介绍:
LW: A high school is using an interesting solution to what seems is a very specific problem. Now, Wu You, what exactly is going on here?
WY: The high school has separate[d] female and male students in the dining hall to prevent from feeding each other food. A red line has been drawn on the ground as a notice of separation: boys on the left, and girls right.
LW: Alright. So we have these two – we have boys and girls, they’re together, and what’s actually happening here is, the principal, it would seem, has decided to draw a line saying, “No, boys eat this side, girls eat this side. You guys are not meeting over lunch time”. Is that exactly what’s happening here, Wu You?
WY: Yes, it is. And also, do you know what’s the punishment if they sit in the wrong spot?
LW: What is the punishment if they sit in the wrong spot?
WY: So people who work as monitors in the dining hall will take a picture of them, and then criticize them in public.
LW: Criticize them in public?
BK: Yeah. That’s interesting, but not shocking. I mean, this is a place where, some schools actually post everybody’s class ranking in public there, so this kind of public shaming, if not public awareness of everyone’s standing, does seem to be a thing.
LW: I will say, seeing that sort of, public display of affection, it can be a bit sickening [BK: Yes], seeing people feed each other all the time, and making gooey-gooey love noises when you’re trying to eat your lunch, but does it really – is drawing a red line in the middle of the cafeteria, is that really the best way to solve that, [BK: Literally drawing a red line…] literally drawing a red line in the middle, is that the best way?
WY: Actually, the school says this is just in case of young love. And there has been situation that students who fall in love, they would eat together in the dining hall and they would feed each other, and headmaster of the school says they would remove the line if there was less young love in the campus.
BK: See, now my question is how much love is there in the first place, because I know a lot of Chinese parents actively discourage their, their kids from doing that, not that that necessarily stops them in all cases, but there’s that. And then furthermore, China is generally more conservative than the west or whatever, so I feel like there’s not going to be that many people who would not only date publicly, feed each other publicly – that’s a bit step too far. Now, admittedly, post-90 generation kids, they’re a little different supposedly, but still.
WY: But that go to the direction of puppy love and young love, should that be prevented in middle school. And people would argue that if this happened in a dining hall, but how can they really monitor the students outside of school campus?
BK: Yeah. No, that’s the thing here. They’re looking at this problem, which may be a big issue, may not be, and they’re just, they’re doing it in this one location. If they really want to cut down on dating, I guess, maybe they should forbid that, which again, I don’t think is – not especially useful or necessary. But again, I wonder: how often is this really happening, and how much of an effect is it going to have? It might just annoy people more than anything else.
LW: I have to concur with Brian to an extent here. I just wonder how many times were people actually feeding each other in the cafeteria before it became a problem. Before this extreme measure was taken – was this the first measure taken? Were other steps taken instead of it? Were the kids being addressed, saying why this is perhaps a little inappropriate? Which I can understand. I do think it’s somewhat inappropriate at the very least. I don’t think it’s – I don’t think it’s necessarily wrong; I just think it’s not – you know it’s – you’ve got to have some sense of decorum, you can’t, you can’t [BK: Decorum’s the word]. Yeah, you have to have some sense of where you are when you do things like that. How much, you know, will drawing a red line and then shaming the children, how much will that actually solve the problem, if in fact, if in fact it was a problem in the first place, Wu You.
WY: We can go deeper in that question. [LW: Oh by all means] So what is really the problem. Is it really simply for feeding the food? I don’t think so. It’s just the school is worrying about the kids’ studying [LW: Ah, okay.] So if it really affects the kids’ daily work and academic performances, that’s a problem.
LW: So what they’re treating here is a symptom, not necessarily the cause of the, the cause of [WY: Exactly] the phenomenon [BK: Right, right].
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