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Roger
Joined: 19 Jan 2003
Posts: 9138
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 Posted: Mon Jul 04, 2005 7:16 am Post subject: A Chinese whiz kid and his future... |
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Wei Yongkang is his name, and he was in the media a number of times owing to his outstanding scholastic achievements: skipping several levels of his compulsory education, scoring top marks every time he sat through exams...
At age 5 he know 2000 Chinese characters...
Why was that?
He owes this to his mother, a fanatic pusher for educational "excellence", which in Mrs Zeng's mind means "quantitiy". Quantity in knowledge, every knowledge, many "knowledges".
She coached her son until he had to go to primary school; she supervised his every move in his spare time, not allowing him to "fool around" with other kids but to sit stoically and learn some more.
Thus it came about that he was admitted to a prestigious university at an age when others are just beginning their middle school career. That's when things turned around.
Initially, his mother rented a dwelling place so she could stay with her son and spoon-feed him his meals, swipe his bum and wash his face. She would also put toothpaste on his toothbrush.
The university eventually stepped in, saying he must live with his peers in dorms, and naturalloy, there was no place for his doting Mom on campus.
Yongkang immediately was in trouble.
He had no idea when his classes began; he hadn't learnt to read his timetable and to stick to a schedule. He didn't know how to get dressed and was seen walking around campus in unsuitable clothing.
These seemed like trifles compared to what happened later on: of course, there were exams, and while Yongkang could have beaten his classmates hands down he wasn't used to checking the bulletin boards to see when and where his exams were to take place.
He missed them all.
What a tragedy - the genius son didn't have a single mark!
You get but one chance at such exams; no excuses are accepted! He had to report back to his parents his fiasco.
He lost all friends, all respect and even the love his parents used to shower upon him.
Did I say "love"? Did his mother "love" her son by forcing him through such a cruel ritual for almost 20 years?
She is unforgiving and ostracises her son now. He hasn't learnt to socialise and feels lonely. The picture in the paper shows a young and slightly voluminous man, flab no doubt accumulated as a result of too much junk food to compensate for the affection and attention he never got.
Poor Yongkang! |
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Chris_Crossley
Joined: 26 Jun 2004
Posts: 1797
Location: Still in the centre of Furnace City, PRC, after eight years!!!
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| Posted: Mon Jul 04, 2005 8:32 am Post subject: Where was the father? |
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Where was the father in all this?!  |
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Babala
Joined: 28 Jan 2005
Posts: 1303
Location: Henan
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| Posted: Mon Jul 04, 2005 9:31 am Post subject: |
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| Sad story but I think we all can see examples of this in a few of our own students. I teach a businessman who has no idea how to cook a simply meal, make his bed or do even the smallest domestic chore. He is 29 and his parents still do everything for him. He only gets up if his father wakes him up. The Chinese call it love, I call it taking away someone's independence. |
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tw
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
Posts: 3898
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| Posted: Mon Jul 04, 2005 9:40 am Post subject: |
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| Babala wrote: |
| I teach a businessman who has no idea how to cook a simply meal, make his bed or do even the smallest domestic chore. He is 29 and his parents still do everything for him. He only gets up if his father wakes him up. The Chinese call it love, I call it taking away someone's independence. |
That is pathetic! Talk about a mama's boy. But then again, isn't that what happened with many Japanese men when Japan's economy crashed and many men lost their job? Many of them didn't know how to do the simplest house chores like doing laundry or sweeping the floor. Granted, I believe Japanese men are taught that those are women's job.
Babala I don't call it love, I call it destroying the "child". I now understand why so many people in China were telling me that I should get married so I "will have someone taking care of" me. Seems Chinese men in China find wives to be substitute for mother.
Last edited by tw on Tue Jul 05, 2005 4:22 am; edited 2 times in total |
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Chris_Crossley
Joined: 26 Jun 2004
Posts: 1797
Location: Still in the centre of Furnace City, PRC, after eight years!!!
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| Posted: Tue Jul 05, 2005 4:15 am Post subject: If they weren't real stories, they would be hard to invent! |
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| Babala wrote: |
| Sad story but I think we all can see examples of this in a few of our own students. I teach a businessman who has no idea how to cook a [simple] meal, make his bed or do even the smallest domestic chore. He is 29 and his parents still do everything for him. He only gets up if his father wakes him up. The Chinese call it love, I call it taking away someone's independence. |
So we do have a father in this story. Yet he is as guilty as his wife of mollycoddling the "boy" (I say that in a semi-sarcastic sense). What the hell are they thinking? (Or maybe they are past thinking.) As for "taking away someone's independence", this "boy" has never had it given to him in the first place.
I used to laugh derisively at the Private Pike (played by actor Ian Lavender) character in the BBC TV comedy series "Dad's Army", as he was always being mollycoddled by his mother, with whom he still lived. In another BBC TV comedy series, "Sorry!", the comedian Ronnie Corbett played a character called Timothy Lumsden, who was being always fussed over by his mother, played by Barbara Lott.
It would, on the other hand, be hard to invent the two stories involving these hopelessly mollycoddled Chinese individuals if they were not real. Can you imagine the impact on an audience if they were characters in a TV sitcom in the West? |
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burnsie
Joined: 18 Aug 2004
Posts: 489
Location: Beijing
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| Posted: Tue Jul 05, 2005 5:08 am Post subject: |
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| How old was he? I would say about 14/15? If that's the case then he probably isn't mature enough for this level. |
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