If you thought our first post of 2014 would not be a quote attributed to Ron Jeremy, consider yourself rectified.

This was spotted on the wall next to a side street near International School of Beijing. Ron Jeremy, though an unparalleled innovator in his own right, has probably never said that in his lifetime. The words are actually attributed to American poet Ella Wheeler.

Master Yoda totally probably said “Drop it like it’s hot” though:

For one second, let’s appreciate the masterfully creepy expression on this middle school teacher as he demands his (female) students give him a kiss before giving them their diplomas.

And then let’s consider… he did what?

An Internet commenter in Linxia County of the province said last night that Zhang Runhua, a teacher of seniors at local Tuqiao High School, forced all the schoolgirls in his class to kiss him on the cheek or let him kiss them. The whistleblower said these girls could not get their diplomas from Zhang without a kiss.

That’s from Sina, which has a lot of photos of Zhang. (Something’s a bit off on the translation; NetEase says middle school, which seems more right, considering how young the girls look.)

The guy’s been suspended by the Linxia Education Bureau and is currently under investigation.

One of Zhang’s colleagues said Zhang was an excellent teacher.

UPDATE, 1:25 pm: The man remains wonderfully creepy, but also… innocent? Via Sinopathic:

It was graduation day. The sun shone, and the birds sang. The class is made up of 48 (!) students, and they were all there as they waited in turn to receive their diplomas:

At first, the handing out of diplomas by the teacher was accepted by the students with bows, salutes, hugs and handshakes. As the atmosphere began to be more festive and among supportive cries by the students, some students would kiss the teacher [when receiving their diplomas]. Everyone was very happy, and no one protested against the proceedings.

A representative of the Tuqiao High School made this statement:

“From [other] photographs provided by the students of the scene, actions like shaking hands, bowing and hugging had also occurred at that time. The atmosphere of the proceedings was very pleasant, and there were male and female students present. The students are very angry with this rumor having placed things out of context.”

But dude, Mr. Zhang — dude…

(H/T Kevin McGeary)

A spate of stories about schoolmasters sexually abusing their pupils in China has caused public outrage, and at least one activist has done something to capture the mood. She nailed it on the head, judging by the authorities’ reaction to her — namely, beating her up.

Ye Haiyan, on May 27 outside Wanning primary school in Hainan province, held a sign that read, “Principals, spare the school kids, get a hotel room with me instead!” That’s her above. The silent protest — small, some might say — touched raw nerves, because Ye soon found herself surrounded by goons. As reported by SCMP:

Gender rights activist Ye Haiyan was assaulted and detained by Guangxi public security officials yesterday after returning from Hainan province, where she had protested against the sexual abuse of schoolgirls.

Ye appealed for help three times on her microblog around noon yesterday, saying her apartment had been raided by about 10 women and one man while she was alone with her daughter.

“There are now four to five women beating me up,” Ye said in her first post. “Please help me to call the police. There is only me and my daughter [here].”

Soon, people across the country were posting pictures of themselves holding posters and signs with Ye’s slogan: “Principals, spare the school kids, get a hotel room with me instead!”

Via Global Voices:

In the case of Ai Weiwei, the slogan was written across his belly:

Children’s Day, by the way, was Saturday. With that in mind, Global Voices offer this sobering and disturbing news:

In less than one month, the local media have exposed more than eight cases of sexual abuse [zh] of school children. As far as the media reported, the molesters are school principals, teachers, and security staffs.

The reported cases are just the tip of an iceberg, according to research from All-China Women’s Federation (ACWF). In the past three years, there were more than 2,506 cases of sexual abuse of girls within Guangdong province [zh] alone. Half of the victims are children under 14 and 65 percent of the molesters are acquaintance of their victim’s family.

The person who is actually thinking about the children, and fighting for them, is being hushed up by adults via physical intimidation. Yes, something is wrong here.

These China blogs are also on this story: Ministry of Tofu, Offbeat China, chinaSMACK

Neil Robinson, 47, of Staines in Surrey, England, who has been wanted since 2002 for the distribution of underage porn and child rape, was detained by Beijing police early yesterday, according to Beijing News (which proceeds to ask many of the questions we’ve posed, and calls for increased background checks on foreign teachers).

According to Staines People, Robinson “handed himself in to authorities.” Surrey police are currently liaising with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Chinese authorities regarding his return to the UK.

More updates as they become available.

(H/T Sinofaze, Mike Cormack)

UPDATE, 1:45 pm: China Daily spoke with an education counselor about background checks. Beijing World Youth Academy, which employed Robinson from 2008 to May 2012, could not be reached for official comment.

An education counselor with the international program at a high school attached to Tsinghua University, who declined to give her name, said that Chinese agencies often do not carry out background checks.

“Schools make phone calls or write to people for references to check prospective teachers’ credentials,” she said, adding that it was often difficult for schools to do criminal background checks.

“If applicants are from the United States, we can ask them to show a criminal background check by the US government. But it’s hard to do that in China,” she added.

UPDATE, 1/15/14, 6:15 pm: He’s been sentenced to 12 years. Via BBC:

A man who was extradited to the UK from China has been jailed for 12 years for historical sex offences.

Neil Robinson, 47, formerly of Staines in Surrey, admitted three counts of sex with a girl under 13 and three indecent assaults at a previous hearing at Guildford Crown Court.

This fuckface. This fucking piece of shit is the new frog-eyed creepy rapist avatar for every foreign English teacher in China. I fucking hate him. As a reformed Catholic, I reserve vast reservoirs of contempt and genuine vitriol for authority figures who abuse their power at the expense of children. With all of my private and professional life force, I hate the bastard, hopes he gets a life sentence and dies in a Chinese prison.

For some intents and purposes, this fucko is me, now. He speaks English, I speak English. He is white, I am white. He is an experienced foreign teacher in China, and so am I. Never mind that we grew up 5,000 miles apart and one of us — the one that is not me — is an animal wanted in Britain for child rape. To many Chinese people we look the same and therefore we are the same. Once this blows up in the Chinese media, foreign teachers in China can expect to spend a lot more time in the near future explaining that they didn’t move there to molest kids. And in the classroom, they’ll have ample opportunity to second-guess themselves — am I coming across as too nice? was that high-five inappropriate?

Sleazeballs and scumbags have always been openly hiding in China’s classrooms, of course. Robinson’s case is only making the rounds because he allegedly committed his worst crime outside of this country. But if we are to salvage any glimmer of silver lining from this, hopefully China tightens its visa policy and schools begin doing real background checks (are you listening, Beijing World Youth Academy?). The current system is paperwork-heavy and low on actual verification. Rubberstampocracy at its worst. It took me five months to finally obtain a legit Z visa at my first school in Henan. Most of that was spent mailing documents back and forth between China, Denver and the visa service I was using — school contracts, government contracts, letters of invitation from the local PSB, Z-visa forms.

If I’d gone the gray-market route a lot of teachers use, I could’ve gone over almost immediately on a tourist visa, without a college degree or native fluency. After a month I’d be sent to Hong Kong with a forged BA (side note: without my knowledge or permission, my school photoshopped my college degree to obtain a residence permit for at least two totally underqualified, shitty teachers), and China would have a new “foreign expert.” At one point at my school, which is actually a pretty good training center by most Chinese standards, only two of the eight teachers actually met the requirements of being native speakers with four-year college degrees.

This is not to bash my former school or any of my colleagues; in my experience, non-native speakers are often some of the best TEFL teachers. They have an innate understanding of how they learned the language and have an easier time passing it on than a lot of the shitty native speakers who come over. But having regularly-enforced standards for foreign teachers ensures that fewer pariahs like Neil Robinson find jobs educating children.

One simple addition to the visa process from other countries, if it had been implemented in China, would have stranded Robinson back in the UK, or at least prevented him from teaching in China for five years. South Korea and Vietnam, for example, require all foreign teachers to obtain notarized government background checks in their home country in order to obtain a work visa. They also require a physical, apostilled/notarized bachelor’s degree. Someone could still force his way into the country as a sex tourist or something, but it’d be much toucher for him to find legal, long-term work there.

I don’t know if the problem lies within the foreign teacher community specifically, but I implore teachers (everyone, actually) in China to keep a look out for suspicious activity. I’m not going to write up a snarky profile of a stereotypical child molester, as it’s probably unfair and counterproductive. However, if you come across, for example, a colleague inappropriately filming 10-year-olds, or jokingly telling students he’s writing a porn novel (as Robinson reportedly did), the correct response is to alert school management, if not local authorities. It’s for the potential welfare of children, who deserve so much better.

Greg is an ESL instructor who spent two productive years teaching in China. He writes BJC’s weekly Chinagog column.

UPDATE, 4/27, 12:26 pm: Robinson is now in custody in Beijing and awaiting transfer to UK authorities.

Ed’s note, 4/28, 11:13 am: Headline amended.

Neil Robinson is wanted by the Surrey police “in connection with the distribution of indecent images of children and the rape of a child,” according to BBC’s Crimewatch. This bit of info was posted to Reddit China by user gaiushe yesterday, who claims he has known Robinson for the past five years and is certain that he worked at an international school in Beijing.

That’s Beijing got in touch with gaiushe via direct messaging and confirmed that the school in question is Beijing World Youth Academy. Robinson’s online resume confirms that he worked at “Beijing World Youth academy High School as a Business teacher for years 10, 11 and 12.”

The school’s website also shows a teacher named Robinson was scheduled to chaperone a 15-day school trip to Denver, Colorado in January 2012. That’s Beijing got in touch with an organizer of that trip:

Li Meng, the organizer of the winter camp, told That’s that he is certain that Robinson worked at the school, and that he was indeed scheduled to be a ‘leader’ for the camp but “did not go.”

Afterwards, Li contacted us to retract his statement, saying “the guy left our school a long time ago, several years in fact… the information online [that he was a team leader on the Denver trip] is wrong… many of my colleagues have been asked about this. He is not our employee.”

A spokeswoman for the Beijing World Youth Academy told us she has been working at the school for six months and that there was “no one called Neil currently working at the school.

“If you want to speak to our manager… you’d better call back after May 6,” she added.

Neil Robinson’s online resume

Those who know of Robinson’s whereabouts — he is, again, wanted by British police for child rape — are advised to contact the Chaoyang District police at 85953400 or Surrey Police at (00 44) 01483 639 862.

Alleged British Paedophile is living in Beijing – and teaching? (That’s Beijing)

UPDATE, 4:56 pm: Matt Dalton has dug up a newsletter, dated October 2010, in which Robinson, a “pastoral principal,” addresses the parents of students attending Beijing World Youth Academy:

UPDATE, 4/25, 3 am: Uh… what? Via Beijing Kids:

Former students of Robinson report that he was a generally well-liked teacher who once joked that he was “writing a porn novel”.

UPDATE, 4/27, 12:26 pm: Robinson is now in custody in Beijing and awaiting transfer to UK authorities.

UPDATE, 1/15/14, 6:15 pm: He’s been sentenced to 12 years. Via BBC:

A man who was extradited to the UK from China has been jailed for 12 years for historical sex offences.

Neil Robinson, 47, formerly of Staines in Surrey, admitted three counts of sex with a girl under 13 and three indecent assaults at a previous hearing at Guildford Crown Court.

Four students were killed and at least 18 injured.

More details as they become available. Here’s Xinhua’s English news brief for now.

UPDATE, 3/4, 4:40 pm: Via Xinhua:

Here’s how it happened:

The accident occurred around 6:15 a.m. Wednesday, when two teachers who were on duty failed to open the gate at 6:00 a.m. as scheduled. When it did open, a large crowd of students that had gathered around the gate rushed in simultaneously, triggering a stampede.

There is only one entrance on the ground floor of the school’s temporary dormitory, which used to be a four-story classroom.

More:

“Five students were lying on the ground after the stampede. Teachers were trying to revive them,” said Xu, a 9-year-old student at the Qinji Primary School in Xueji Township in the city of Laohekou.

The fatal school stampede occurred after hundreds of pupils were crowded at the only gate of the school’s temporary dorm.

Some have blamed the incident on excessive rural school mergers that have left rural students with little choice but to attend crowded schools far from their homes.

(H/T Alicia)

An international school in Beijing has built two “pollution domes” to protect their students during physical activity. A Financial Times article describes these domes as “giant pressurised canopies that can cover sports fields, playgrounds or tennis courts” — specifically, at the International School of Beijing, it covers six tennis courts, a track, a miniature soccer field, and basketball/handball courts. You won’t be surprised to learn that tuition here can run up to $35,000 (218,000 yuan) per year.

PE teacher Mary Wenstrom tells FT:

“Last year we had 39 days when the kids could not go outside for recess at all or for physical education, out of 180 school days in the year. That is well over a month of school when kids could not go outside,” Wenstrom said. The domes contain air filtration systems and temperature control systems, so that students can safely exercise all year round.

Just to reiterate: to enable spoiled and bratty kids to exercise with peace of mind, a school has installed pressurized canopies over courts that look an awful lot like they’re already indoors. Do rich people live on the same Earth as the rest of us?

The story for this occasion is Steven Millhauser’s “The Dome,” from Dangerous Laughter. Excerpt:

Each of the early models, made of transparent Viviglas, was designed to fit directly over a house and its property. Now, emerging from the front or back door in summer, the owner of a dome could step comfortably into a world of air-conditioned lawns and gardens, thanks to a highly efficient system of filters and evaporator coils built into the Viviglas. There were other advantages. Recessed fluorescent lighting with dimmer switches permitted the property to be illuminated at night, so that you could read a book or newspaper in the cool outdoors on the hottest, muggiest evenings. Owners were encouraged to practice their golf sings, play badminton after dark, and enjoy a bit of night gardening, in the always perfect weather under the dome. In fact it was a boast of the manufacturer, much quoted at that time, that “Inside our dome, rain never falls.” As if that wasn’t enough, the manufacturer promised future models that would heat the enclosures in winter, though a number of difficulties still needed to be ironed out. It was above all as technological achievements that the early domes impressed most observers, who nevertheless remained skeptical. Questions were raised about the extent to which such excesses were likely to be shared by the average American household, since the domes at that time cost nearly as much as the states they encapsulated. Nor could a number of journalists resist reflecting on the metaphorical implications of those glistening, crystalline structures, which enclosed the rich in little princedoms that insulated them even further from the everyday world.

Please check out Alec Baldwin’s reading of Millhauser’s story here.

New on Beijing skyline: pollution domes (Financial Times)

Evil exists: primeval notions of violence, vengeance, as impossible to stamp out as the biological markers in our DNA that shape us as the wonderful and pathetic creatures we are. Yet out of every reprehensible, sinister act, we are simultaneously given the chance for redemption: an opportunity for a correlating heroic measure. Since the dawn of storytelling, we’ve been mesmerized by this idea. And even after all the novels, the tall tales, the action movies, it is not a cliche, precisely because the real world provides us reminders — such as this one from Tuesday, when an evildoer wielding a knife entered a school in Xinghua, Hunan province and stabbed a hero, whose name we only now know because he perished.

The assailant rushed into Beidu Primary School to attack third-grader Wang Zhenyu, with whose family he held a grudge, according to Chinese media. He fled after seriously wounding the boy, only to be intercepted by the school’s principal, 59-year-old Yang Jianyi. In the resulting struggle, Yang was stabbed multiple times. He would die from his injuries outside.

Yang is survived by his wife and two daughters. The candle emoticons are out on Sina Weibo.

Heroic Hunan school principal dies protecting pupils from knife-wielding man (SCMP)

Heeeeeeere’s Johnny!

Massacres can be fun, kids! Grinning actor attacks kids w/ cleaver in China school-safety drill bit.ly/11aK1Bq @beijingcream

— That’s Beijingさん (@Thats_Beijing) 2013年1月8日

The pictures are via Caijing, taken at a school safety drill in Jiangsu province. My elementary school never had this much fun: we only did fire drills.

By the way, are we sure we’re conditioning our children to take the proper measures in the face of a knife-wielding evil-doer?

Yin Tiejun, 48, drove a car laden with firecrackers into Fengning No. 1 Middle School in Fengning, Hebei province around noon. Xinhua has the story:

Police said Yin lit a bottle of diesel, trying to burn down the car after hitting the students.

Police officers, who put out the fire, found a gas tank and firecrackers in the trunk of the car. However, Yin said during interrogation that these were not for an attack.

Police cleared Yin of driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs. They said he was upset with a court ruling that did not sentence all his daughter’s murderers to death.

Yin was detained on charges of endangering public safety on Tuesday.

Ten students were hospitalized, including one with a fractured skull. Thirteen students suffered minor injuries.

Associated Press adds these details:

The local Fengning county government confirmed the incident in a written statement and said Yin was driving a Geely sedan.

Citing eyewitnesses, the Beijing-based state-run Jinghua Times said the accident occurred when students were leaving school for noon break and that the car accelerated and knocked down students, many of whom were on bikes.

Yet again, we are reminded that violence can occur anywhere — schools not excluded.

Chinese man hits students with car, 13 hospitalized (Xinhua)
Chinese man drives car into students, injuring 13 (AP)

Details are sparse, but around 7:45 am today, according to Xinhua, a student surnamed Hu killed a classmate, surnamed Tan, on the sixth-floor library of Anhui Medical University.

Another article speculates that the incident was instigated by either a dispute over a seat or an “emotional dispute.” According to one eyewitness, Hu and Tan had chatted many times before about a certain girl, who later sought out Tan.

Before the attack, Hu and Tan engaged in a verbal confrontation. Hu then picked up a fire-fighting hatchet and, despite pleas from those nearby, hacked Tan to death.

Both the attacker and victim were 23-year-old seniors at the Hefei, Anhui province university. Hu was a clinical medicine major, while Tan majored in biomedical engineering.

Hu has been detained by police, and the situation is being investigated.

UPDATE, 12:43 pm:

Surveillance footage has just surfaced of the knife attack in Guangshan county on December 14 that injured 23 22 children (plus one adult).

Min Yongjun, said to have been affected by doomsday rumors, burst into a Chenpeng village elementary school on Friday and began indiscriminately hacking and slashing with his kitchen knife. He also stabbed an elderly woman. All of the victims survived.

Six local officials were fired, but let’s give praise where it’s due: in the footage, we clearly see adults chase after the man after they find out what’s happening. The sight of a middle-aged man in cloth shoes wielding what appears to be a big broom might look comical, but it was effective: the knifeman was chased out of the school and eventually neutralized. We’ve seen it before, but perhaps we don’t put enough emphasis on this: confronted with bad guys, people here do react, as you would expect. Also see the case from earlier this year of unarmed security guards who sacrificed themselves to ward off a knife-wielding madman in Guizhou Normal University.

The Guangshan attack happened on the same day as the shootings in Newtown, Connecticut that killed 26 people, including 20 children. Comparing the incidents, many were critical of the US’s lack of gun-control laws, though people in China were quick to point out their government’s shortcomings as well.

It seemed very few netizens were happy with China’s response to Friday’s slashing at a Guangshan county primary school that injured 23 children, but now we know exactly how officials feel about it: everyone involved, basically, has been fired.

Via Morning Whistle:

Six local officials who are responsible for the attack has been removed on Monday, including principals of the school, a police chief and officials who are in charge of education and safety inspection.

And while President Barack Obama publicly praised teachers and first-responders in Newtown, Connecticut, where a gunman massacred 27 people, mostly children, on the same day as the Guangshan attack, those in China are wondering where their adults were to protect their children:

School security videos showed that no teachers or doorkeepers were on the scene in the first few minutes when the suspect stabbed people, the official People’s Daily reported on Tuesday.

According to school rules, teachers should arrive at the school before 7:50 a.m., while the attack occurred at around 7:30 on Friday. A time sheet showed that class advisors and teachers who were on duty that day arrived at the school after the attack, the paper said.

So, those in charge have been punished. But we wonder: what reason do we have to believe that the next crop would have behaved differently, or will be any better?

UPDATE, 12/19, 9:46 pm: Security footage of the attack shows adults rushing to help as soon as they could.

(H/T Ray Kwong)

The attacks happened on opposite sides of the globe, but they’re still being viewed relative to one another. The conversation was initially about weapons, with the US getting called to task. (Some are still unhappy that President Barack Obama only alluded to gun control without saying it outright in his moving speech yesterday in Newtown, Connecticut.) But in China, the talk is about something else altogether: how US officials have handled their tragedy, contrasted against how Chinese officials have handled theirs. On this front, no one is happy, not even Xinhua.

Reports Wall Street Journal:

The newspaper appears to have been motivated by the account of a journalist from the state-run Xinhua news agency, posted to Sina Weibo on Saturday, that described education officials in Guangshan playing video games shortly after the attack. The account also said one local leader responded to the journalist’s question about the attacker’s mental health by asking what the point was of discussing the topic.

A Guangshan official said that local leaders were out inspecting schools, which is why they were unavailable to take questions. But something tells me government mouthpieces have the credibility of lapdogs around these parts.

WSJ again:

“The U.S. and China both have school tragedies — but how do they handle it? And how do we handle it? Everyone understands this point, there’s no need for me to even spell it out,” one Weibo user wrote in response to the Xinhua journalists’ post.

“When there’s a problem, China doesn’t dare face it and doesn’t want to think about it, but instead tries to figure out a way to dodge it and block information. It leaves people feeling cold,” wrote another microblogger.

A third said he hoped the children in the Henan attack “won’t end up being Chinese again when they reincarnate.”

Tea Leaf Nation has translated more netizens responses, which provide a picture of incredible cynicism:

Some commenters perceived an implicit, high-level calculation of the relative value of an American and Chinese child. @3颗豆 ventured a guess at the media’s strategy: ”It seems they are trying to say: Look, look! This is the price of freedom. I say: Look how little I must be worth.” @党好啊 looked at the relative wealth of the two schools, writing, “The American school may have a future U.S. President in it; that school in Guangshan probably doesn’t even have a county boss.” Indeed, @无为之路通罗马 echoed a widely-held sentiment, writing that the disparate treatment occurred “because the high leaders’ sons and daughters are all in the United States.”

Of course, it’s unfair to compare these governments. Surely China — much less practiced in displaying public empathy — will learn from this experience. In the meantime, netizens here, inundated with local coverage of the American tragedy, continue looking abroad for their model in life and governance.

@黄天立123‘s comment looked both outward and inward, speaking to grieving American parents while also giving voice to disaffected Chinese: “Your pain is now carved on everyone’s hearts. I wish the children happiness in heaven. As to our [attacked] children–as of today, officials have not even given their names. For [the sake of] Chinese children, I hope heaven is not ‘socialist with Chinese characteristics.’”