Good And Evil
One of the things that always drives me nuts is when I write something critical of China and a reader points out a similar example in the United States. Fine.
It drives me even nuttier when I write something critical of China and someone writes to ask why I don't write the same sort of piece on the United States. Hey, check out the title of this blog.
\Worst of all though is when someone tries to use a similar problem or situation in the United States to justify what is clearly a bad practice in China, as though two wrongs make a right.
But I could not help but compare and contrast when I read a New York Times story today about a middle school principal in Sichuan Province whose caring and concern and -- most importantly -- action, may have saved lives in the recent earthquake. This principal's school did not suffer a single fatality and this was probably due to his having made sure the school was as earthquake proof as he thought it should be, Beijing's weaker standards be damned. As he so perfectly put it: "If I knew there was a hidden danger, and I didn’t do anything about it, then I would be the one responsible.” The Yuan stops here.
Now the contrast.
My youngest daughter attends View Ridge Elementary School here in Seattle, Washington, probably the best, and certainly the best funded, public elementary school in the city. The other day, I was reading a Seattle Times article, entitled, "School's culture failed to stop abuser," detailing how a convicted child abuser had managed to get away with so much for so long. The article seemed to lay much of the blame on a principal who came across to me as far more interested in going along to get along than in protecting elementary school students from sexual abuse. I assumed this principal had been pushed out of the Seattle school system, so imagine my shock when I read this line:
"[Terri] Skjei declined to comment for this story. She is now principal at View Ridge Elementary in Seattle.
My daughter's school!
I was furious. Furious nobody had ever told us that our new principal had this history. Furious my daughter had been attending a school whose principal I now perceive to be morally bankrupt.
A few days later, we parents received a bureaucratic letter vaguely referring to a newspaper article, but not mentioning Ms. Skjei nor even that our school's principal had been in the article. The letter described View Ridge's well formulated protections against sexual abuse, but ignored how we had been deceived and made no mention of what we should do if we no longer wanted our children in the presence of this sort of person. It said nothing of what the school would do regarding future hires nor what we should tell our children about the moral fiber of their school leaders.
Fortunately, my daughter will be graduating from 5th grade tomorrow so I will never have to face having to decide whether to pull her from a great school she loves to one headed up by someone I can stomach. I feel for those left behind who now have to deal with a principal [and a school board?] who appears to me could learn a lot from another principal on the opposite side of the Earth.
Comments
Thanks for writing this. We should all try to spread the word on this.
Posted by: Jacquin | June 17, 2008 12:10 AM
God, stories like this freak me out. There are so many things in here that I don't get.
Like this: "The teacher was afraid she'd be forced to confront Hill..."
Why is that so scary? I've been freelance or close to it all my short working life, so I don't really know how institutions work. But this just seems odd and horrible to me, that you couldn't voice legitimate concerns.
And then this: "She'd seen three girls at a time tickling his stomach. She knew how he used to wear Speedos at the fifth-grade camp." Speedos for paedos? Tickling stomach? I guess that might be a bit inappropriate in our paranoid age, but this was camp, not school...
But if they seem like non-clues to me, I'm wrong, because he is a freaking abuser. The whole thing's just shuddersome.
Posted by: Phil | June 17, 2008 3:02 AM
Dan,
Wasn't the point of "First they came..." to showcase political apathy? I might be misreading your post but I didn't get the feeling that you intend to do much about this principal you're daughter has been fortunate enough to escape, but others have not.
Posted by: Tim | June 17, 2008 3:40 AM
Good job. Its great that you highlight people like this.
Posted by: Mark Varney | June 17, 2008 6:12 AM
"Worst of all though is when someone tries to use a similar problem or situation in the United States to justify what is clearly a bad practice in China, as though two wrongs make a right."
1. Its wrong to judge the pro-Chinese are not capable of understanding this "two wrongs don't make a right" concept.
2. I would argue that they should understand that this China Law blog seeks to be objective and respectful in discussing issues relating to China. The pro-China camp should learn to distinguish between media who borders exploiting hate and fear and those genuinely seeks understanding.
Having said that, I think a lot of the actively pro-China readers on the Internet are reacting this way because they feel China is wrongly and unfairly bashed by many Western media.
Sure, its media's job to be critical. But, mainstream U.S. media, especially, gets a free reign when it decides to bash China. For example:
"US and UK media practically lying about "boycott" of Olympic Opening Ceremony"
http://www.thechinesecentury.org/2008/04/us-and-uk-media-practically-lying-about.html
Sorry, didn't mean to go off topic. Back to the school principal:
It is indeed apalling that someone with such history is allowed to retain her job. Culturally, if you look at Japan - when a company is "disgraced", the CEO usually comes out to publicly apologize or resigns. What happened to the sense of shame and accountability?
Posted by: the Chinese Century blog | June 17, 2008 1:45 PM
Now that you have written about it. Hopefully the US government won't throw you in jail for this.
Posted by: Bill | June 17, 2008 4:51 PM
"Worst of all though, is when someone tries to use a similar problem or situation in the United States to justify what is clearly a bad practice in China, as though two wrongs make a right."
One thing I've noticed with individuals is that, in trying to develop an understanding of China (IE make sense of it all), people seem to move forward in stages - each time, using a different method of comprehension. The "relate everything to back home" one seems to occur very early on. However, this really only works well in the very beginning, allowing the most rudimentary understanding of things & events around you.
In fact, it doesn't take long before "relate everything back to home" starts to work against you. One of the most critical mistakes many newcomers make is failing to recognize the extreme differences between "here" and "there."
Posted by: roger | June 17, 2008 11:22 PM
I thought the post was great, and your blog generally carries very astute analysis of the legal environment in China. A great asset for those attempting to part the miasma that is the Chinese legal system. But, sorry to be completely nerdy and a nuisance, I have to point out that wouldn't the phrase "The kuai stops here" work better than "the yuan stops here"? Given that the term "buck" is a colloquial expression of the more formalized "dollar" denomination, the Chinese term "kuai" would offer more parallelism, no? Wow, I can't believe I just wrote an entire comment based on this. Apologies.
Posted by: Damien | June 21, 2008 9:58 AM
while I understand your concern I cannot help but feel that if your daughter's principle was reading this he/she might also share in your relief vis-a-vis her pending graduation.
Be that this is a China "Law" blog, I still uphold the "innocent until proven guilty" quib.
Posted by: randel_my_handle | June 23, 2008 6:04 AM
Dan,
As always, enjoy your blog. A couple comments. In response to the "US does it so why can't we" claim... I am the first to recognize that many pro-Chinese comments seem to dilute down to that argument.
But there are different ways of interpreting that argument. When I use the argument, I don't intend it to be a "you suck as much as we do, don't throw stones" moral defense.
When I use it, it's a plea for understanding that some issues are simply difficult to solve. If a wealthy, democratic, religious, open country like the United States have a persistent problem with resolving some specific problem, then it should be understandable if poor, authoritarian, value-free, closed country like China has the same problem.
Your principle, for example. I'd assume there are probably established elements in the teacher's union + school system concerned that exposing her this way to public pressure would be poor precedent, and potentially put other members of the profession in "danger". (Does anyone want a principal or teacher with a conviction for drunk driving? Sex in public?) And that same type of bureaucratic butt-covering, rather than any sort of authoritarian conspiracy, is responsible for much of the poor behavior in China (for example in Sichuan).
And in both countries, the tendency of the "system" to defend itself from criticism through obfuscation is difficult to eradicate.
Posted by: Tang Buxi | June 23, 2008 1:55 PM
By the way, a follow-up comment... my understanding was that seismic construction standards in Chinese schools are actually set at the provincial level, not national. I thought I had read somewhere that Sichuan standards were lower than other provinces in the earthquake zone, like Qinghai for example.
Posted by: Tang Buxi | June 23, 2008 1:57 PM
Damien,
You are absolutely right. I should have used "kuai."
Posted by: Dan | June 24, 2008 10:59 PM
Tang Buxi,
Nice distinction. I agree. TWO things drive me nuts. Chinese who justify/ignore clearly wrong China actions by pointing out how others do it AND Americans (and Europeans) who light into China without having any real clue where their own country is on the same issue and/or without realizing what it took and, perhaps most importantly, how long it took for their own country to get there.
That is why I so often believe Criticism of China should be tempered not with the excuse that it is okay to do wrong things because other countries do it, but with the excuse that in many respects, China really only got started around 20 years ago. In looking at most things regarding China we need to look at where it is today, where it was twenty years ago, and at what the trend is.
Posted by: Dan | June 24, 2008 11:05 PM
I understand your concerns and basically agree with you, but im sure there is more to this story than what was written in the Seattle Times.
Posted by: neil | June 27, 2008 1:55 PM