Chinese children in palace of equality

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33712, 9 December 1974, Page 10

Chinese children in palace of equality

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TIM PEARCE,

N.Z.P.A.-Reuter correspondent)

SHANGHAI.

One of China’s favourite slogans is “putting politics in command,” an order which applies to factories, rural communes, building sites—and schools.

After 25 years in power, China’s veteran leaders believe the twin enemies of Soviet-style revisionism .and capitalism still threaten the system they are building, and their way to win this struggle is to capture the minds of the people x rather than simply control their way of life.

This is why the education system, besides giving an academic grounding, aims at turning every Chinese child into a good Communist who will hold fast to Chairman Mao’s revolutionary ideals.

Education has always ( played an important part in ( Chinese government, but . whereas in the imperial days , it was a passport to power ' and wealth through membership of the ruling bureauc- ' racy, today intellectual • talents must be used to ' “serve the people” with no thought of personal gain. One unusual place .where China’s children are prepared for a life of service is the "children’s palace” in Shanghai, a spacious mansion lavishly decorated in English country-house style. Formerly the home of a wealthy British capitalist, the ■ mansion was taken" over by the Communists and has , been turned into a training centre where abdut 2000 children a day take special bourses in a wide range of activities including sports, music and technical skills. DANCERS When visitors are shown around, groups of children are put through their paces while little boys and girls take each guest by the hand to guide them from room to room. In one wood-panelled room a group of future ballet dancers do their exercises at the bar, and then perform a brief dance ending with a dramatic pose signifying a revofeitionary victory, the Red Flag ; swirling overhead. Ih the main hall there is a performance by young. . gymnasts followed by a demonstration of wushu, the traditional martial -arts. Another group of youngsters practise table tennis under the watchful eye of their instructor, a reminder that Shanghai is one of China’s ping-pong strongholds, and these may be future, champions in the making. REVOLUTIONARY MUSIC Upstairs, a bevy of pigtailed girls bow their violins energetically while next door a confident young pianist dashes off a solo from the “Red Detachment of Women,” one of the dozen revolutionary ballets and opera whose music is politically acceptable in Chipa these days. In another part of the mansion, teen-agers work on lathes in a miniature factory, while others prepare medicines according to traditional recipes, butild scale models of ships, or work on technical drawings. Guests may also watch a puppet show, or see rows of young girls doing embroidery and drawing, always with an air of great concentration and diligence. Most significant about this "children’s palace” is not what the visitor sees but the rationale behind it, and this only comes out through conversations with the teaching staff. . „ Why, for instance, do all the young musicians play works from the limited repertoire of modem Chinese

opera and ballet scores, and apparently ignore Western classical music?

The answer, according to one music teacher, is that all music has a class content, and the class content of most Western music is not suitable for the children of modem China. “In Socialist China, children are moving ahead with confidence to build a new country, which cannot be helped by playing music like yours,” he added. A 28-year-old shooting instructor expressed the same thought in a different way. He teaches the youngsters to shoot “so they can defend the motherland when they grow up.” He went on to explain how education is changing in China today. Gone is the old idea that education was simply a process of acquiring knowledge, of keeping children in the classroom year after year, and turning out adults stuffed with theory but useless in practice. FACTORY VISITS Schools — and children’s palaces — are now ran the “open door” way, the teacher said, meaning that the pupils combine study with practical research and work in factories and communes, benefiting from the experience of veteran workers at the same time as learning the theoretical facts. The instructor takes his pupils on organised visits to factories, workshops and communes between shooting practices, to instil in them the awareness that they are part of a proletarian society, equal but not superior to peasants and workers. This process began during the 1966-69 Cultural Revolution and has received a further boost from the criticism campaign now sweeping the country under the slogan "criticise Lin Pao, criticise Confucious. Where education is concerned, the campaign aims to shake up the system by doing away with conservative and “Confucian” customs such as learning by rote, blindly obeying the teacher at all times,.divorcing theory from practice, and imposing too many "closed book” exams on pupils. OLD HABITS There have been many 1 improvemenu in the last few years, the teachers say, but there is still a dangerous i tendency for old ideas and habits to reappear, so there must be a continual process . of criticism, analysis and , innovation. I One subject the teachers

are shy of discussing is the question of how children are selected to take courses at the palace. This is the best “palace” in Shanghai, and there obviously isn’t room here for every youngster in this city of over 10 million people. The official answer given to visitors is that “most of the children here are from families of workers, peasanu or soldiers,” not surprisingly as some 90 per cent' of Chinese people can be flsed into these categories.

The real question is whether talented children are sent there for special training in their field, a natural assumption for an outsider to make, but one which the Chinese do not see in such clear-cut terms, as it runs counter to China's Communist philosophy. EQUAL SOCIETY The “theory of genius” or the idea that some people are bom with exceptional talents, is denounced in China as a concoction of the former ruling class. The "correct” position is that genius is formed through practice. Can a child choose which musical instrument to study, which sport to practise? Children are happy to do whatever the State needs them to do. If a child turns out to be bad at his subject, can he change to a different course? His teachers and fellowpupils will help him keep up with the others.

Behind the imprecise answers, it seems evident that children will serve the people best by making the >est possible use of their abilities and the “children's palace” seems designed to do ust that. At the same time, it is made clear to the children that being talented gives noone the nght to feel superior. Pride and selfishness are under constant attack here in the drive to fit talented children into a society of egalitarian ideals.