Beijing Newspeak

Unlike around 60 percent of China’s population I didn’t see CCTV’s Spring Festival Gala. But a few people have told me about a poem read out by children of migrant workers live on the program, which describes their struggle for schooling in the capital. “It is our mothers that clean Beijing’s streets, it is our fathers that build Beijing’s skyscrapers,” goes one line. The people who raised the gala item, a couple of them Xinhua colleagues, said they were genuinely moved to tears by the piece. In fact, the female CCTV presenter, who was jointly hosting the gala, committed the cardinal sin of live television and started sobbing. A story released by Xinhua gave the example of one man (a good friend of the journalist who wrote the article) being inspired to donate 100 yuan to the cause the next day at a donation point in a Temple Fair. Although it should be clarified the donation point was not set up specifically for migrant workers’ children.

My first reaction was to applaud the publicity given to this issue in front of an audience of around 700 million. Yes, it was a piece of propaganda. But it was another example of the problem of migrant children’s schooling being publicised through the state media, something which has become increasingly apparent in recent months. Take this article from China Daily for example, written by columnist Li Xing about the closure of Xingzhi school, one of the largest migrant kids’ schools in Beijing, which reaches the following conclusion:

“But to help schools like Xingzhi to grow and further develop, better policies are needed to address the current divide between the permanent Beijing residents and non-residents and between the so-called public schools and “private” schools, so that all children are able to enjoy free basic education wherever they live, even without permanent resident status.”

Then, another colleague of mine shed further light on the poem recital. She saw the same poem being performed by the same group of children wearing the same clothes on a Beijing TV channel at the end of last year. She picked out different lines from the poem, saying that the poem was quite sensational. “Beijing is not yours (city kids), it is ours!” and “You compare your parents with ours, we will compare our futures with yours!” As my colleague rightly pointed out, this kind of aggressive language emphasises a clear divide between migrant kids and city kids. She wondered what the children reading out the poem really thought about it and hoped they were not being manipulated.

It is difficult to comment properly on the poem when I have never actually heard it all the way through. And I wouldn’t be able to understand it anyway. So it may seem a bizarre choice of topic for a first blog entry. But this is an issue I feel strongly about, having followed it at Xinhua and tried to encourage reporters to cover it properly. We made some headway in the reporting of it last August only for a combination of a lack of bravery on the news agency’s part and the silent treatment from local officials to ensure the stories reverted back to vague promises on improving migrant children’s educational facilities.

The migrant children have read a poem on the biggest TV program of the year. They should not be asked to do it again. Hopefully, it was the kick up the arse the Beijing government needed and this year we will actually see some results.