A Chinese kindergarten headmaster has had to apologize for allowing a pole dancer to perform on the school’s opening day. For some odd reason, she thought it was a good idea to have a scantily clad woman writhing around a pole in the school courtyard.
“American writer Michael Standaert, who is based in the southern city of Shenzhen, was surprised, to say the least, when he and his wife took their children to the privately run Xinshahui kindergarten in the Bao’an district of Shenzhen on Monday.
There, on a stage in the courtyard, in front of rows of children aged 3 to 6, all first-day-ready in pristine white shirts and neatly pressed black shorts, a woman did a routine that would not be out of place in a downtown strip club.”1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyTbe4RsSFE
If you watch the video above you may see some little boys laughing and swinging around each other or several mothers hurring out of the courtyard with their children.
“Who would think this is a good idea?” Standaert asked above one of several videos he posted on Twitter.
So before our kids got out of kindergarten for the summer, there was 10 days of military “activities” and displays of machine guns and mortars at the door; now the principal has welcomed them back with a strip pole dance on the flagpole bearing the PRC flag. She’s gone nuts. pic.twitter.com/BJr4UI6Oq3
— Michael Standaert (@mstandaert) September 3, 2018
After the videos garnered worldwide attention the Bao’an educational bureau called the pole dance “inappropriate.” And in a statement on Weibo, the bureau asked the owner of the kindergarten to apologize to the parents and the public and fire the principal.
Lai Rong, the principal, issued an apology, saying she thought “inviting professional dancers to the kindergarten to perform for the parents would liven up the mood.”1 Um, not the right kind of “mood.”
Lai told The Washington Post that she sent an apology even before the local Education Bureau got involved and said on Weibo that she hadn’t thought “…through the contents of the performance … It was a very terrible viewing experience for the kids and the parents. For that, I sincerely apologize.” 1
“The idea of having pole dancers or strippers at an event not usually associated with exotic dancing is not entirely new in China. In 2015, the Chinese Culture Ministry cracked down on the ‘bizarre and increasingly popular’ habit of having half-naked women perform at funerals, which was ‘corrupting the social atmosphere.’
‘Having exotic performances of this nature at funerals highlights the trappings of modern life in China, whereby vanity and snobbery prevail over traditions,’ the state news agency, Xinhua, reported at the time.
The practice appeared part of a tactic to attract more mourners to funerals, make the deceased look more popular and honour their life more fully. In flashy New China, it’s also become a way to flaunt newly acquired wealth.”1
China has a long tradition of entertaining mourners at funerals, going as far back as the Qing dynasty, established in 1636. Some experts say that having exotic dancers at funerals and weddings is a form of fertility worship.
What would you have done had this happened at your child’s first day?
