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Many poor Chinese parents, as Going to School with Dad on My Back (1998) depicts, did not always have enough income to send their child or all of their children to school. Contrary to popular belief outside of China, in many villages parents are allowed to have more than one child [Note: see The Controversy, Complexity and Reality behind China’s One-Child Policy].

In the film, the widowed father spins a water bottle to decide which of his two children will go to school.  When the bottle comes to rest, the handle points to his seven-year-old son Shiwa instead of the older sister.

Thus, Shiwa wins the opportunity to earn an education due to the spin of a bottle.  He then starts the long daily walk to school and his sister remains behind, toiling in the fields. Eventually a marriage is arranged for her. The roads Shiwa walks are made of dirt and he has to wade across a river to reach the village where the school is located.

Unlike most Chinese films imported to the West that focus on kung fu, this movie shows the story of a young boy’s life in a poor village in rural China much as it remains today in much of rural China.

It’s no secret that I taught in California’s public schools in the United States for thirty years. In China, the children of poor immigrants leap at the chance to earn an education and work their way out of poverty.

However, as I can testify, in the US, most children from poor families do the worst academically. The difference is one of philosophy.

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy says, “A hallmark of Confucius’ thought is his emphasis on education and study,” something missing in Western philosophy.

In fact, I heard many American parents tell their children that if they didn’t like what I was teaching, they didn’t have to cooperate.

In the movie, the father places his hopes and dreams on the shoulders of his young son in this true story of family sacrifice and a father’s love.

This movie not only provides its audience with a close-up look at rural China but also how Confucianism works in the family.  I’m not going to give away the ending but I will say this much—what Shiwa does at the end of the movie demonstrates how much of an influence Confucius has on the Chinese family and the why/how of children showing love and respect to their parents.

You may be able to download the full film at Typepad.com. Other movies that I have reviewed that depict the value of an education in China are Not One Less and Mao’s Last Dancer

Return to Going to School with Dad on My Back – Part 2 or start with Part 1

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

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No country has built a world class, modern educational system over night, as you shall learn in this post.

Based on a true story, Going to School with Dad on My Back (1998) is an excellent film that accurately portrays the difficulties many children from poor families in rural areas of China experience to earn a meaningful education.

Most Americans do not realize that partly subsidized private schools in China, both in urban and rural areas, were not always free. Parents needed to pay a fee for their children to attend school as the father does for his son in the 1998 film.

However, China’s education system is evolving as public education evolved in the United States.

For example, secondary schooling in the United States started as an essentially elite pursuit, with a mere 2 percent of the population acquiring the equivalent of a high school education in 1870, the earliest year for which data are available.

Then from 1900 to 1996, the percentage of teenagers that graduated from high school in the US increased from about 6 percent to almost 69 percent today [the highest US high school graduation rate was 77% in 1969], which demonstrates that public education in the US evolved and is still evolving as it is in China. Source: EdWeek.org

In the movie, which was released in 1998, the father had to pay a fee for his son to attend the closest rural elementary school.  Today, paying a fee to attend school may not be the case. Starting in 2010, China implemented serious legislation to prevent any attempts by schools [private or public] to collect illegal charges. Source: Xinhuanet.com

Xiong Bingqi, the deputy director of a Beijing-based private non-profit organization on educational policy, noted that enhancing the quality of compulsory education would help put an end to charging school enrollment fees.

The University of Michigan says China’s “Compulsory Education law took effect in 1986 and made requirements and deadlines for the public to receive a free education. The law guaranteed school-age children the right to receive a nine-year education—six years of primary education, and three years of secondary education.

However, there are fully subsidized schools in China and partly subsidized schools, which means parents may be asked to pay a tuition fee and other fees [regardless of the law] required by the private schools that are partially subsidized. The partially subsidized private schools are an attempt by China’s government to increase literacy.

Continued on December 21, 2011 in Going to School with Dad on My Back – Part 3 or return to Part 1

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

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About iLook China