While we’re on the subject of China, let me lighten up and bring you one of the many delights of my recent vacation there. (I really did treat it as a vacation, not my usual workation.)
In Shanghai last month, I got a glimpse of the engaging goings-on at one of the several Children’s Palaces established around the city to provide young students with enrichment in diverse fields. The Palace that my group visited was for those considered gifted in the arts.
Our tour guide, who had herself attended this school as a youngster, told us that one of the purposes of these institutions was to give regimented children, who are under great pressure to succeed academically, a chance to relax, play and socialize. But what we saw during our brief visit was not fun-and-games. It was serious, disciplined activity, particularly in the class that you’ll see below, conducted by Guo Zhong Chun, a former performer with the Peking Opera. (I follow that with two brief glimpses of a drawing class.)
Our guide also mentioned that voluntary attendance at these schools helps children “go to a better university.” In other words, just as in the U.S., “voluntary” enrichment is yet another aspect of the pressure to achieve.
We were also told that only about 10% of the students at this Children’s Palace would advance to professional schools in the arts (perhaps the baton-twirling boy in this video?).