The RYB kindergarten abuse case has sparked rage and anger all across China. While police and local authorities are investigating the matter, netizens express their shock over the kindergarten’s intolerable situations revealed in several interviews and videos with parents.
Chinese social media platforms are flooding with essays, articles, posts, and images relating to this case.
Because the heated discussions have been met with wide online censorship, many netizens avoid using ‘RYB Education’ (the RYB abbreviation stands for Red Yellow Blue), and have started referring to the kindergarten as ‘The Three Colours’ (#三种颜色#).
Many Chinese netizens are also posting images of these ‘three colours’ in a circle; the core of the circle forming a black dot (‘black’ in Chinese also meaning ‘secretive’ or ‘illegal’). Some have started using this image as their profile picture on Weibo.
One essay that made its rounds on WeChat on November 24 addresses the collective indignation of many Chinese netizens – not just over the case itself, but also over the fact that interviews and articles on the topic have been pulled offline.
Here is a partial translation of this article*:
2017-11-24 Mo Yan
Yesterday, it was Thanksgiving Day in the United States. In our country many people also celebrated it. The big news that came out during Thanksgiving was the serious child abuse case at the RYB Kindergarten in Beijing’s Chaoyang District, in Xintiandi. This area is not far from my home in Beijing. We saw how the building was erected, and how they already started selling stocks at 7000 yuan [1060$] some ten years ago. The fact we had an international kindergarten stationed [there] was something that was promoted.
I could have never imagined how rotten this international kindergarten actually is – giving children medicine, injections, organizing naked health checks for the children, and making them stand and watch some “piston action” (damn, I can’t even name the dirty word here). This company was listed in North America; it was praised as “the New Oriental Kindergarten” by Xu Xiaoping; it was launched as an educational flower to the motherland!
01
Someone wrote an article on Douban [online platform], titled “Out Of All Child Abuse Cases, I Dread the One Where Parent’s Interviews are Deleted the Most.” In this article, the author writes:
“I would like to ask one question. Why would the videos of interviews with the victims’ parents be deleted, and why is it not allowed at all to discuss this matter on Zhihu [online discussion forum]? (…)“
This is what I also want to ask. The author is a dinky, he has no relations whatsoever to the kindergarten. My child is all grown up now, the kindergarten he went to was very good. The abuse of children at a kindergarten also has nothing to do with me. However, there is that poem at the New England Holocaust Memorial I sympathize with.
“First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”
Social justice needs to be protected by everyone. Anyone who stays indifferent because something is not a matter of concern to oneself is taking the side of the evildoer.
02
I did find the two interviews that were deleted online. One interview is that with a father, with a length of 4:50; the other is with a mother, with a length of 16:25.
In the interview with the father, he confirmed: 1. that some young kids were already taken to the hospital for medical check-ups and that they were diagnosed with anal fissures. They could not say what caused this. 2. that three small children were punished by standing still naked – two girls and one boy.
The mother who was interviewed was one of those three children who was stripped naked. It was also her child who was able to tell her this in a clear and complete way, exposing the incident.
It took place about two weeks ago. The child came home crying and said she was made to stand still as punishment. There was an ‘uncle’ who had threatened them: ‘If you do not obey, we’ll cut off your head and throw it in the bin.’ At that time, the child did not say anything about being undressed, and the mother did not pay much attention to the ‘uncle.’ The next day, the mom went to the headmaster, just hoping that the teachers would not punish nor threat the children. The headmaster flatly denied it, refusing to let the parent see video surveillance, and blamed it on the child’s wild imagination.
Then, a week ago, the child repeatedly talked about receiving injections. Perhaps it was because she’d been injected a few days in a row, that the child said: “Again, I am not sick, then why would they give me an injection?”
The mother asked the kindergarten about it, but they said there had been no injections. She asked her child again, and she said there was a physical examination. That there was a ‘grandpa doctor’ wearing clothes (..) and a naked ‘uncle doctor,’ and that the children who were picked were brought into a room by the teacher and were also naked while getting a health check.
Those children and the other children witnessed how the ‘uncle doctor’ did ‘piston action’ with a child. Perhaps the reason why she [the daughter] was not assaulted was because she struggled when they wanted to undress her, crying “don’t take off my clothes!”
The interviewed mother said: perhaps she was causing too much ruckus, and they lost their interest. The child later recalled (..) that it was the “mummy of the headmaster” who dressed the children.
There are no male teachers in the kindergarten. Then who are ‘uncle doctor’ and ‘grandpa doctor’?
03
That the Ctrip kindergarten articles were deleted, is probably due to the Shanghai Women’s Federation. That news about the Daxing fire news was deleted, is probably because of its large number of casualties. So what is the reason that news about the RYB Education case is being deleted?
(..)
If the little girl’s memories are completely true, the problem at hand is very grave. Then it would not be an individual action by a bad teacher – it would be an organized crime. Were those adult men free to participate in the “piston action” during those naked ‘health checkups’? If not, could we interpret this as some sort of commercial sex trade? And would the children, attending an international kindergarten with monthly fees of more than 5000 yuan [±760$], be their tools for making a profit?
(..)
04
Yesterday when I first started to see the articles on WeChat, some readers asked me to write [about this]. (..) This morning, I read a lot of media reports, including those from The Paper, Xinhua News, and other big media, and it made me really depressed. So I’ll write this for you:
“Dear readers, I really cannot write about the RYB Education kindergarten. First, there was Shanghai, now there’s Beijing. There are the persons in charge, and the headmaster, there are kindergarten teachers, (..), and now something even bigger has been exposed. The patterns of child abuse keep changing, and if we haven’t reached rock bottom then we’ll fall through the earth straight into hell.
So many comments have been written, it hurts. Every time we’re shocked, another incident blows up again. In the interview video, it was suggested that the headmaster couple had set up a unit for sexual assault (..) – of course, this needs to be determined by the relevant justice departments.
Perhaps it’s like ants trying to shake a tree, or like a cup of water on firewood, but I still want to call on the acceleration of legislation and the prohibition of child abuse. And to call for more punishment for sexual assault, and a reinstatement of the death penalty for criminals under these serious circumstances.
At the end of every sleepless night, there is always the next dawn. I can only support the children and their parents with my tears. Please forgive, because I really can not write.”
However, these unsophistication expressions and crude emotions were deleted within a second. I rewrote them from my memory. I re-wrote it three times in a row, and it was deleted three times in a row. Now, I cry as I watch the ending of the interview videos, and I also finish writing this article. As for the fate of this article, there’s no way of knowing.
After the parents jointly made their report to the police, the kindergarten (..) continued their classes and even organized a Thanksgiving celebration.
The Ministry of Education has already deployed and started a special investigation (..). The government of Chaoyang District in Beijing said that “if this case is found to be true, it will not be tolerated in any way.” Hopefully, the Central Discipline Inspection Commission can see this letter and do all they can to counter the toxic forces who endanger the physical and mental health of young children.”
By Manya Koetse
@manyapan
Follow @whatsonweibo
* To read the Chinese: (致信中纪委：红黄蓝幼儿园性“活塞运动”虐童事件，什么人的罪恶试图掩盖) [Letter to the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection: The RYB Kindergarten ‘Piston Action’ Child Abuse Case – Whose Crimes Are Being Concealed?], published on the xiaofuwang07 (零钱袋财经资讯) Wechat Channel.
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