In a post yesterday to our Anti-Social List, we shared a deleted Weibo from Chow Po Chung (周保松), a professor in the Department of Government and Public Administration at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Chow’s deleted post included an essay in text-as-image form that is purported to have been written by a mainland student reflecting back on 16 years of “patriotic education.”
In his deleted post, Professor Chow encouraged Weibo users to read the essay quickly, before it was removed by internet censors. However, while many posts including the essay have indeed been removed — particularly from scholars and journalists with a strong following on Weibo — it is still being shared on Chinese social media. It was still available here, and here, for example, at the time of this post.

Why do I oppose national education? This question is perhaps not a real question, but it nevertheless prompted me to consider it at some length. As an ordinary person without power or money, my parents had no opportunity to send me to an international school or pack me off overseas. Therefore, from primary school all the way to university, like the vast majority of ordinary Chinese students, I spent 16 years in a public school.
National education was a shadow that followed me throughout those 16 years. Nevertheless, it had no affect on me or on my fellows. Among my classmates, not a single person cares about the Chinese Communist Party, not a single person believes that the Chinese Communist Party is supremely great or correct. It seems our 16 years of national education were an utter failure. Well then, is there any real need to oppose national education? The following is my attempt to offer my thoughts on this question from the standpoint of someone who spent 16 years alongside a “great, glorious and correct Party,” educated with the idea of loving the Party and loving the country.
When I was in primary school, we had a class called “Ideas and Morals” (思想道德), about what it meant to be a person with idea and morals, which naturally meant loving the Party, loving the country and loving the people. The language they used was very ambiguous, not like the education materials for national education in Hong Kong right now, but aside from this on every important Party occasion there would be various writing contests, or speech contests, and you were forced to take part. You also you had to extoll and praise the the assessments made by other students of the great achievements of the Party.
In a benighted state we were subjected to “national education” in those days, hearing about the great strategic move that was the Long March (only after studying history at university did I realize that actually this was retreat made after being encircled and suppressed by the Kuomintang); about the glorious exploits of our Party in the anti-Japanese war (again, it was only at university that I learned that it was only the Kuomintang, who had been branded traitors, that had directly engaged the Japanese, and the Party was only back in the rear experimenting with land reform).
Even bombarded again and again with these things, distinguished and obedient young students and cadres though we were, it was only about learning things that had to be on your tongue, and nothing ever entered into our hearts. Why? Because these things were so remote from our lives compared to the other work we had, and in our actual lives we never felt any sense of the new China and the new lives that was being drummed into us [in these classes]. As for our parents, they paid a lot of attention to our Chinese language and mathematics work, but they were noncommittal or even cold about this ostensibly important coursework in patriotic education.
In middle school these classes on ideas and morals became classes on ideas and politics, but the content differed only slightly.
We now had a class director who would often hold on to us for a while after class was dismissed and carry out various forms of ideological education. But for rebellious middle school students these things only elicited greater annoyance, whether over stuff we had to memorize or the babbling nonsense of “Old Woman Marxism-Leninism” (马列老太). Because we, who were just beginning to understand the adult world, were very clear that the class director detained us and forced us to listen to this patriotic education stuff not because she really believed the things she insisted were so important, but because if we did well her credits as a class director would result in a better assessment from the principal, and if the principal had more excellent class directors he could earn political credits with the local educational authorities, and naturally he could then advance as an official and make more money, and then someone in the local education office could then . . . [the pause implies that everyone on up the chain of command benefits] . . . So all the things we were being inculcated with were really about nothing more than our teachers enabling themselves to earn points.
When it came to university, we no longer just had education in ideology and politics — we now had education in situations and policy, serial blasts of Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought, Deng Xiaoping Theory. But within the university the teachers we most looked down on were the ones who taught these courses. We skipped class, or giggled and chattered all the way through. We ate snack food and watched movies [on our mobiles], or just napped. And when it came to discussion time, when certain students earnestly answer [the teacher’s] questions, we heckled them. But there was nothing these teachers could do, because long before they had lost their dignity as teachers they had lost the students’ respect. We knew only too well that only those with no academic ability would be called upon to teach such things, and their only way was to kiss ass and massage their connections so they could earn such a place in the university.
Having said all this, do I think national education it successful? It could be called a failure, because it even after 16 years . . . not a single person will believe any of it. But it could also be said to be a great success as rarely seen on this earth, because even though everyone knows it’s all a bunch of lies from head to tail, it has managed to persist all these years, repeated from generation to generation.
Is national education something to fear? Actually, all that language written out so clear isn’t really scary, fundamentally speaking. The more extreme they get in propagating it, the funnier it seems. But it is also frightening in another way, because the whole nation is willing to lap up all of these lies. How many students, knowing their fates could be decided on this basis, have answered the topics earnestly, numbly writing all of those pretty words they don’t mean, knowing full well it is all a lie? And how many teachers, knowing these are all lies, have had to teach this as the truth, and even us it to assess students ideologically and morally?
This is the most frightful thing about national education!
Its most frightful aspect isn’t about the words themselves, or about the praising of the Communist Party, rather it’s that it has drummed lying into the very nature of our students, our teachers and our entire educational sphere!

The following post by Chow Po Chung (周保松), a professor in the Department of Government and Public Administration at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, was deleted from Sina Weibo sometime before 10:40 a.m. today, September 5, 2012. Chow currently has more than 32,000 followers, according to numbers from Sina Weibo. [More on deleted posts at the WeiboScope Search, by the Journalism and Media Studies Centre].

Because of what has recently been going on in Hong Kong, a mainland friend took to Facebook to write her thoughts about receiving 16 years of ideological and political education. Every word brings tears to the eye. I don’t know how long this [post] will survive, so if you want to read it be quick about it..”

The post shares a text-as-image file of the essay on national education purportedly written by a mainland student. We’ve translated the opening, which is below the file:

Why do I oppose national education? This question is perhaps not a real question, but it nevertheless prompted me to consider it at some length. As an ordinary person without power or money, my parents had no opportunity to send me to an international school or pack me off overseas. Therefore, from primary school all the way to university, like the vast majority of ordinary Chinese students, I spent 16 years in a public school. National education was a shadow that followed me throughout those 16 years. Nevertheless, it had no affect on me or on my fellows. Among my classmates, not a single person cares about the Chinese Communist Party, not a single person believes that the Chinese Communist Party is supremely great or correct. It seems our 16 years of national education were an utter failure. Well then, is there any real need to oppose national education? The following is my attempt to offer my thoughts on this question from the standpoint of someone who spent 16 years alongside a “great, glorious and correct Party,” educated with the idea of loving the Party and loving the country.

Chow’s original Chinese-language post follows:

因為香港最近發生的事，一位內地朋友在Facebook寫下她對身受的十六年思想政治教育的反思，讀來一字一淚。不知道它能存活太久，所以想讀的要快。

The following post by Weibo user “Hong Kong Online” (香港在線) about continued resistance in Hong Kong to a proposed “national education” curriculum supported by Beijing was deleted from Sina Weibo sometime before 12:05 p.m. today, September 4, 2012. Hong Kong Online currently has more than 63,000 followers, according to numbers from Sina Weibo. [More on deleted posts at the WeiboScope Search, by the Journalism and Media Studies Centre].

You want to win the heart of the Hong Kong people, fine. Make use of the line by [Taiwan’s] Lung Ying-tai: “Please use civilization to convince me.”

The post was a comment by Hong Kong Online to a post it made just moments earlier, which remains undeleted. This suggests that the present of Lung Ying-tai’s name in the second post resulted in its deletion:

Some people say that Hong Kong should have national education because while the territory returned [to China] in 1997, the Hong Kong people have not yet returned in their hearts. There might be some sense in this statement, but Hong Kong is a special case and it requires understanding and tolerance. Over hundreds of years, Hong Kong has gone from a small fishing village to an international city, in the process developing its own social system and set of values. It’s perhaps impossible for it to join the rail with the mainland just like that. If you want to change Hong Kong you must improve yourself first.

The following are the original Chinese posts, first the later deleted post followed by the undeleted earlier post:

要得港人心，可以。借龙应台的一句话就是，“请用文明来说服我”。
——
有人说，香港之所以开展国民教育，是因为97年香港只是主权回归，港人的心尚未回归。也许这一说法有一定道理，但是香港毕竟有其特殊性，需更多的理解和包容。数百年来，香港由一个小渔村变成国际大都市，形成了自己的社会制度和价值观，一下子和内地接轨几乎是不可能的。想改变香港，首先必须完善自己。

The following article is a translation from the Chinese, originally posted at Deutsche Welle on August 6, 2012, and re-posted by Chang Ping to his personal weblog on September 3.
Opposition is still growing in Hong Kong to a proposed curriculum of national education, or guomin jiaoyu (国民教育), that many locals believe is being pushed by Beijing. A hunger strike action planned for today (August 6) was postponed. But supposing the government does not give up these plans, more protests can be expected with the beginning of the school term in September.
News media inside China have continued to push the case for national education in Hong Kong. There was the Chinese-language Global Times running an editorial on August 2 arguing that national education would encourage young people in Hong Kong to expand their horizons, suggesting in a lofty, pedagogical tone: “The ultimate end to the controversy over national education in Hong Kong can only be ‘victory for China’. In pursuing only their own individual victories, these objectors are perhaps being unrealistic.” And an article in today’s (August 6) overseas edition of the People’s Daily said that promoting national education would help young people in Hong Kong better understand their country, and “only when young people understand and identify with their country can they accurately understand its policies, know their place, and seize opportunities. It is not wrong to work now for the future of young people.”
Is the Global Times correct in suggesting that there is only one possible outcome to this struggle? And is it right to suggest that China will be “victorious” if it forces through a national education curriculum?
The idea behind national education is that, beginning in the current academic year, authorities in Hong Kong supplement the original moral education curriculum with national education content. Judging from teaching materials that have already become public, this curriculum follows the lines somewhat of the so-called patriotic education carried out inside China by the Communist Party for years, using the framework of nationalism to address history and culture. And the curriculum resorts to outright lies in drawing a halo over the head of the so-called “China Model.”
Many in support [of the curriculum], whether the official in the mainland liaison office who once suggested that “brainwashing is necessary,” or the articles in the Global Times and the People’s Daily, have said that national education is carried out in Western countries, only in a different way. This need to point West is unusual, because as soon as anyone brings up democracy and freedom these very same officials and state media say that [China] will “resolutely not follow Western [political] models.” But of course so-called “national education” in the West is inseparable from their political systems, speech environments and concepts of human rights.
This inconsistency of logic appears again and again in China’s public opinion environment, and there is a great big market for it. For example, if you advocate the idea of learning from Western countries, suggesting that more benefits should be given to people in lower social strata, they will fire right back with the argument that China’s population is too big, that if everyone is given more benefits this will work out to be a huge number and there is no way society can support it — therefore there’s no way things can be done as they are in the West.
If you change the subject to government corruption, no one will think to apply the same logic, that there are too many officials in China and if every official takes a bit on the side this will work out to a huge sum and there is no way society can bear it, therefore Chinese officials must be cleaner than those in the West. In fact, the Global Times will argue, as it did earlier this year, that the people of China should tolerate “moderate corruption” among officials.
Moreover, these officials and media speak in generalities about “national education in Western countries,” but they have never explained specifically what they are talking about. The People’s Daily said that it was “only different in form.” If we’re talking about the fact that these [forms of national education] are not a forced inculcation, or that they are not premised on lies, then I suppose the differences are quite substantial indeed.
The majority of developed countries in the West did have different forms of “national education”, and some might even have been construed as “partisan education” about loving one’s country, one’s party or one’s leaders. But since the end of the Second World War, ideas, culture and education in Western developed nations have basically made their way out of the morass of pre-modern concepts of nationalism through a process of self-examination and deconstruction.
One might argue that this reassessment is a kind of reconstitution and consolidation of national visions of cultures and political systems, but freedom of thought, open media, cultural diversity and democracy are preconditions, and [this reconstitution] is a process of constantly challenging illegitimate systems, overturning governments that displease, and transforming culture.
The editorial in the People’s Daily said that “without a clear identification with their country and a sense of cultural belonging, young people have no way of truly participating in discussion and decision-making in society, and a modern nation cannot develop in a healthy manner — this has long been something of which the public is aware.”
In fact, it’s this pre-modern notion of nationalism that has long been a subject of public questioning, even if we admit that a sense of national identity and cultural belonging are important, and if people are given the opportunity to seek out this sense of identity and belonging, then they will inevitably stand up, opposing media that monopolize ideas, education that strangles culture, and governments and corrupt officials that strip citizens of their rights. This, in fact, is precisely what young people in Hong Kong who take part in the June Fourth commemoration in Victoria Park, who voice their support for Liu Xiaobo’s “Charter Eight” and who oppose national education in Hong Kong are up to.
This is a necessary contradiction that authoritarian regimes face when they call on the people to love their country. When the Chinese Communist Party, then regarded as an opposition party, called on the people to resist the corrupt government of the Kuomintang [in the beginning of the last century], they labeled themselves as patriots.
This round of protests in Hong Kong is of utmost importance. Inside mainland China, the Chinese Communist Party has conducted its program of “national education” for more than 60 years, and the results are apparent to all. Those who have received this education find it difficult to expand their horizons — they are closed-minded and intolerant. In this era of exploding information, what many young Chinese glimpse through the smoke are still elemental notions like “patriotism”, “treachery,” “China’s rise” and “Western conspiracies.” The privileged, rich and powerful who have an opportunity to expand their horizons are steadily streaming overseas — and what does that say about their sense of identification and belonging?
If a curriculum of this type is rolled out in Hong Kong, this will be the territory’s fate as well. The vast majority of people will have the wool pulled over their eyes while the elite muddle along, and in the end China will have deprived itself of a valuable window that can ventilate the country with ideas.
Fortunately, this movement has already begun, and it won’t possibly end, as the Global Times suggests, with “victory for China.” This process of resistance is the real “national education.” And the young people who receive this education will only identify more deeply with freedom of thought and cultural diversity under a system of democratic politics.

No one paid any attention. Zero. And thousands of dollars would get spent on a night, a few people, nobody thought about it. And compliance never worried about that, you know. So, that put– that can easily put somebody in a difficult position, where it’s okay to be taking from deemed officials, but never being able to give something back to them.
And again, this is where it’s a difficult thing, especially in a place like China, where you get the guanxi thing, where you do something for me, I do something back for you, you do something– me. And– yeah, it would be interesting to see how, if at all, the FCPA can be– can take, you know, those kind of factors into consideration.
. . . You see, it’s actually– the details are very complex. You’d have to ask yourself, at this point, why he’s still fine and has no problems. And the reason is that, actually, he didn’t invest as well. He just fronted for me and two other people. So, the Chinese government did its own investigation, and determined I never bribed him. Yeah, I probably shouldn’t have, you know, secretly invested. But– I never bribed him, and that’s what the Chinese government determined. And that’s– the truth, I never bribed anybody.

In the following cartoon, posted to Sina Weibo by Guangdong’s Window on the South magazine, a golden-haired foreign hands a surprised Chinese client a bag labeled “bribe.” The foreigner says: “This is just a small token. A guest must do as the host does.”

The following post by Li Chao (李超), director of the Hainan People’s Congress Office of Training (海南人大干训办主任), about a spotting of a Chinese official tour bus at Japan’s Mount Fuji, was deleted from Sina Weibo sometime before 3:42 a.m. today, August 29, 2012. Li Chao currently has just under 162,000 followers, according to numbers from Sina Weibo. [More on deleted posts at the WeiboScope Search, by the Journalism and Media Studies Centre].

[Yesterday, touring at the foot of Mount Fuji, I happened across a special tour bus for a delegation for the Henan Provincial Governor Zhang]. When going out on tours, this provincial governor, surnamed Zhang, doesn’t really need to hang signs like this in the window, does he? Are you afraid people won’t know you’re a provincial governor from China? OK! I’ll help you do a bit of propaganda! Everyone, help me pass this along on the behalf of the provincial governor!

The post was accompanied by an image of purported to be the tour bus at Japan’s Mount Fuji with a sign identifying it as that of the Henan Provincial Government. The sign is visible at the upper right-hand side of the image. Below is a close-up of the sign, which reads: “Delegation of Henan Provincial Government’s Governor Zhang.”

【昨日在富士山脚下游玩，无意中发现了河南省政府张省长旅游专车】这位张姓省长大人出来旅游也不要弄个这样的牌子挂在车窗上吧？生怕大家不知道您是中国省长？好！俺也帮您宣传推广一下！大家帮帮忙，为省长转转！

The following post by Lishi Chenwu (历史沉雾) about a comment purportedly made by a Mandarin-speaking Japanese friend in the midst of heightened tensions between China and Japan was deleted from Sina Weibo sometime before 8:04 a.m. today, August 28, 2012. Lishi Chenwu currently has just over 108,000 followers, according to numbers from Sina Weibo. [More on deleted posts at the WeiboScope Search, by the Journalism and Media Studies Centre].

[Post by Jiazhuang Shi Faguan (假装是法官)]: My Japanese friend, Mr. Suganuma (菅沼) is a China expert and speaks Mandarin really well. The day before yesterday when we were having drinks, he said that China really was Japan’s teacher, and that Japanese would always be [China’s] pupils! I asked him why [he said this], and he answered: “Your police break the law and they say it was done by temp workers (临时工) [rather than actual police], military vehicles break the law and they say the license plates were fake. So I would advise the Japanese government to just say that the Japanese invading China were not the imperial army but just guerrilla bands.”

The provocative post was accompanied by an image from the Second World War of Japanese troops marching in China.

假装是法官：日本朋友菅沼先生是中国通，普通话讲的好。前天他来苏州，喝酒时说，中国真是日本的老师，日本要永远当中国的学生！我问为何，他接着说：“你们警察犯了法就说是临时工干的，军车犯了法就说牌照是假的。所以我要建议日本政府，说侵华日军根本不是皇军，是日本游击队。。。”@袁裕来律师

News of the suicide last week of Xu Huaiqian (徐怀谦), the chief editor of the Earth (大地) supplement of the Party’s official People’s Daily, has prompted a burst of discussion on Chinese social media of the extraordinary pressures facing journalists in China today.
According to Chinese news reports and accounts shared on Sina Weibo and Tencent Weibo, Xu, 45, died on August 22 after jumping from a building. Remembered by colleagues from media across the country as a professional and principled journalist, Xu is said to have suffered serious mental health problems in recent months.

My good friend, the well-known essay writer and chief editor of the People’s Daily‘s ‘Earth’ supplement, Mr. Xu Huaqian, passed away at 2 p.m. this afternoon (August 22) from extreme depression! We had made toasts together in Hangzhou. And in Changchun one time, we had talked together about essay writing. Most of the essays I wrote for ‘Earth’ passed through his hands. This is extremely painful news!

“Mr. Xu Huaiqian was a man full of compassion,” wrote Song Jiahong (宋家宏), a professor in the College of Humanities at Yunnan University. “He once made a trip to Zhaotong [a prefectural-level city] in Yunnan, and as he visited writers there he showed deep sympathy for the plight of the poor there.”
Journalists and others quickly drew the issue of speech freedoms and propaganda controls into their tributes to Xu Huaiqian. In a post early the next day, freelance writer Xu Shaolin wrote:

Xu Huaiqian, the chief editor of the People’s Daily‘s “Earth” supplement committed suicide yesterday afternoon. It is said that this 1989 graduate of the Chinese Studies department at Peking University suffered from depression. He once said during his lifetime that what pained him was that what he dared to think he dared not say, what he dared to say he dared not write, and what he dared to write he dared not publish.”

“Media personnel are under a lot of pressure. They must actively search for balance.”
“Release freedom of expression!”
“It was because he knew too much.”
He couldn’t take all the lies that for so long went against his convictions!”
“Inside the People’s Daily he was unable to face this kind of place, this kind of society! He wasn’t weak, he had completely lost hope.”
“When you always have to speak falsehoods, the pressure is immense!”

Xu Huaiqian’s friends and colleagues have posted a number of tributes to his life and work. One of the most widely shared is the following, written by Lu Xiansheng (鲁先圣), who worked with Xu as a regular contributor to Earth. This is a partial translation.

“Xu Huaiqian, A Noble Soul Departs!”
By Lu Xiansheng (鲁先圣)
How can I believe such grievous news as the suicide death of Xu Huaiqian, the chief editor of the “Earth” supplement of the People’s Daily? Xu Huaiqian, a writer of great talent, a man so full of ideas, a journalist whose writings were so full of thoughts and so full of conscience. He was just 44, at the very height of his creative powers!
When I first saw this news [of his passing] on the internet, I couldn’t believe my eyes. I checked it over and over again, and finally phoned a friend who works at the People’s Daily to confirm it. Finally, I knew it was true. He was gone. His friends said he had long grown to despise this world, that he had come to despise this system, that he despised the things and the people all around him.
I never met him, but we were friends in spirit for many years. In 2002, he did some reporting in Shandong’s Heze [prefecture], and he called saying he was the chief editor of Earth and that he hope I could write some essays that they needed. He spoke with sincerity and modesty. It was from that time that he began to run my essays in the People’s Daily‘s Earth supplement, more than 20 pieces in all.
. . . [Author relates the story of a number of pieces he wrote for Xu and Earth] . . .
Xu Huaiqian once said: “What pains me most is that what I dare to think I dare not say, what I dare to say I dare not write, and what I dare to write I dare not publish.” He once wrote in a piece called “Bearing Witness With Death”: “Death is a word of great gravity. But in many cases in China, things do not draw attention without [punctuation by] death, without death the proper resolution to a given situation cannot be prompted.”
He once said too: “Some say this is an age of the commonplace, an age of materialism, an age of foolish amusement, an age without great masters. But we cannot push the blame onto the shoulders of the age. A single person cannot control an age, but they can control their own face. They may not be pretty, but must not be utterly without substance. They can be ugly, but they cannot be devoid of character.”
Reading these remarks of his I understand how, even as he enjoyed the benefits that come with opting into the system, he suffered psychological pain he found impossible to express.
I understand his mind, and I admire his courage — but, My Brother, you cannot throw away your life in this way! You have parents, family, and so many friends of like mind! Hundreds and thousands of years have shown us that you cannot, by annihilating your talent in such a way, make any difference, even if your idea is to rouse society into conscience! . . .