Letters and Blogs

Freedom of biased media

Comment on "German broadcaster suspends Chinese worker" (China Daily, Aug 29)

The Western media's so-called "speech freedom" enables the biased media to publish anything as long as it benefits their news agencies, disregarding whether it is the truth.

"The Cold War mentality, ideological biases, political prejudice, and sense of racial superiority - these things are deeply rooted in some parts of the Western world." The comment indicates wisdom.

Decades of containment has created a typical image of China in Westerners' impression which is hard to change immediately. So truth is excluded by those "free speech" advocates because it's not acceptable and beneficial.

However, the Olympics showed the world a true China, and more and more people could see with their own eyes.

yuan_zcen

on China Daily website

Children need understanding

Comment on "The value of life" (China Daily, Sept 8)

Having lived in China for 16 years, and being a regular reader of China Daily, I was stupefied when reading the editorial titled "The value of life".

Commenting on the increasing number of children who try to commit suicide, a phenomenon well-known abroad, and now appearing in China, the anonymous author calls parents and teachers to "make kids taste the bitter side (of life) as early as possible", to help kids "to accept the tough reality of life", and to adhere to the Confucian precept of "protecting even one's hair and skin from being hurt as a mark of filial piety".

The reference to Confucius is groundless: the great pedagogue spoke in a patriarchal society in which children were given the maximum possible care and attention, if not love in the modern sense. That is the crux of the matter.

In today's society, even the most loving parents and teachers often don't have the time or the knowledge necessary to cope with the ever more sensitive and complex psyche of children growing in an industrialized, globalized society.

Instead of criminalizing the children, and accusing them of lack of filial piety, the author should have stressed the need to defend children. Children need to be understood and helped to develop in all directions.

Let parents and teachers do their only duty: love them and teach them useful things, and not create for them superfluous "setbacks and sufferings".

Claudio Cervini

via e-mail

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(China Daily 09/10/2008 page9)