it yourself...
My wife and I have been living in China for several years. This school is not good, but there are far worse. The difference between these village schools and the primary schools for the children of leaders in cities like Beijing is VERY dramatic. Of course, there is quite a difference between the small town schools in West Virginia and the place Obama's kids are going to attend.
in semi post communist China, who owns the commons? Was there a commons under the emperor? Does the mentality exist for a commons, beyond that of the Party propaganda definition? Does China have national pride that is real and non-manufactured?
Reminds me of this rather interesting article I read recently:
Basically, the small entrepreneurs in the countryside are more and more strangled by red tape, while the massive govt. and foreign corporations in the cities are encouraged at every turn. So, China's turn towards capitalism is a facade - it's more of a turn towards fascism, and the rural areas are almost as badly off as ever.
http://www.economist.com/books/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12333103
"Officials from China's southern Guangdong province are reported to have gambled away more than $3m (£2m) of public money in recent years...The officials lost the money gambling at casinos in Macau, on cruise ships off Hong Kong, and betting on football matches, reports said."
BBC article
http://www.china.org.cn/china/national/2008-12/29/content_17027975.htm