Hong Kong officials have singled out at least two schools for singing the Chinese national anthem “too softly”.
Teachers at a third school have been asked to help students “cultivate habit and confidence” in singing it.
Hong Kong has redoubled the emphasis on “patriotic” education since 2020 when China cracked down on the city’s pro-democracy movement.
Officials said students’ voices at the Hong Kong and Macau Lutheran Church Primary School were “soft and weak” and “should be strengthened”. At Yan Chai Hospital Lim Por Yen Secondary School, teachers were told to “help students develop the habit of singing the national anthem loudly in unison”.
You could have asked… I mean, you were in a building staffed with people paid to answer questions and inform you about the world.
Most of the staff likely would have told me that it is mandatory. There are news stories all the time about kids being bullied, given detention, and other negative repercussions, for exercising their right to not say the pledge.
The small school I taught at said the pledge every day, but the principal did regularly announce to everyone present that they don’t have to say it (but they did have to be there for it)
High, high chance they wouldn’t have been encouraging. Reasons include their personal political beliefs and the fact they tend to care more about parent reactions than students, because guess which group they’re on equal footing with?
I swear to Charles Darwin himself, they will get so much more reaction out of me if they try to force my kids recite that bullshit. (They currently stand there silently)