This is another official update to the original Shift Happens video. This completely new Fall 2009 version includes facts and stats focusing on the changing media landscape, including convergence and technology, and was developed in partnership with The Economist. For more information, or to join the conversation, please link here or here. // AjS
:: taken at a middle school in Chuzhou, a small town in Anhui province. The first photo below is the wall that surrounds the school’s running track; 人人都说普通话 means “everyone speaks Mandarin.” The second photo is of two classroom doors. The door on the right reads 请说普通话 with pinyin (QING SHUO PUTONGHUA) for standard pronunciation, meaning “please speak Mandarin.” The door on the left reads 请写规范, meaning “please write standard (Chinese) characters.” The third and forth pictures are just close ups of the second.
I am glad to see educators in lower-tier Chinese cities at least making an effort to push Mandarin. I’ve spend some time at middle and high schools in Shanghai where Mandarin still seems to only be an occasional thing. Sigh. // AjS
:: when people ask me what China is like, I inevitably end up touching on how important education is to the Chinese. It really is recession proof. I usually talk a little bit about the imperial examination system (科举) and its eventual evolution into the modern national examination system (高考). It is the single democratizing factor for all 1.3+ billion Chinese -– the one way that anyone could theoretically study his or her way to the top.
In the future, I am just going to show them the below picture. If you look closely, you can see two young boys riding a zipline over a river in Yunnan as part of their daily commute to school. Talk about a surefire way to wake yourself up for morning classes. //
[ is a guest contributor on 56minus1.]
:: this video is the seventh in a Danwei.org series of short interviews conducted at this year’s Chinese blogger conference (cnbloggercon 2008, Guangzhou, November 15 & 16th).
In this interview, Shi Feng (石峰), a drop out from one of China’s most prestigious universities turned blogger, talks about the growing rift between education and social needs / society in China, and calls for everyone to participate in a transformation of China’s education system.
This video is also available on Tudou for faster loading in China.
To see other interviews from this series, link here.
Filming, editing, and interviewing: Adam J. Schokora
Subtitles: Alice Liu
Music: B6
