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Death of college grad hermit reveals social ills
By China Youth website |
March 21, 2012, Wednesday
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Print Edition
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RECENTLY it was reported that college graduate Wang Xiaolin was found dead in his village home, having stubbornly refused to work for 14 years.
Wang was born in 1970, and used to be the envy of his village in Shiyan, Hubei Province, where in 1991 he became the first villager ever to be admitted to a college. After his graduation in 1995, he was assigned to teach at a polytechnic school. He was dissatisfied with the job, and 14 years ago retired to his village home, where he kept himself alive by surreptitiously consuming fellow villagers' farm produce, mostly raw. For two years he had been seen sleeping on a wood plank in summer, and in a wardrobe in winter.
This is a case of tragic proportions and implications, not just for Wang's family, but for our educators and society as a whole. Currently in China in about 65 per cent of all families the parents continue to provide varying degrees of financial support to their grown up children. An astounding 30 percent of adult youths essentially live off their parents.
Apparently the parents' indulgence and over-protectiveness prevent their children from becoming more independent and confident in their formative years.
Wang's death also dramatizes the failure of our educational facilities, which have degenerated into narrowly limiting establishments confined solely to the passing on of specialized knowledge.
They fail in larger purposes, such as developing the personality of the student and helping students adapt better to complexities of modern life.
Wang was born in 1970, and used to be the envy of his village in Shiyan, Hubei Province, where in 1991 he became the first villager ever to be admitted to a college. After his graduation in 1995, he was assigned to teach at a polytechnic school. He was dissatisfied with the job, and 14 years ago retired to his village home, where he kept himself alive by surreptitiously consuming fellow villagers' farm produce, mostly raw. For two years he had been seen sleeping on a wood plank in summer, and in a wardrobe in winter.
This is a case of tragic proportions and implications, not just for Wang's family, but for our educators and society as a whole. Currently in China in about 65 per cent of all families the parents continue to provide varying degrees of financial support to their grown up children. An astounding 30 percent of adult youths essentially live off their parents.
Apparently the parents' indulgence and over-protectiveness prevent their children from becoming more independent and confident in their formative years.
Wang's death also dramatizes the failure of our educational facilities, which have degenerated into narrowly limiting establishments confined solely to the passing on of specialized knowledge.
They fail in larger purposes, such as developing the personality of the student and helping students adapt better to complexities of modern life.
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