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Attacker Invades Hubei Elementary School Killing 3 On 1st Day of Class [UPDATED]

Posted: 09/1/2014 3:42 pm

hubei school stabbings [This post contains graphic images that may be upsetting to some readers.]

It is an ominous start to the new school year.

A man charged into an elementary school in Hubei Province on the first day of classes today and attacked students and faculty with a knife, killing three children and leaving six others injured, including a teacher, reports CCTV.

The assailant used a knife to attack a total of nine people. In addition to the three fatalities, six people have been injured. Five of the injured are students, and one is a teacher named Liu Hongqing.

Two of the students are in serious condition. The victims have been moved to hospital for medical treatment.

The attack happened at 10:40 this morning at the Yanxi County East Elementary School. Following the attacks, the suspect, identified as Chen, committed suicide by jumping off the roof of the school building.

A parent named Li Zhiguo said her ten year-old daughter was attending her fifth grade class when she was attacked. Li’s daughter sat in the desk in the second last row next to the window. The assailant didn’t even enter the class to attack his victims, but used his knife to slash through the window, injuring Li’s daughter’s face.

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UPDATED 4:51pm September 1: According to a preliminary investigation, the discovered why Chen used a knife to kills and injure so many schoolchildren is because his own daughter was not allowed to enroll for class today because she had not completed her assignments from summer holiday, reports the Foshan Daily.

Chen is now said to have specifically come to the fifth grade class of the school to attack its students and teacher with a fruit knife.

Photos: Weibo (2), CCTV

Haohao

Hotels And Universities In List Of Guangzhou’s Unsafe Public Pools

Posted: 08/5/2014 2:36 pm

swimming poolSome folks like to ease their way into a pool bit by bit, but you may not even want to dip your toe in when you hear this news: over 30% of Guangzhou’s public pools do not meet public safety criteria.

The Guangzhou Department of Health posted its results after testing city pools in May and June. Of the 366 pools tested, 254 passed regulations and have good water quality. However, 112 pools, or 30.6% of the total, do not comply with city regulations, reports Guangzhou Live. The report, unfortunately, does not name all of the unsafe pools, but it does mention a couple of them.

There are seven Guangzhou universities that have public pools with unsafe water quality: Huanan Normal University, Guangzhou University, Huanan Engineering University, Guangzhou Art College, Guangdong Engineering College, Guangzhou Chinese Medical University, and Sun Yat-Sen University. Furthermore, all of these pools save for the first two (Huanan Normal University and Guangzhou University) have been on the city’s blacklist for years.

Guangzhou hotels with unsafe pools include Guangzhou Haili Garden Hotel, Guangzhou Ramada Pearl Hotel, Guangdong Xingang Pearl Hotel, Guangzhou Chateau Star River Hotel, and Guangdong Victor Hotel.

As well, Guangzhou public school pools with dangerous water include Haizhu District Nanwu Experimental School, No. 6 Middle Dchool, Huangpu District No. 86 Middle School, and Nansha No. 1 Middle School.

The top three contaminants are urine, bacteria, and chlorine particles.

Photo: Guangzhou Live

Haohao

Teacher Slaps Guangdong Kid in Math Class, Killing Him

Posted: 06/25/2014 7:22 pm

A 13 year-old student in Zhanjiang, Guangdong is dead after having being struck by his teacher during math class, reported Southern Metropolis Report.

Huang, a fourth-year elementary school student, was attending math class on the morning of June 23 at the Jijia Central County Elementary School in the village of Lingwei. According to Huang Jizhang, a cadre committee member for North Lingwei Village, students in the class said Huang was causing a disturbance with a fellow student.

Mr Chen, the teacher of the math class, became very angry with Huang and struck the back of his head. Students say they saw blood coming out from Huang’s mouth, and he suddenly fell to the ground, unconscious.

Huang was taken to the Jijia County Health Center for emergency treatment. However, Huang was pronounced dead by the time relatives arrived. The parents, in disbelief, sent Huang to another hospital to get a second opinion, but the new doctors reached the same conclusion.

Chen Ze, the principal of the Jijia Central County Elementary School, confirms Chen has been taken into police custody for questioning.

The report does not specifically state the cause of death.

Photo: Omsi

Haohao

Elementary School Attacker in Hubei Shot Dead by Police [UPDATE]

Posted: 06/10/2014 3:22 pm

hubei school kidnapping A person who had taken a hostage at a Hubei elementary school has been shot dead by police, reports China Daily.

According to the Chutian Metropolis Report, a person forcibly entered the campus of the No. 3 elementary school in Haokou County, City of Qianjiang, Hubei Province this morning and took a teacher hostage.

The suspect was reportedly shot four times. The teacher is said to have not sustained any injuries. A search of the suspect revealed he or she was in possession of knives, gasoline, and explosive devices.

CCTV reports the attacker may have left explosives behind in the school.

Students and staff have been evacuated as police continue their search of the campus.

UPDATE 7:01pm May 6: The suspect who attempted to take a classroom of elementary school students hostage at the No. 3 elementary school has been identified as 57 year-old Zhang X.

Zhang was having a dispute with the Xuqiao Village committee member Mr Xu over the compensation from land requisition and new residence provided in this exchange. Mr Xu’s grandson attends this elementary school and is a member of the class that was taken hostage, reports Yangcheng Evening Report.

Zhang had reportedly come to the classroom of 50 schoolchildren carrying an explosive device that he intended to set off. The class teacher and a deputy secretary are said to have volunteered to act as hostages in exchange for the students’ freedom.

When negotiations broke down, Zhang had supposedly poured gasoline on the hostage and was shot dead by police, reports CCTV.

Zhang is a retired soldier who is described as having been sent to a prison camp.

hubei school kidnappinghubei school kidnappinghubei school kidnapping

Photos: Southern Metropolis Daily via Weibo

 

Haohao

Parents Block Traffic To Ensure Students Can Take Gaokao in Silence

Posted: 06/9/2014 5:38 pm

nanjing block traffic exam

The gaokao is nothing short of being the most important moment in a young person’s life. And as desperate times call for desperate actions, parents with only the purest of intentions have taken the extraordinary step of blocking the traffic outside a school in Nanjing, Jiangsu to ensure silence where an English listening examination is taking place, reports Nanfang Daily Report.

A full half hour before the exam began on June 8, parents blocked traffic in front of the No. 9 Nanjing Middle School as media and police looked on. Parents stood in the middle of the road and prevented any motorbikes, electric bikes or bicycles from passing through.

READ: Guangzhou, Shenzhen Gaokao Applicants Sent Off
With Emotion and Pageantry

The parents asked each of the cyclists to take an alternate route, but some of the drivers didn’t take kindly to the inconvenience as several disputes broke out, surely breaking the silence that the parents had intended.

We’ve heard a lot of wild gaokao examination stories lately: students arriving late in Jinan and Hangzhou and forced to take the exam next year; parents blocking an examiner’s car in Zhengzhou because he dared to use his horn when he was late; and, of course, lots and lots of qipao. But this is the one that shows the gaokao is a total family affair.

No words as to whether the tactic aided the gaokao-taking students, nor whether the resultant noise from the arguing disturbed anyone.

nanjing block traffic examnanjing block traffic exam

nanjing block traffic exam

nanjing block traffic exam

The sign above reads:

English listening exam for the next 15 minutes; please find another route, thank you

Photos: 163

Haohao

Shenzhen sets out to improve students’ character, not just test scores

Posted: 01/13/2014 1:00 pm

The Shenzhen Municipal Education Bureau announced last week that it has produced draft of regulations titled “On Improving the All-around Character Development of Primary and Middle School Students.” The draft, the first of its kind in China, is to be submitted for public opinion, Shenzhen Economic Daily reports.

The draft calls for the city to educate children to be suited to the “modern, globalised, information age.” It outlines three main ways of going about doing this, all of which are somewhat vague. The first is to “further enhance students’ roundedness.” The second is to make sure that students can do key tasks well. The third is to “protect and further enhance the conditions” in which students are educated.

Under the subheading “What kind of students do Shenzhen’s primary and middle schools want to raise?” the report stresses “Everything is about the healthy raising of students.” It says it wants Shenzhen to produce students who “love to study, love to work, love their Motherland, are healthy in mind and body, have a rounded personality, have a strong sense of social responsibility, can adapt in a globalised world, have a spirit of innovation, and have essential practical life skills.”

It has long been agreed that the exam-orientated approach to education that is currently prevalent in China has its limitations. But this report does not appear to have yet outlined many specific policy and curriculum changes that will come into Shenzhen’s schools.

It is even slightly reminiscent of this parody of U.K. opposition leader Ed Miliband in which he is quoted as telling his supporters in a speech: “There should be more good things and less bad things.”

If an earlier report is anything to go by, a huge part of the new approach to educating the young, will be the scrapping of written homework for primary school students.

Haohao

Guangzhou rolls out mistress-reduction program

Posted: 04/4/2011 9:19 am

It’s a complicated social phenomena, and not just here in China: women dating rich (and sometimes married) men, just because they have a fat wallet.

But while all countries have been dealing with this issue since practically the start of time, it seems so much more pronounced in China that Guangzhou is instituting a pilot program inside its schools to dissuade girls from becoming mistresses.

From the China Daily:

Girls in South China’s Guangdong province will get a crash course on how to resist the sweet talk of “sugar daddies” when schools start teaching them about self-respect.

The pilot project is aimed at telling girls at middle and elementary schools how to avoid falling into the clutches of older, richer men and stand on their own two feet.

“The education will focus on self-esteem, self-confidence, self-reliance and self-improvement,” said Lei Yulan, vice-governor of Guangdong and director of the Working Committee on Children and Women of Guangdong province.

“We hope to get experience from this pilot program and then gradually roll it out across the province.”

She revealed the plan at a symposium on Monday where Miao Meixian, the former principal of Guangdong Female Technical Secondary School, criticized the phenomenon that has seen many female college students and graduates become mistresses or marry sugar daddies and become full-time housewives.

Miao said the young women were settling for such a life in part because of deficiencies and failures in the education of girls.

Not everyone is a fan of the project, however, believing it could have some unintended side effects:

….some students argued that exposing children to such topics too soon could bring more risks than benefits.

“Mentioning such topics as marrying rich men or being a mistress may suggest ideas to young girls that they had not thought about,” said Shen Xiaoqing, an 18-year-old female student at Guangzhou Zhixin Middle School.

Some experts also said such a program is unlikely to dissuade people from marrying for money.

“Wanting to rely on rich men is a complicated social phenomenon caused by various factors and it is improper to attribute it to personal immorality,” said Li Xia, an anthropologist working in women’s studies and a senior editor at the Commercial Press.

One colleagues’ take on the matter is that doing the so-called “right thing” in China, such as going to university, working hard, and then entering the workplace often doesn’t result in success (or happiness) in such a corrupt and imbalanced society. The result being that some women decide they can get further ahead taking a different path.

Some argue as China continues to develop and spread the wealth around, fewer women will either want or need to rely on men to achieve their personal goals.

Of course, others would also argue there is nothing wrong with being a mistress at all.

 

Haohao
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