(Sony A55, Polarised)
Summer holiday is a time when parents and their children take a breather especially because we have a hectic school schedule in Hong Kong. This is what made yesterday's scene frustrating and even saddening with 90,000 parents taking their babies and young kids to the street in protest of the government's bulldozing ahead the controversial national education curriculum to be put on "trial run" this September.
But isn't it natural for Chinese Hongkongers to be given some education about its own country? At the core of the issue are that, quoting the Financial Times, "course materials made available to schools include a teaching manual describing the Chinese authoritarian government as 'progressive, selfless and united' while assessing the US system as one that allows politics to disrupt the lives of ordinary people, and a prescriptive guide on how to be a “good child of China” that directs children to shout out in class: 'I am proud to be a Chinese'."
The curriculum will turn compulsory in three years' time, and non-Chinese Hongkongers are too required to take the national education.
(Placard reading, "Withdraw the Brainwashing National Education")
Meanwhile some supporters sitting on related committees have made comments including, "Problemtic brains warrant brainwashing, just as dirty clothes need washing and sick kidney requires cleaning."
The local Observatory issued a Very Hot Wather warning yesterday when the march took place. The government has so far not acceded to the protestors' demand to withdraw the curriculum.
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