Officials advise teachers to help students "cultivate habit and confidence" while singing anthem.

Hong Kong officials have singled out at least two schools for singing the Chinese national anthem “too softly”.

Teachers at a third school have been asked to help students “cultivate habit and confidence” in singing it.

Hong Kong has redoubled the emphasis on “patriotic” education since 2020 when China cracked down on the city’s pro-democracy movement.

Officials said students’ voices at the Hong Kong and Macau Lutheran Church Primary School were “soft and weak” and “should be strengthened”. At Yan Chai Hospital Lim Por Yen Secondary School, teachers were told to “help students develop the habit of singing the national anthem loudly in unison”.

    • NOT_RICK@lemmy.worldEnglish
      57·
      5 个月前

      It’s not mandatory but yeah. Some dumb fuck teachers and administrators have tried to make it mandatory but the courts never agree with them. It’s a weird Cold War relic I wish would just go away.

    • Rimu@piefed.social
      19·
      5 个月前

      No one is keeping track of how enthusiastically they do it or writing official reports on it or encouraging more of it. It’s the interest the govt takes in it that makes it weird(er).

      • Revelrous@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        24·
        5 个月前

        Not that long ago in my public school the most I could get away without detention was standing facing the flag and not speaking -and that was only because my homeroom teacher was fairly lax and I was the only objector.

        Punishments for not participating were real and I can’t say the school wouldn’t have come up with a more formalized patriotism monitoring if more students rejected it as a movement. 🤷‍♂️

        • Infynis@midwest.socialEnglish
          15·
          5 个月前

          There are a lot of places in the US where ideas from the 1800s are still prevalent, because they’re so lacking in diversity that there is no one to point out the crimes.

          Growing up in rural northern Michigan, I wasn’t allowed to take the class our drama teacher taught about making costumes because I was a boy. That same drama department, for a production of West Side Story, got spray tans for all the kids playing Puerto Rican characters. They’re still known as one of the best drama programs in the area.

    • SOMETHINGSWRONG@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      14·
      5 个月前

      Lmao @ the Americans getting all uncomfortable trying to weasel out of this

      Yeah bullshit it’s “not mandatory,” how can you have such a basic denial of reality?

      Totally optional, that’s why every time some kid understands and abstains, the teachers and other students bully them mercilessly, give them detention, suspension, expulsion, and it makes national news whenever someone actually tries.

      I bet joining the NSDAP was fucking optional too, don’t try to deny your christofascism that everyone just accepts because somehow it’s better when America does it

      • YeetPics@mander.xyzEnglish
        9·
        5 个月前

        Idk, I didn’t stand for the pledge and they didn’t disappear me into a white van or exile me to Cuba 🤷

        Maybe, and stop me if I’m going too far here, maybe you weren’t aware it isn’t forced. That’s fine because now you’ve been handed a personal account of the opposite to be true, I’m sure you will reassess you stance 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

      • Riven@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        7·
        5 个月前

        Not all states or schools. At least my siblings and I never had to. We lived in 3 states and went do dozens of schools between the 4 of us.

      • explodicle@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        3·
        5 个月前

        My kids don’t say the pledge, they just stand there silently. I will Karen so fucking hard if they try to pull that shit.

    • TheGalacticVoid@lemm.eeEnglish
      11·
      5 个月前

      To add onto what other commenters said:

      1. It isn’t legally mandated, only customary
      2. If it was mandatory, such a mandate would probably be illegal
      3. Plenty of teachers and school officials (but not most) will be pissed/will punish you if you don’t do the pledge.
        • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
          4·
          5 个月前

          It really should be a slam-dunk. The constitution isn’t unclear about separation of state and religion. At all.

          I’m guessing the state knows this, but figured they’d get credit with the Gilead crowd for even trying.

        • littlewonder@lemmy.worldEnglish
          2·
          5 个月前

          A cool org like the Satanic Temple will ask that their own seven tenants be displayed as well.

          This will cause the Christian right to lose their minds. Who could have ever seen this coming? They will say that it will corrupt the children. They will not let the tenants be posted. Raging mobs of Concerned Christian Parents will yell at their school boards.

          Cue lawsuits from the Satanic Temple.

          Suddenly and quietly, the lawmakers realize that they haven’t yet broken the courts completely and they’ll roll back the ten commandments requirement. From the side of their mouths, they’ll blame the evil, godless liberals for the downfall of the US. You see, it’d all be milk and honey if we didn’t ban Jesus (you probably haven’t heard of him, right?) from the children.

          It’s the same song and dance every fucking time. Please donate to the Satanic Temple and/or the ACLU so they can continue to push back against this bullshit.

    • AmidFuror@fedia.io
      5·
      5 个月前

      To an extent, but you expect demands for hegemony from western imperialists.

      In the Hong Kong case, it’s the government - an agent of the people - which is just enforcing the desire of the people to praise the revolution. It’s not that the kids can’t sing softly. It’s that if they sing softly it’s because of the lingering influence of the colonizers. Therefore they need re-education until their minds are properly free.