The Little Emperor Syndrome - a Myth in Guangxi, China

Day 4-

A view of the city from our hotel room in Guangxi

The curriculum for the English summer program in Guangxi has been  planned and tested many times before.

As volunteer teachers, we had some training on the curriculum prior to our arrival in China.  During these two weeks, the instructors need to follow the units and discuss with our teaching partners which activities would we use to teach the students.

Today's unit was on different foods and festivals. We chose to discuss with students the customs, traditions and stories associated with Christmas.


I brought some food from Canada for the students to try today. They all seemed to like what they tried. As for the Christmas songs, each class has been assigned to learn and perform a Christmas carol. Our class was given Deck the Hall as our song.

Students' name and academic scores are posted on school ground

We taught our students the song and explained to them all the words in the lyrics.   We sang and danced to the music and did Christmas crafts.

 The students really loved it and we had so much fun! Our laughter attracted a few Chinese teachers from the school; they came and watched us for a little while.









When we went to the school today, we saw some results posted on the school ground.

Winnie, one of the students, was very proud of her name being posted

Winnie, one of the students, explained to us what it was all about.

Each high school in China publishes the names of the honour roll of their students. Their names, along with their academic results are posted for all to see as to honour and encourage the student body.

Winnie proudly pointed out to us that her name also appeared on the board. When we congratulated her, she was brimming from ear to ear showing her pride for all to see.

Students enjoying outdoor activities on school field

For the past few days, we were thankful for rainy weather as it helped to ease the scorching sun and 30 degree temperature a bit.



This morning we took advantage of the dry weather.

Emily giving instructions for the game.

Emily, another volunteer teacher, planned a great game for her class.

I was glad that we could combine with her class for this outdoor activity.

We all know that Chinese students study very hard throughout the year and are under tremendous pressure.

We love seeing them having so much fun running around and chasing each other on the field.

Our high school volunteers enjoyed this experience very much

Kirito seemed to have recovered from yesterday's devastating news about his final school grades for this school year and he seemed to be better today. Ingram has an electrical bike and the high school student volunteers from our team were very impressed. They even asked him for a ride to get back to the hotel.

This afternoon in our English Corner we had a question on whether the students knew how to cook. Ingram told us he learned how to cook since he was very young. I was so surprised that a boy learned how to cook from a young age in China.  He shared with me that both of his parents worked long hours and he had to learn to be independent and look after himself at an early age such as cooking and doing other chores etc.

Evidently, he was not the only student who has to learn to grow up fast due to both working parents being away from home a lot. George and others also share the same experienced. I was surprised at what the students told me. This was not what we had heard in the west: China's one child policy has contributed to many Chinese children growing up as little emperors since each child is being pampered by six adults constantly ( the parents and 2 sets of grandparents).

I have learned during this trip that many things which the media feeds us in North America about China and its people are not always true such as Chinese children growing up with the Little Emperor Syndrome. We have not met one little emperor in this part of China on this trip. It is a myth at least in Guangxi.

That's why we love travelling as we can always learn something new while visiting different countries and learning about their cultures and ways of life.

R.T.
Guangxi, China