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”.

  • AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    The Pledge of Allegiance has entered the chat.

    I’m aware it isn’t mandatory, but no one made that clear to me when I was a kid.

        • explodicle@sh.itjust.works
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          4 months ago

          I believe so too. I’ve instructed my children to not recite the pledge (because atheism), and will absolutely make this my hill to die on. It’s bad enough we’ve got money with that bullshit on it.

          It’s a stupid brainwashed idiot country and this shit drives me nuts.

    • Sigilos@ttrpg.network
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      4 months ago

      I live in New York, one of the most northern and blue states around, and have my entire life. In 7th grade I decided I didn’t like saying the Pledge of Allegiance, the name alone sounded odd to me, like why are children pledging themselves to a country, when we can’t even really understand what that means? So I stopped.

      The school staff lost their minds.

      Luckily my parents taught me to be firm in my beliefs, if I had truely thought about them and believed them. So I stuck to my choice, and my parents backed me up on it when they arrived at the school 45 minutes after the Pledge normally ended.

      On a side note, I had read ahead in my Social Studies textbook that week, and learned about Nationalism in Nazi Germany, and it had sounded strangly familiar to me. Not long after the Pledge of Allegiance incident happened.

    • Duamerthrax@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      They just “encourage” you to do it and if you get bullied for remaining seated, the school will ignore the bullies even more than usual.

    • YeetPics@mander.xyz
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      4 months ago

      You could have asked… I mean, you were in a building staffed with people paid to answer questions and inform you about the world.

      • AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        Most of the staff likely would have told me that it is mandatory. There are news stories all the time about kids being bullied, given detention, and other negative repercussions, for exercising their right to not say the pledge.

        • Jojo, Lady of the West@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          4 months ago

          The small school I taught at said the pledge every day, but the principal did regularly announce to everyone present that they don’t have to say it (but they did have to be there for it)

      • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
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        4 months ago

        High, high chance they wouldn’t have been encouraging. Reasons include their personal political beliefs and the fact they tend to care more about parent reactions than students, because guess which group they’re on equal footing with?

        • explodicle@sh.itjust.works
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          4 months ago

          I swear to Charles Darwin himself, they will get so much more reaction out of me if they try to force my kids recite that bullshit. (They currently stand there silently)

          • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
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            4 months ago

            Sure, but I assume in some places parents (plural) will raise a stink about a kid that’s not theirs being allowed to not say it in the same room as their own spawn. Dangerous ideas, right? I encourage you to start shit if they make you, though.

            I should clarify I’m Canadian, so this specific issue hasn’t come up, but I’ve seen similar things. For example, my local division has a policy, on paper, that pride flags should be flown in schools, but they often aren’t because the staff don’t like angry mobs.