In recent years, many Chinese have criticized the way the country’s education system has been twisted and constrained by political priorities. In an article published in the journal Freezing Point in 2006, Chinese historian Yuan Weishi argued that children in mainland China were being raised on “wolf’s milk”, the twisted accounts they read in official history textbooks feeding a sense of xenophobia and unthinking nationalism. In this cartoon posted to Sina Weibo on April 18, 2012, Shanghai-based user Chen Huhua (陈沪华) recapitulates this criticism of China’s education system. Chinese children sit at attention at their desks as the teacher points to two large characters — on the left a white character for “black” on a black background, and on the right a black character for “white” on white background. “Let me emphasize again: white is black, and black is white,” the teacher explains.
