You’ve seen this already, I’m sure. It’s on CRI and China.org, both citing Xinhua, and People’s Daily via Global Times, citing China Foto Press, via Sina Weibo (reposted and forwarded so many times that watermarks stack upon watermarks). It’s all over Western press too, including Daily Mail, BBC, Radio New Zealand, ABC… how? Why? What makes this viral material over, say, the last incident involving kindergarten teacher abuse, or the one before that?
Perhaps the teacher’s smile. Or the ear folded just so. The fact that the kid is actually lifted off the ground? The perfect framing, probably.
As always, context is important, and for that we turn to Offbeat China:
The woman in the picture was found out to be Yan Yanhong, born in 1992. She is the teacher of Class 2 at Blue Phoenix Kindergarten in Wen Liang, Zhejiang province. Most surprisingly, some netizen who successfully tracked down her QQ (China’s most popular IM tool) found more than 700 pictures of child abuse in her Qzone (similar to Myspace).
700 pictures!
Wow. I mean… there’s a kid in a garbage bin (funny, but also awful). So while we don’t know exactly why the ear-grabbing pic is the one drawing all the attention, we’re glad it has. Meanwhile, we wonder how this kindergarten teacher was employed for so long.
You’ll be happy to know that, according to GT, “police in Wenling said Yan Yanhong, the 21-year-old teacher, had been detained for provocative and disturbing behavior. The other teacher who took the photo, surnamed Tong, was given a 7-day administrative detention.”
How did she get the job?
Yeah, sure, it is shocking, harrowing, etc etc – but can someone tell me if it’s ok that I hit my spoilt brat fu er dai kids with a stick every time they start looking at J-flix on their iCrap in my classes?
Maybe the teacher in this story should get a job as chief disciplinarian at my place?
Shocking…. and no gay chevara, it is not ok to hit anyone. I remember being uninterested in most classes i ever attended only it was before this time. So i doodled. But was talking abt this with my wife at lunch and it is time that china passes achild abuse law, a law that covers rape of males and as well maybe invents a small claims system… the legal system needs modernization fast. Whilst i think the texan woman who got 99 years for child abuse was over the top, i truly hope this b*tch get her ass beat by the parents….
I thought you said it’s not ok to hit anyone?
not innocents… she s not. But yes i guess u r right but unfortunately since we live in a country where child abuse is NOT illegal then that would be the only real punishment.. read abt the girl whose mother starved by sewing her lips together and got arrested only after the girl died although this was known before…
Another thing needs to change. Education in china is not mandatory before age 6. However you can’t get into primary school without having been to kindergarten meaning that private schools fill the gap. Add to that the continuing issues of the hukou system and you have a grey education market which the govetnment knows about and needs to address.
wtf, i hope to run into her one day and give her the same treatment. uhh im so angry i need a beer.