Chinese netizens are criticizing
the illustrations in a Chinese math textbook.
Some of them are gross
And others are just really weird.
Welcome to China Uncensored.
I’m Chris Chappell.
Finally, there’s been an outcry on the Chinese internet over something truly shocking and
horrible that’s been happening under the radar in China for a decade.
No, not that.
No, not that either.
It’s even worse.
It’s been discovered that the illustrations in a math textbook are “tragically ugly”.
Won’t somebody think of the children!
Even children themselves are concerned.
Mom, I’m telling you.
I’ve talked before about how these pictures are so ugly.
Can you tell the math teacher to change their textbook?
Sticking their tongues out, They’re all sticking their tongues out, Here and here.
It’s as if during class everyone is supposed to stick their tongues out.
(mocks) Looking at these pictures gives me nightmares.
Ok, I’ve heard of math giving people nightmares, but not math textbook illustrations.
This book is part of an entire series for grades 1 to 6.
They were published around 2013—which I hate to admit is nearly a decade ago.
Why did no one care about this for almost a decade?
I have no idea.
But the Chinese internet is now criticizing these illustrations for being ‘spooky’,
ugly, racist, and ‘exuding negative energy.’
Can someone explain to me why this girl has a tattoo on her leg?
That’s negative energy, right there.
But not just that, the drawings were also criticized for being pornographic.
This image shows a young girl tripping over a jump rope, revealing her underwear.
And another image shows two young boys inappropriately touching two girls, with one boy pulling on
a girl’s skirt while another holds a girl’s chest.
And this is from a math textbook?
Does 2+2 equal sexual harassment?
And on top of that, a lot of the boys are drawn with unnecessary detail around the crotch.
I guess this math book just subtracted too much from the pants.
In late May, the hashtag for “People’s Education Press Mathematics Teaching Materials”
soared to the number 1 trending topic on Chinese social media.
The People's Education Press is a large publishing house overseen by China’s Ministry of Education.
That means that for anything to get published, it has to meet strict censorship requirements.
But those censorship requirements are designed to screen out bad politics, not bad taste.
Hu Xijin, the former editor-in-chief of my favorite state-run media The Global Times,
has taken a stance on Chinese social media.
He wants an official investigation into those books, and demands the creators explain their
motives.
I get it.
There’s a lot to explain with weird illustrations like this.
But it’s not just that math book series that’s getting attention.
The issue has snowballed to include a bunch of other children’s books with questionable
illustrations.
Like the book series “A Lot of Strange Things.”
It’s meant to teach children about mysterious wonders of nature and life.
Which, judging from the book cover, should answer questions like “where do grandmas
come from?”, “what do dump trucks do with used confetti?” “is it ok to touch toilets?”
and “how should a young woman properly introduce herself to a penguin?”
But I don’t see how this illustration of a dog licking a girl’s butt explains anything
mysterious.
It really just raises more questions.
Like “who’s the weirdo that drew this in a children’s book?”
And while we’re at it, there's a 2012 picture book called “Sweat!”
.
Maybe it’s about why people sweat?
Well, here’s a picture from the book.
It’s two boys licking a girl’s arm.
One boy says “Sister, you are so pretty, what flavor is your sweat?” and the other
boy says “Oh, it’s also salty.”
Is this book saying that black people lick people’s sweat?
And why is no one asking why one of this girl’s arms is seven feet long?!
But believe it or not, what I’ve shown you so far is the mild stuff.
It gets worse after the break.
Welcome back.
There are some pretty weird illustrations in Chinese children’s books.
But in a lot of them, it’s the written content that’s more disturbing.
Like this one.
“The rooster said: ‘The master is such a bum.
I have so many wives, I can be close to whoever I like, and yet here the master is unable
to handle a single wife.
The farmer listened to the rooster's words.
He locked his wife in the house and beat her until she begged for mercy.
After that, the two were on good terms again, as if nothing had happened.’”
And in the bottom corner, there’s a line that’s...I guess the moral of the story?
It says,
“If the farmer’s wife weren’t so overbearing, she would not have suffered physically.”
The farmer and the rooster might look happy in the illustration—but I don’t think
the farmer’s wife is.
And then there’s the book “Innocent Mother”,
which was a part of the “Mo’s Mischief” series by famous children’s literature author
Yang Hongying.
In the book, the main character Ma Xiaotiao was very troubled because his mom forced him
to play the piano, even though he had no musical skills.
And when I say “very troubled”, I mean that in this panel, Ma Xiaotiao asks his friend,
“What’s the best way to commit suicide?”
And his buddy in the bowl haircut suggests, “Tie a rope around your neck and find a
tree to hang it on”.
Or “Find a tall building, flap your wings and fall down.”
This is horrible advice.
You know, I was going to make a joke about the best way to commit suicide in China...
but that’s too dark even for me.
Meanwhile, Chinese internet users have been complaining that other countries have nicer
text books with more beautiful illustrations.
Netizens have even been marveling at how beautiful Taiwanese textbooks are.
But of course, foreign textbooks are banned in Chinese public schools.
Doesn’t mean Chinese state-run media won’t use the opportunity to twist this public uproar
into something supporting the Chinese Communist Party’s rhetoric.
Hu Xijin said, “It seems that our education and publishing position has really been lost
and has been occupied by evil forces, and we need a decisive counterattack.”
And this article says it’s time to “sound the ideological security alarm”
because children’s textbooks are a “new battlefield for the West's cultural infiltration”.
Yes, that’s who we should blame for all of these terrible children’s books!
America.
That’s not a joke.
Some people called that original terrible math book “secretly pro-American.”
Because some of the kids were dressed in stars and stripes.
Chinese nationalists even accused the illustrator of being a spy for the CIA.
I mean, really?
That’s what the CIA is doing?
Drawing bad illustrations in Chinese children’s books that no one notices for almost 10 years?
But according to the Chinese Communist Party, this kind of “Western cultural infiltration”
is no laughing matter.
Because they’re going to conflate this “cultural infiltration” with what’s happening in
Xinjiang.
A place where the Chinese regime is justifying their genocide of the Uyghurs by claiming
that “school classrooms were a secret place where extremists looked to spread their dangerous
ideologies”.
They recently sentenced the former head of the Xinjiang education department, who’s
an ethnic Uyghur, to a suspended death sentence for the books he approved.
The Chinese Communist Party had approved those same textbooks for years—until they decided
it was too dangerous to allow books that included Uyghur history and culture.
And they charged him with “inciting ethnic hatred and ‘separatist thoughts.’”
That’s ironic.
Because here’s an example of an APPROVED Chinese textbook.
Called the Sparkling Red Star.
It’s based off a Chinese propaganda film made during the Cultural Revolution.
The story of a boy whose dad fights for the communists and whose mom gets killed.
So then the boy, who looks like an 8-year-old in this book, ties up the evil landlord and
douses him with gasoline.
And then lights him on fire so he can go off and join the revolution!
It literally says that the landlord loses his “evil, criminal life” in the fire.
Yeah, that doesn’t incite hatred.
It’s totally normal behavior for a child.
You know, there’s a reason all these kids grow up to be such horrible Communist officials.
So I think by comparison, a little arm-licking is not that bad.
It’s deeply weird.
But just not that bad.
But as I said, it’s not really about the illustrations themselves, it’s about the
politics.
Which brings me back to the original controversy about the so-called “tragically ugly”
textbooks..
The People’s Education Press made a statement on their official Weibo account to announce
they’re doing a thorough investigation into the matter.
And they’ve included a feedback email address.
I wonder whose job it’ll be to check that inbox.
The Ministry of Education also released an official statement.
It announced that after investigation, the People's Education Press has been required
to rectify and reorganize textbook illustrators to come out with new and refined textbooks
by September, 2022.
Importantly, they made it clear that these textbooks will “adhere to the correct political
direction and value orientation, promote the excellent Chinese culture, and conform to
the public’s aesthetic habits”
And that makes me wonder whether the Chinese Communist Party actually stirred up this controversy
in the first place.
They certainly didn’t censor it, because they let it become a trending topic.
And it just happens to be a great excuse to rewrite all the textbooks.
So get ready in September for a new wave of extra-nationalistic school material that your
children will have no choice but to memorize!
They’ll probably look a lot like these—You know, teaching children about “Xi Jinping
Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era”
You’ve got some important learning to do, kids.
And now it’s time for me to answer a question from a fan of the show who supports China
Uncensored on the crowdfunding website Patreon, or the exclusive social media platform Locals.
Ringleader on Patreon asks: “​​Hey Chris, If the Putin regime should collapse and the
government is thrown into chaos or a more western friendly leadership takes control,
do you think the CCP would be crazy/arrogant enough to try to take some of Russia's eastern
territories?”
Well Ringleader, so far there’s no evidence that the CCP has coveted Russian territory.
In fact, in 1999, then-CCP leader Jiang Zemin held a meeting with Russian leader Boris Yeltson.
It was a weird meeting.
And in that meeting, Jiang Zemin “unconditionally gave away more than 1 million square kilometers
of land in northeast China to Russia”.
But since then, the CCP *has* coveted territory north of the Arctic Circle.
If it had even one village that was technically part of China that bordered the Arctic Ocean,
China could call itself an “Arctic State.”
And that would give it leverage to control shipping in the region.
So I wouldn’t be surprised if we see some kind of deal like that in the future.
Why take over territory by force when you can just make a deal with a weakened Russia?
Thanks for your question, Ringleader.
And thank you for supporting China Uncensored on Patreon.
Be like Ringleader and visit Patreon.com/ChinaUncensored.
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Once again, I’m Chris Chappell.
See you next time.