Chinese Education Startup Puts Western Teachers on Notice | Hacker News Reader

Chinese Education Startup Puts Western Teachers on Notice

wsj.com

43 pointsjkuria36 comments

Headline is a bit misleading. I thought this was going to be about disruption but it's actually about a Chinese startup firing western teachers who talk about topics considered "politically-sensitive" in China.

I wouldn’t call if misleading, but certainly it’s one of those topics with double meanings. It could be phrased less equivocally, I agree, but at the same time it’s not misleading.

I assumed the same, that is a pretty common headline used to mean something else.

You can think of it as headline writing "with Chinese characteristics" :)

Nice equivocating at the end:

“No matter what nation you’re teaching in, there are going to be things that we need to be thoughtful about,” he said. “Even in American classrooms, there are things you cannot discuss.”

I'm not even sure why these things (Taiwan, T. Square, etc.) come up during English classes for kids in the first place?

Anyways, as a hired and paid employee of VIPkid, you are required to follow their rules, like it or not. Otherwise, you can leave and teach somewhere else.

As a western European-American who has spent time residing in various Asian countries along the China<->anti-China political spectrum as well as both blue and red parts of the US, I really don't see a problem with VIPkid prohibiting discussion of culturally and politically sensitive issues in their classrooms. That's just about respect.

If you feel so strongly/morally opposed to China's actions and history, VIPkid is the wrong forum, even if you are seeking to effect change. After all, we already are in the midst of another Cold War.

Every so often you’ll see people who think non-English-speaking countries are left in the dark and unaware of the realities of the world, and it’s their duty as an enlightened English speaker to show the kids the light.

Every year there’s someone who goes on a mission to talk about Tiananmen, Nanjing, Taiwan, and other things. They don’t know that it isn’t that the kids need to be educated about their past by westerners, but that the kids are already exposed to that info but don’t care because they’re kids and just don’t care about things like that. They’re only in English class to memorize a few phrases to help confused tourists or prepare for a future in international work.

I think it is because even if legally ok, this company only exists due to massive support from US citizens. Therefore, I think the natural expectation is that this company needs to allow for some flexibility due to this not being an exclusively Chinese venture.

Additionally, learning a language isn't just memorizing phrases but also understanding the culture and values behind it. If you don't at the very least understand the US/UK perspective on tyranny, it will be nearly impossible to comprehend a lot of 20th century English literature. "Big brother" is a relatively common phrase that I don't think is possible to explain in an entirely Chinese government sanctioned way.

I'm not sure how relevant going over these issues specifically is for teaching English, but in my experience Chinese culture is extremely different from English culture and there are almost inevitably going to many conflicts.

This is exactly the right answer. Big brother, surveillance state, police state, etc. the list goes on and on.

This startup is for us citizens. Students should be taught English in the way it’s spoken in the states; not some China-ok’d version. Taking a step back, the whole idea of a Chinese company teaching English primarily for US citizens is smelly to begin with. Sounds like all future students should stay away.

> They’re only in English class to memorize a few phrases to help confused tourists or prepare for a future in international work.

Primary reason is probably entrance examination, no?

you wrote: "culturally and politically sensitive issues - That's just about respect."

Respect for democracy in Taiwan? Respect for the innocent victims of the May 35th massacre?

Maybe relevant http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html

I wouldn’t expect any different. People are under the impression that the CCP isn’t the CCP anymore just because they allow government supervised private enterprise via Capitalism eith Chinese Characteristics, as they put it.

Which capitalism and march towards ordered openness is mind-bending to many compared to the way CCP used to operate.

Do real educated people who are not politicians even care about geopolitical issues like that? Everybody knows PRC government theoretically (they don't go there to actually enforce their laws anyway) considers Taiwan a part of PRC. Every educated person in PRC knows they can't just buy a ticket and travel to Taiwan easily. Everybody knows Taiwan is de-facto independent. So why does it even matter to anybody how is it labelled on a map?

I also doubt many would know and care about Tiananmen Square if the PRC government wouldn't be making such an epic performance out of the attempts to hide it. It sounds like every single person in China has to know about it to know they should never talk about it. It almost feels like they are intentionally drawing so much attention to it just to hide something else they actually don't speak about and nobody notices.

> It sounds like every single person in China has to know about it to know they should never talk about it.

When I was in college I spoke to a Chinese exchange student about Tiananmen square. They had a vague idea that something bad happened there, but they didn't know any details. They had never seen the picture of the person in front of a tank before. They had a belief that lots of bad things happened in China's past, but it's worth it because they are no longer poor.

There's a difference between knowing a subject is taboo, and having a real understanding of the subject.

> There's a difference between knowing a subject is taboo, and having a real understanding of the subject.

Doesn't tabooing something make it particularly interesting to learn about it? If I know about some mysterious bad thing having happened at a square nobody is allowed to mention I would hardly be able to resist curiosity, I would get interested about this topic above all other and find ways to learn as much as I can.

What if you knew that seeking that information would notify the government and could harm you, your family, and possibly even friends? Would you still act on that curiosity?

Yes. Cautiously.

Why? Are you a journalist? What will you do with knowledge of taboo events?

It seems you would risk much for very little just to know?

Not a journalist nor activist. I wouldn't even tell anybody but those who have earnt my genuine trust and want to know badly. Pure curiosity. What the heck in life can be more attractive than knowing a secret truth?

Most people would say millions upon millions of things are more interesting than knowing taboo secrets when people are interested in hurting you for it, and especially when the motivation is nothing more than "to know".

Perhaps, but I can't imagine any. By the way, did you know simply adding "banned" to a video title in YouTube immediately attracts more views? Banned commercials (I can't imagine myself voluntarily watching an advertisement if it was not banned), banned TED talks, books and movies banned in some countries (I've first learnt about some books and movies I've read/watched right from these lists). I probably wouldn't even ever try drugs if these were not prohibited (I'm not an addict but I'm really glad I had some psychedelic experiences and the ban was what made me curious initially). Of course this doesn't mean I would do something really bad like robbing people just because this is outlawed, it's more about knowledge and experiences. I don't know why does this work but knowing you are not meant to know something but actually can learn about it creates urge hard to resist and I only care to actually resist it when it's about other people's personal privacy or business ethics (so I never read other's emails although, being a system administrator, I can).

But I'm not sure what you're talking about are contexts where people think they're doing a banned or taboo activity.

Looking up a YouTube video on banned TED talks and etc sounds like a safe, banal activity one does from home. You can tell your coworkers, your friends, the police, and nobody will care. I would suggest that for the US, something taboo would be like talking about racial supremacy and eugenics.

But due to free speech rights and history, I'm not sure the US has something similar to a political or national event people can't talk about. I would also say cultural retaliation is different from government retaliation.

> Every educated person in PRC knows they can't just buy a ticket and travel to Taiwan easily.

I'm pretty sure they can just buy a ticket and travel to Taiwan easily, and that they're aware of that.

And no kind of political police is going to become interested?

Do you honestly believe that an American traveling to Iran, Turkey, Cuba or Venezuela doesn't face magnitudes more scrutiny from their "political police"?

Thousands travel daily between Taiwan and the mainland.

It's too common for it to be a meaningful data point. Taiwan was the biggest destination for Chinese tours around 2015.

I have heard that having a degree from a Taiwanese university is somewhat suspicious.

Interesting to know. Thanks.

If so, what other than lack of interest stops PRC citizens from learning about the Tiananmen square "mystery" when they travel to Taiwan?

Nothing. Why would you need more than lack of interest?

If there is no interest anyway, why make such a show out of hiding it?

You can't talk about it (in public) on the mainland. That's what's protected. You're free to learn about it, anywhere. Nobody cares.

But don't go talking about it in groups. That's how movements get started.

Put another way, "people vacationing in Taiwan" have no more than the background level of interest in the Tiananmen Square Incident, and that level is so low that it doesn't need to be suppressed.

Whereas people searching the internet for 6.4 or 天安门事件 can be expected to have a much higher level of interest in 天安门事件, and need to be suppressed.

2.7 million Chinese tourists visited Taiwan in 2017, mostly as individuals.

They need to get a special totally not a passport document in order to apply for something which absolutely isn’t a visa, but it’s not much harder than travelling to Vietnam.

The problem is the students are being educated and may not be aware of PRCs views on Taiwan or on the two countries histories.

Also, learning a language is more than memorizing phrases it’s important for the students to be exposed US/UKs (target demographic) context, which this does.

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