In the case of welcoming visiting leaders, it is reasonable for a school to prepare something nice as a token of welcome, such as decking up the paths with colored flags or having students dressed neat in school uniforms. But making students line up and bow as the team of cars drove pass seems a little too much. As bowing is mostly used in funeral ceremony in China, netizens satirically captioned the scene as seeing hearses off.
First posted about midnight on July 20th, the set of photos had been viewed 202,553 times with 1440 comments by 9 pm July 24th on mop. The photos were taken in a industrial vocational high school of Shaoyang County, Hunan Province. As seen in the photos, students were standing upright on both sides of the path to welcome the leaders’ arrival with police car ahead leading the way. When team of cars and buses boarded with visiting leaders drove pass, the girls bent over and bowed.
Before long, the post was reposted on Tianya forum, Zhonghua forum and Hunan red net etc.
Netizen wanghu49 from mop said : Students are always free labor for schools.”
Netzen 非猫一笑天 from tianya commented: “Making students serve as usherette to kiss boss’ ass, the scene looks more like showing the final respect on somebody’s funeral.
Reporter soon contacted the principal Liu Qiuping who confirmed that it did happened. In reply to the question why the girls bowed, he said bowing was like applauding or cheering as a way to show welcome. “We used to go with applauding and cheering, but somehow someone suggested switching to bowing, and we weren’t concerned enough to expect so much finger pointing from netizens. ” Principal Liu said he understand netizen’s concerns now and promised won’t make such ceremonial welcome any more.
(Sourced from mop and People.com)
19 comments
ah pleasing leaders…an endless pointless pathetic facade
at least the principal was available for comment and accountable
Very unpleasant pictures
that’s the point!
China is a place where chinese people get dominated by their government and be controlled!
Anyone know who the “visiting leaders” were? It’s humiliating enough to get lined up and made to bow; to be made to line up and bow to someone in a Nissan… wow!
The Confucian mentality runs deep in this country. Good thing they are slowly moving away from certain parts of it.
We call these leaders of that school as “zhuang bi” in china, which literally means: act as pussy.
Bowing is in it’s nature humiliating and as far as I know the CCP practically eradicated it from Chinese society, from kow towing to bowing to family members, on ideological grounds. Oddly enough the only place you still see it is WITHIN the CCP on occasion on the highest levels, in the service sector (restaurants and hotels) and -sadly- when some pretty obscure guy visits a school. Weirder still because all Chinese students regularly do a semi-military salute which one would assume would be a more fitting greeting to the guy in the Nissan. On a second note isn’t one of the cars a BYD? Not much prestige in that one.
hey, come on, stop complaining, the principal actually admitted the wrong doings of the school and was willing to change his practices for future ceremonies, for a 3rd world country, thats damn good enough. Who cares that the guy was rolling in a Nissan? That nissan probably cost more then your yearly wage in China and or cost more then any car most foreigners ever had before coming to China. Then again, if the same guy was being driven around in a 7 series bmw or S class benz, you guys would complain about the spending habits of the local governments.
Nissan Teana ain’t cheap, especially in China with the taxes. It seems some people on the forum drive high series Mercs or BMW’s. I like how the principle admitted that he didn’t know what happened that they decided to do the bow instead of the normal applauding and cheering – he blamed on the someone but I bet the idea was his. It must had been a moment of bright spark, igniting the light bulb, that he’d punched into the air with great joy to have thought of that. Right at that very second he was a genius that no one had ever thought of that. I hope the incident will not scar him for the rest of his life to take initiative and try new ideas.
If anything, politicians should have their fat, corrupt asses kicked as they drive by.
How come they don’t say who these ‘leaders’ are and of what they ‘lead’? Maybe then I can better decide if the bowing was deserved… heh I mean if it was Andy Lau, then yea I could see how it was appropriate. Other celebrities come to my mind, and they’d probably be pretty good leaders too. If the CCP installed Andy onto its leadership it might just…
I’d vote for Andy Lau, lol
Students only learn one thing from this- leaders are powerful A-holes.
So typical that they have the females bow, like little vessels for adoring. Disgusting.
Students should not be used as cheap labor to prop up the ego of the principal. They should have used a school speaker to play some cheesey ass jingle to welcome big shots visiting the schools.
Whats the big deal here?
I recall that my grand uncle who struck it rich went back and build heaps of schools in his hometown in Shantou. My dad went back with him one time and was treated as a VIP. After all they are their benefactors.
Now, I don’t know the context of the situation, or who the VIPs are or what they have done. But I see nothing wrong with this expression of respect. Its not like they ask the students to kowtow.
Acting like colonialists in their own country…
这样的帖子发出来，我看很多人又开始议论中国政府了。实际上那是不负责任的。林子大了什么鸟都有，什么鸟事都有。
奇文趣事正因为是奇闻趣事是因为其稀少，不能说的太大了。像这样的学校领导每个中国人看了都会气愤。
Andy Lau?