“Too softly.” Not enough patriotic fervor, reports ABC News Australia (June 27, 2024).
Hong Kong’s Education Department has criticised two schools after an inspection found their students were singing the Chinese national anthem “too softly”.
The inspectors also advised another school to provide “more guidance” to students to “cultivate their habit and confidence in singing the national anthem”.
It was reported that students at the Yan Chai Hospital Lim Por Yen Secondary School sang the national anthem softly during flag-raising ceremonies.
Teachers were recommended to “give reminders and help students develop a habit of singing the national anthem loudly in unison”.
Students at the Hong Kong and Macau Lutheran Church Primary School were singled out for singing the national anthem “soft and weak”.
No, the kids should be given awards for their passive resistance to a totalitarian state that has mostly subjugated Hong Kong over the past five years. Training them to belt out the national anthem in competent and confident unison would be a form of torture.
I’m assuming that at least some of the students are somewhat aware of what has happened to Hong Kong, do not approve, and cannot muster any patriotic feeling for the Chinese Communist Party state that has destroyed the liberty and democracy that they or at least their parents once enjoyed. And also sense that any patriotic feeling for Hong Kong itself, considered apart from its CCP overlords, cannot be expressed by singing the Chinese national anthem.
Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe the students at these two subpar schools are only self-conscious or lazy. The report doesn’t say. But let’s hope for the best. Kids, if you’re reading this, start singing the anthem even more softly, so softly that the words can barely be heard.
Be sure to act innocent and accommodating when challenged. It is a crime to insult the Chinese national anthem.
