6 ms·

Hong Kong Backs Down on ‘Moral Education’ Plan

56 points by daegloe 14y ago

solox3 14y ago
Foreigners can think of this as "real-life SOPA", where not your speech, nor your online activities, but your moral values are being manipulated by what is being thought by others as "your own country".
- culturestate 14y ago
  > what is being thought by others as "your own country". Are you Hongkongese? I live in HK now (American) and am curious to hear your take on this and China's exertion of authority over HK in general.
  - solox3 14y ago
    https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Hong_Kong_Basic_Law https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Hong_Kong_Bas... The socialist system and policies shall not be practised in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, and the previous capitalist system and way of life shall remain unchanged for 50 years. This is clearly not happening. Socialistic ideology has crept up all around, and we have lost hope in restoring this city we once called home.
    - gurkendoktor 14y ago
      Even in Taiwan, which is still a de-facto country and not even a SAR, the media influence of the PRC is frightening. Just a few days ago, there were protests against a (pro-PRC) media monopoly: http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2012/09/02/2003541753 http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2012/09/02/20... ...but I doubt it'll help. At least I don't have to feel bad for the Taiwanese majority because they get what they've voted for.
  - meric 14y ago
    Biased television and newspaper media. government passing draconian copyright laws. moral national education. functional constituencies. corrupt heads of state. http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/f5055f20-628b-11e1-872e-00144feabdc0.html#axzz25vgWWJWN http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/f5055f20-628b-11e1-872e-00144... (accepting free private jet flights but only paying economy fares for them.) the candidate with most votes from the people have the least from representatives http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong_Chief_Executive_election,_2012 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong_Chief_Executive_elect... chinese influence on majority shareholders of radio stations; this one in particular is closing next month or so: http://www.dbc.hk http://www.dbc.hk, one of the major shareholders was even quoted saying "CCP wants to shut you down" (in chinese). http://www.scmp.com/article/1014470/politics-play-dbc-radios-demise-and-its-bad-news-press-freedom http://www.scmp.com/article/1014470/politics-play-dbc-radios... (scmp is one of the most pro-beijing newspapers in hk, but I couldn't find any other article in english; yes I was surprised to find this there, no the quote isn't in the article.) more information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pro-Beijing_camp http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pro-Beijing_camp (the most funded political party is the DAB, which is pro-beijing.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong_legislative_election,_2008 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong_legislative_election,... In Hong Kong, even though pro-democracy party has more votes than pro-beijing parties, they have less seats. Oh and just as a coincidence, today is election day in Hong Kong, tell your friends to vote! http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-19533116 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-19533116
taofu 14y ago
http://new.livestream.com/socreclive/8sep2012 http://new.livestream.com/socreclive/8sep2012 Live stream of protest outside government headquarters in Hong Kong.
TazeTSchnitzel 14y ago
It's funny, if it weren't for the "Hong Kong" in the title, I would have automatically thought this was about the US christian right trying to indoctrinate kids. Instead, it's the PRoC/HK government.
- mhartl 14y ago
  Of course, the Left would never use the educational system to indoctrinate kids. In fact, I hear that public education is a bastion of conservatism and that most teachers vote Republican (or worse).
  - TazeTSchnitzel 14y ago
    I never said that the left-wing wouldn't try to do such a thing. (in fact, the far-left routinely do, such as in the OP ;)
kohsuke 14y ago
I was educated in Japan, and we did (and still do) have the moral education as one of the subjects in the elementary school. I never thought anything of it until now, but I can easily see that such a subject would be highly controversial in the US or in Hong Kong. Just FYI, Wwat they teach you in that subject is more or less common sense stuff (apologize if you wronged someone, protect elders and smaller children, be nice to your friends, and so on), and the separation of state and church should still serve as a safe guard against introduction of any religious/politiacal topics. So it's not like you get indoctroinated, but then again, I'm not sure if I trust some states in the US to maintain that separation properly...
- learc83 14y ago
  >So it's not like you get indoctroinated, but then again, I'm not sure if I trust some states in the US to maintain that separation properly I'm not really sure what this article has to do with the US, but what you're talking about is not up to individual states in the long run. >separation of state and church should still serve as a safe guard against introduction of any religious/politiacal topics. How does separation of church and state prevent the introduction of political topics? > Wwat they teach you in that subject is more or less common sense stuff Most schools in the US have at least something similar, but how does that matter at all? Just because the US and Japan have something that could be called "moral education", it doesn't mean that something called "moral education" in Hong Kong would be similar.
  - kohsuke 14y ago
    No, the article has nothing to do with the US. It's just that it got me thinking because I live in the US, that's all. Wherever you live, you take certain things for granted. Being an immigrant, I've been interested in finding things that I took for granted, and this article helped me find one, that is the moral education as a teaching subject in school. And you are right, I take back the "political topics" part. I also didn't know that "most schools in the US have something similar." This is from a parent of a 2nd grader in California --- I guess I better pay more attention on what my kid is learning, eh? What is this subject called in the US? I'd love to find out more about what that teaches and what that doesn't. Wrt "not up to individual states", my understanding is that the states are responsible for the K-12 education curriculum, and so if there's moral education in K-12, I'd assume the state education board controls what goes in there. Am I wrong on this?
taofu 14y ago
I am a 16 year old, locally schooled Hong Kong resident. The rash implementation of Moral and National Education is but another attempt by the Central Government in the grand scheme of things to assimilate Hong Kong. Although the protest will probably succeed in stalling it, given its massive public inertia , such victory is short-lived. China will reclaim Hong Kong, no matter how vehement we protest . Deng Xiaoping's 'One Country, Two Systems' is the sole reason why Hong Kong has been allowed to escape the fate of its neighbouring provinces, and evolve into what it is now. According to Chapter 1, Article 5 of the Hong Kong Basic Law, the constitutional document of HKSAR reads: 'The socialist system and policies shall not be practised in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, and the previous capitalist system and way of life shall remain unchanged for 50 years.' 28 years has passed. The Communist Party of China (CPC) has already demonstrated that it will not lie dormant until then. Consider the 2012 Legislative Council Election, which is to be held tomorrow. It introduces the new system of 'Super Seats', where elected 'Super' district councillors' votes will count twice as much as their 'ordinary' colleagues. Thanks to CPC, pro-establishment district councillors' are likely to be voted in, and thus fulfill their function as pawns of the Hong Kong government in the legislative council, passing whatever law CPC desires. http://www.scmp.com/comment/blogs/article/1030842/electile-dysfunction http://www.scmp.com/comment/blogs/article/1030842/electile-d... For the past decades, Hong Kong has never been a true democracy. I fear my generation will fare worse.
- taofu 14y ago
  Excerpts from linked article: 'The [Hong Kong political] system ensures that every government-led initiative -- which otherwise would have been killed by democratically elected lawmakers in a separate vote count -- sails through the Legco without a hitch. As a result, our legislative and executive branches always march in lock steps. How is that for a separation of powers?' (How functional constituencies hinder the city’s path to full democracy:) 'Functional constituencies are the reason why taxpayers are forking out HK$67 billion for 26 kilometers of wasteful express railway, why the investigation of C.Y. Leung’s conflicts of interest in the West Kowloon bid was dropped, and why the government is sitting on trillions of foreign reserves and we still don’t have a social security plan.'
- Renaud 14y ago
tongue50 14y ago
The full name of the subject is "moral and national education", emphasis on the "national" bit. The NYT headline has since been corrected.
mhartl 14y ago
Faced with tens of thousands of protesters contending that a Beijing-backed plan for “moral and national education” amounted to brainwashing and political indoctrination... Do you find yourself reflexively siding with the protesters? Perhaps you have been exposed to some "brainwashing and political indoctrination" of your own, by none other than official American (or other Western) public education.
- crazygringo 14y ago
  Not really. For large amounts of people to get worked up enough about a proposed government policy to bother protesting in public, it usually means the proposed policy is really bad. People don't get off their butts otherwise. Good government policy involves enough stakeholders, and propose reasonable enough solutions, that there's no reason for protests. So while certainly not every large protest is 100% right, they usually do indicate a breakdown of effective processes for representative government, as applied to the policy area in question.
  - mhartl 14y ago
    Your response is a case in point. Your views on "stakeholders", your belief in "representative democracy", and your faith in the wisdom of the People are fully in line with the progressive orthodoxy that is the bedrock of Western public education. That doesn't necessarily make your views wrong, but it's unlikely that you were reasoned into them from a blank slate. It's more likely you came to them after a lifetime of exposure to a press and public educational system that almost uniformly espouses such views. As a thought experiment, consider what a hoplite educated in a Spartan agoge would think of your views. What about an aristocrat educated in Antonine Rome, or in France under Louis XIV? Would they share your sanguine views on the wisdom of the People? If not, why not? How confident are you that you are right and they are wrong, and what is the basis of that confidence? None of this is a defense of current Chinese government policy. My point is that using official education for brainwashing and political indoctrination is par for the course in a country founded on the principle of popular sovereignty. One consequence of this is that virtually every educated Westerner, including most readers of Hacker News and the New York Times, has been exposed to the same sort of brainwashing and political indoctrination decried by the protesters in the OP. One effect of this is a reflexive support of popular movements of all sorts without an appreciation of the potential costs of that support. Louis XIV might even have been sanguine, but his descendant Louis XVI would know what I mean.
robomartin 14y ago
I think that a question has been developing world-wide that remains without a solid answer: How do we, the people of this planet, evolve into a species that is free from the chains imposed onto us by governments? Now, I know that I am solidly floating on utopia here and that what I am thinking about might require centuries of change. No issue there. I just feel that almost every nation on this planet is enslaved, in some way, by its own government --whether put into place by the people, by force or inheritance (royals). I happen to think that most people on this planet are good people and that most of us want pretty much the same things: To live a good and peaceful life, have a family, provide for them and do the things we enjoy doing. Governments, on the other hand, are all about power and control. And they, invariably, take liberties that we, the people, might not want to take. They get us into wars and conflicts, they enslave people, they engage in genocide and they create antagonisms that might not exist. I am not so naive as to not understand that some people will behave badly. History is full of these examples. You take a country like China. Over a billion people. And a few dozen (or less) call the shots? Why? Take the United States. Do you realize that you can never really own your home here? Why? Property taxes. That's why. If you don't pay them the government can take your home away from you, even if you paid all loans and have no debt. Why is our government entitled to tax our homes? And why are they entitled to take our homes away? If you really think about it and make an effort to clear your mind of any preconceived notions or indoctrination it becomes clear that this is but one example of the lunacy that government has become. I think that humanity needs to evolve away from these systems if we are going to survive and thrive. Of course there are too many issues to even attempt to list them here. Like I said, maybe in a few centuries. John Lennon said it best: Imagine there's no heaven It's easy if you try No hell below us Above us only sky Imagine all the people Living for today... Imagine there's no countries It isn't hard to do Nothing to kill or die for And no religion too Imagine all the people Living life in peace... You may say I'm a dreamer But I'm not the only one I hope someday you'll join us And the world will be as one Imagine no possessions I wonder if you can No need for greed or hunger A brotherhood of man Imagine all the people Sharing all the world... You may say I'm a dreamer But I'm not the only one I hope someday you'll join us And the world will live as one
- mhartl 14y ago

56 points by daegloe 14y ago

Foreigners can think of this as "real-life SOPA", where not your speech, nor your online activities, but your moral values are being manipulated by what is being thought by others as "your own country".

culturestate 14y ago
> what is being thought by others as "your own country". Are you Hongkongese? I live in HK now (American) and am curious to hear your take on this and China's exertion of authority over HK in general.
- solox3 14y ago
  https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Hong_Kong_Basic_Law https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Hong_Kong_Bas... The socialist system and policies shall not be practised in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, and the previous capitalist system and way of life shall remain unchanged for 50 years. This is clearly not happening. Socialistic ideology has crept up all around, and we have lost hope in restoring this city we once called home.
  - gurkendoktor 14y ago
    Even in Taiwan, which is still a de-facto country and not even a SAR, the media influence of the PRC is frightening. Just a few days ago, there were protests against a (pro-PRC) media monopoly: http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2012/09/02/2003541753 http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2012/09/02/20... ...but I doubt it'll help. At least I don't have to feel bad for the Taiwanese majority because they get what they've voted for.
- meric 14y ago
  Biased television and newspaper media. government passing draconian copyright laws. moral national education. functional constituencies. corrupt heads of state. http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/f5055f20-628b-11e1-872e-00144feabdc0.html#axzz25vgWWJWN http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/f5055f20-628b-11e1-872e-00144... (accepting free private jet flights but only paying economy fares for them.) the candidate with most votes from the people have the least from representatives http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong_Chief_Executive_election,_2012 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong_Chief_Executive_elect... chinese influence on majority shareholders of radio stations; this one in particular is closing next month or so: http://www.dbc.hk http://www.dbc.hk, one of the major shareholders was even quoted saying "CCP wants to shut you down" (in chinese). http://www.scmp.com/article/1014470/politics-play-dbc-radios-demise-and-its-bad-news-press-freedom http://www.scmp.com/article/1014470/politics-play-dbc-radios... (scmp is one of the most pro-beijing newspapers in hk, but I couldn't find any other article in english; yes I was surprised to find this there, no the quote isn't in the article.) more information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pro-Beijing_camp http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pro-Beijing_camp (the most funded political party is the DAB, which is pro-beijing.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong_legislative_election,_2008 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong_legislative_election,... In Hong Kong, even though pro-democracy party has more votes than pro-beijing parties, they have less seats. Oh and just as a coincidence, today is election day in Hong Kong, tell your friends to vote! http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-19533116 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-19533116

taofu 14y ago

http://new.livestream.com/socreclive/8sep2012 http://new.livestream.com/socreclive/8sep2012 Live stream of protest outside government headquarters in Hong Kong.

TazeTSchnitzel 14y ago

It's funny, if it weren't for the "Hong Kong" in the title, I would have automatically thought this was about the US christian right trying to indoctrinate kids. Instead, it's the PRoC/HK government.

mhartl 14y ago
Of course, the Left would never use the educational system to indoctrinate kids. In fact, I hear that public education is a bastion of conservatism and that most teachers vote Republican (or worse).
- TazeTSchnitzel 14y ago
  I never said that the left-wing wouldn't try to do such a thing. (in fact, the far-left routinely do, such as in the OP ;)

kohsuke 14y ago

I was educated in Japan, and we did (and still do) have the moral education as one of the subjects in the elementary school. I never thought anything of it until now, but I can easily see that such a subject would be highly controversial in the US or in Hong Kong. Just FYI, Wwat they teach you in that subject is more or less common sense stuff (apologize if you wronged someone, protect elders and smaller children, be nice to your friends, and so on), and the separation of state and church should still serve as a safe guard against introduction of any religious/politiacal topics. So it's not like you get indoctroinated, but then again, I'm not sure if I trust some states in the US to maintain that separation properly...

learc83 14y ago
>So it's not like you get indoctroinated, but then again, I'm not sure if I trust some states in the US to maintain that separation properly I'm not really sure what this article has to do with the US, but what you're talking about is not up to individual states in the long run. >separation of state and church should still serve as a safe guard against introduction of any religious/politiacal topics. How does separation of church and state prevent the introduction of political topics? > Wwat they teach you in that subject is more or less common sense stuff Most schools in the US have at least something similar, but how does that matter at all? Just because the US and Japan have something that could be called "moral education", it doesn't mean that something called "moral education" in Hong Kong would be similar.
- kohsuke 14y ago
  No, the article has nothing to do with the US. It's just that it got me thinking because I live in the US, that's all. Wherever you live, you take certain things for granted. Being an immigrant, I've been interested in finding things that I took for granted, and this article helped me find one, that is the moral education as a teaching subject in school. And you are right, I take back the "political topics" part. I also didn't know that "most schools in the US have something similar." This is from a parent of a 2nd grader in California --- I guess I better pay more attention on what my kid is learning, eh? What is this subject called in the US? I'd love to find out more about what that teaches and what that doesn't. Wrt "not up to individual states", my understanding is that the states are responsible for the K-12 education curriculum, and so if there's moral education in K-12, I'd assume the state education board controls what goes in there. Am I wrong on this?

taofu 14y ago

I am a 16 year old, locally schooled Hong Kong resident. The rash implementation of Moral and National Education is but another attempt by the Central Government in the grand scheme of things to assimilate Hong Kong. Although the protest will probably succeed in stalling it, given its massive public inertia , such victory is short-lived. China will reclaim Hong Kong, no matter how vehement we protest . Deng Xiaoping's 'One Country, Two Systems' is the sole reason why Hong Kong has been allowed to escape the fate of its neighbouring provinces, and evolve into what it is now. According to Chapter 1, Article 5 of the Hong Kong Basic Law, the constitutional document of HKSAR reads: 'The socialist system and policies shall not be practised in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, and the previous capitalist system and way of life shall remain unchanged for 50 years.' 28 years has passed. The Communist Party of China (CPC) has already demonstrated that it will not lie dormant until then. Consider the 2012 Legislative Council Election, which is to be held tomorrow. It introduces the new system of 'Super Seats', where elected 'Super' district councillors' votes will count twice as much as their 'ordinary' colleagues. Thanks to CPC, pro-establishment district councillors' are likely to be voted in, and thus fulfill their function as pawns of the Hong Kong government in the legislative council, passing whatever law CPC desires. http://www.scmp.com/comment/blogs/article/1030842/electile-dysfunction http://www.scmp.com/comment/blogs/article/1030842/electile-d... For the past decades, Hong Kong has never been a true democracy. I fear my generation will fare worse.

taofu 14y ago
Excerpts from linked article: 'The [Hong Kong political] system ensures that every government-led initiative -- which otherwise would have been killed by democratically elected lawmakers in a separate vote count -- sails through the Legco without a hitch. As a result, our legislative and executive branches always march in lock steps. How is that for a separation of powers?' (How functional constituencies hinder the city’s path to full democracy:) 'Functional constituencies are the reason why taxpayers are forking out HK$67 billion for 26 kilometers of wasteful express railway, why the investigation of C.Y. Leung’s conflicts of interest in the West Kowloon bid was dropped, and why the government is sitting on trillions of foreign reserves and we still don’t have a social security plan.'
Renaud 14y ago

tongue50 14y ago

The full name of the subject is "moral and national education", emphasis on the "national" bit. The NYT headline has since been corrected.

mhartl 14y ago

Faced with tens of thousands of protesters contending that a Beijing-backed plan for “moral and national education” amounted to brainwashing and political indoctrination... Do you find yourself reflexively siding with the protesters? Perhaps you have been exposed to some "brainwashing and political indoctrination" of your own, by none other than official American (or other Western) public education.

crazygringo 14y ago
Not really. For large amounts of people to get worked up enough about a proposed government policy to bother protesting in public, it usually means the proposed policy is really bad. People don't get off their butts otherwise. Good government policy involves enough stakeholders, and propose reasonable enough solutions, that there's no reason for protests. So while certainly not every large protest is 100% right, they usually do indicate a breakdown of effective processes for representative government, as applied to the policy area in question.
- mhartl 14y ago
  Your response is a case in point. Your views on "stakeholders", your belief in "representative democracy", and your faith in the wisdom of the People are fully in line with the progressive orthodoxy that is the bedrock of Western public education. That doesn't necessarily make your views wrong, but it's unlikely that you were reasoned into them from a blank slate. It's more likely you came to them after a lifetime of exposure to a press and public educational system that almost uniformly espouses such views. As a thought experiment, consider what a hoplite educated in a Spartan agoge would think of your views. What about an aristocrat educated in Antonine Rome, or in France under Louis XIV? Would they share your sanguine views on the wisdom of the People? If not, why not? How confident are you that you are right and they are wrong, and what is the basis of that confidence? None of this is a defense of current Chinese government policy. My point is that using official education for brainwashing and political indoctrination is par for the course in a country founded on the principle of popular sovereignty. One consequence of this is that virtually every educated Westerner, including most readers of Hacker News and the New York Times, has been exposed to the same sort of brainwashing and political indoctrination decried by the protesters in the OP. One effect of this is a reflexive support of popular movements of all sorts without an appreciation of the potential costs of that support. Louis XIV might even have been sanguine, but his descendant Louis XVI would know what I mean.

robomartin 14y ago

I think that a question has been developing world-wide that remains without a solid answer: How do we, the people of this planet, evolve into a species that is free from the chains imposed onto us by governments? Now, I know that I am solidly floating on utopia here and that what I am thinking about might require centuries of change. No issue there. I just feel that almost every nation on this planet is enslaved, in some way, by its own government --whether put into place by the people, by force or inheritance (royals). I happen to think that most people on this planet are good people and that most of us want pretty much the same things: To live a good and peaceful life, have a family, provide for them and do the things we enjoy doing. Governments, on the other hand, are all about power and control. And they, invariably, take liberties that we, the people, might not want to take. They get us into wars and conflicts, they enslave people, they engage in genocide and they create antagonisms that might not exist. I am not so naive as to not understand that some people will behave badly. History is full of these examples. You take a country like China. Over a billion people. And a few dozen (or less) call the shots? Why? Take the United States. Do you realize that you can never really own your home here? Why? Property taxes. That's why. If you don't pay them the government can take your home away from you, even if you paid all loans and have no debt. Why is our government entitled to tax our homes? And why are they entitled to take our homes away? If you really think about it and make an effort to clear your mind of any preconceived notions or indoctrination it becomes clear that this is but one example of the lunacy that government has become. I think that humanity needs to evolve away from these systems if we are going to survive and thrive. Of course there are too many issues to even attempt to list them here. Like I said, maybe in a few centuries. John Lennon said it best: Imagine there's no heaven It's easy if you try No hell below us Above us only sky Imagine all the people Living for today... Imagine there's no countries It isn't hard to do Nothing to kill or die for And no religion too Imagine all the people Living life in peace... You may say I'm a dreamer But I'm not the only one I hope someday you'll join us And the world will be as one Imagine no possessions I wonder if you can No need for greed or hunger A brotherhood of man Imagine all the people Sharing all the world... You may say I'm a dreamer But I'm not the only one I hope someday you'll join us And the world will live as one

mhartl 14y ago