13 year old boy gains popularity for his precocious zeal in politics

Huang Yibo’s controversial photo

This is a photo of a 13 year old teenage boy reading something. Do you find it any unusual? Chinese netizens do. As a matter of fact, this photo first posted in the 13 year-old’s blog, has gained him wide attention however, most of these attentions are unfavorable: Chinese netizens think the young boy poses like a government official reading official document in the photo. The photo becomes even more controversial after netizens learn about the boy’s precocious zeal in politics.

Netizens point out that Huang’s (Left) expression and posture look like those of a government official

Huang Yibo is a 13 year old school boy in a Wuhan boarding school and is now the deputy chief of Wu Han Youth pioneers. The Badge with 5 red bars worn on his jacket shows his high position in the organization. In all his public photos, he seems to wear the badge all the time, even in the photo when he was on an outing with his parents. The Chinese netizens therefore called him "The five-bar youngster".

Photo of Huang and his parents on a family outing

The young boy doesn’t look like his age but instead, looks or poses like a government official. According to the reports, he does have extraordinary interest in politics. As reported, since 2 years old, Huang started to watch the CCTV news ( China’s official news program); since 7, he reads the official newspaper of the Communist Party of China on daily basis; so far he had contributed more than 100 pieces of articles in different famous magazines and has donated the 3,000 yuan remuneration to support the lonely elderly people, etc..

His blog was set up on Feb. 8^th,2011, and has only one entry and two photo albums, which are now unavailable since there are too much harsh criticism and unfavorable comments from the netizens. However, the entry has been copied by some netizen so you can still read it online here. In this entry, Huang writes in a rather formal and old-fashioned style. The entry is mainly about expressing the 13-year-old’s great ambition of revitalizing China to make it a great power again.

While most people criticize the boy, or his parents, or even the country’s education system, many ask to stop being so hard on the boy because after all, he’s only a 13 year old school boy.

As usual, Chinese netizens often take advantage of the news and create some funny stuff. Take a look at this post, titled "You stupid dumbass, with no sense for politics, let me tell you the truth of this Huang Yibo incident."

(The original post is from Douban.com, which somehow is unavailable now)

The post said this is a well-planned political conspiracy. Huang is not the leader of the Wu Han Young pioneers, the real leader is another guy called Xu Liuyang. Xu is the current Wu Han Young pioneers leader, but has done nothing in his tenure. For the upcoming election, Xu planned this whole Huang Yibo incident, so he can cross off this biggest rival.

Source Xinua

Update 5/5/2011

From Ifeng, translated by Jenny Jiang

What can we do if the child is a born genius? Mr. Huang and his wife (Huang Yibo’s parents) told the reporter yesterday that the best way is to let it be. Their son is attending a boarding school in Huashi. He has been honored by a lot of titles at a very young age, such as “Top 100 Excellent Teenagers in China”, one of the “10 Stars of filial piety in Wuhan Province”. “More importantly, many of his views upon politics and history have already gone beyond our understanding.” His parents commented.

He began to watch the “News Feeds” offered by CCTV1 at the age of two, read People’s Daily and Reference News every day from seven. Till now, the boy has published more than 100 articles on some influential magazines and newspapers in China. He has spent his royalties which was nearly 3,000RMB and the money earned from selling scraps on fund and care for the elderly who are living alone.

Mr. Huang told the reporter that they have never guided his boy to do such thing. Huang Yibo’s nature motivated him. His father admitted that Yibo’s concerns far more about democracy than he does. His dream is to let people live better lives. “It might be an influence of the historical stories he read when he was little.” His mother explained. Yibo has known very well about many historical stories about Genghis Khan, Liu Bang, Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang told by his mother and grandmother. “I thought it was just for fun telling him the stories. To our surprise, he read relevant books written in vernacular, like Five Millenniums of China, Zi Zhi Tong Jian.” His mother told the reporter.

“He only focuses on Chinese and foreign news events and never plays internet games.” Mr. Huang said, “Many of his views upon politics often bring us surprises.” “It is a similar case as to his writing. At the very beginning, we thought that his article ‘Hometown’ writes well, and tried to send it to the publisher. It is totally out of our imagination that he would do such a good job from then on.” His mother added, “It is all by chance that Yibo’s ‘nature’ has been triggered. We offer supports in his path.”

“Compared with other children, Yibo is more mature and clear about his future path. What I need to do is to provide him with an appropriate environment.” His father concluded.