1
I finally saw her again, on May 10th this year.
I said, remember me? ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘You’re the first reporter to interview me.’
The first time we met was half a year ago, on October 12, 2016, less than a month after the murder. When I saw her after such a sensational case, all kinds of questions swirled in my mind.
The girl, xinran Chen, 16, had been a freshman for half a year, but ran away from home during the winter vacation and went to a KTV to cut fruit dishes in Daqing. Her father, Chen Gang, her mother, Li Mei, and other family members made a decision they later regretted. They contacted shandong Science and Technology Defense College, which claims to be transforming “problem children.” They felt that Chen’s behavior was “dangerous” and could only be relieved if he was sent to a completely closed, military-run school. Chen gang said, “You can’t tie her at home, can you? That’s not realistic. But if she doesn’t, she’ll go a long way.”
In February 2016, three instructors from the college took Xinran away by force in Daqing.
“She has such a good physique that two grown men in Daqing couldn’t hold her down.” “Said Chen Xinran’s uncle. Chen Xinran himself recalled that the drillmaster “even pulled and kicked”, while “my father looked at me coldly, just like an enemy”.
School rules forbid parents and children from seeing each other or even talking on the phone for three months. 102 days later, Chen gang and Li Mei went to Shandong to see their daughter. Xinran Chen begged her parents to take her to the hospital to see a doctor, to the hospital, she carried out a long thought of the plan – to escape.
Her parents posted a missing person notice and planned to appear on a TV show to look for someone, which alarmed many relatives in Shandong province. “It was a big farce.” She was finally found in Weihai. “At that moment I was crying with my father and he said he was not going to send me to school anymore and I said yes. Let it be, let it be. It’s nothing.”
I believe Xinran Chen really wants to start over, and so do her parents. The family spent several days playing and taking pictures on the beach. Xinran Chen is already a head taller than her parents, and the three people in the camera look very warm. Chen just posted on moments, “If dad has a mistake, change it. I’ve been tired every day and night for the last half year, but now I’m so relaxed, you know!” There is indeed relief in his smile.
When he returned home, Chen rearranged the room for his daughter, and his efforts were treading on thin ice. Ten days later, Chen found that his daughter had reconnected with her “bad friends”. This is actually the original point of tension between the two sides. It was because of this “bad friend” that Xinran ran away from home, and Chen just went to find this person.
“I didn’t think my father would argue with her. I don’t understand! Perhaps they were too eager, anxious for me to be different.”
Then Xinran Chen gang smashed the car, in the fist and kick Chen Gang angry. After taking Away Chen Gang, he never saw his daughter again. The mother, Li Mei, insisted on coming home to cook and take care of her daughter. Ten days later, Chen tied her up and stabbed her in the thigh. Finally, on September 8, 2016, Chen Xinran once again took control of Li Mei, this time for eight days, resulting in her death.
2
When I interviewed him six months ago, the local police arranged for Xinran and Chen gang to meet for the first time since the incident. On reflection, he had not seen father and daughter for three months.
Chen gang took a bag of clothes and waited. He was on pins and needles. The clothes were about to be squeezed out of the bag.
At last. Chen gang dared not look at his daughter. Instead, Chen Xinran said, “Sit down,” in an indolent tone, as if he were entertaining a visitor.
This was unexpected to Chen gang. He guessed that his daughter should cry and beg for his forgiveness. Then the two sides were silent for a while, Chen Gang spoke first, “You are my child, I will bless you, most willing to give everything for you, just like your mother said…”
The words have not finished, was interrupted by Chen Xinran, tone impatient, “You say these I know.”
Then there was an argument.
“There are things you don’t understand now, son, but someday you’ll understand when you grow up.”
“I’ll tell you the truth, I’m going to grow up and you’re going to grow old. I’ll grow up and I’ll know a lot of things, but you? ‘
“I’m your father. Can I not do something for you?”
“You’re my father. Why don’t you believe me? Why are my ten thousand words not worth one word of others?”
“Because I have my own subjective observation, I have my own judgment. I have something I see for myself.”
“You know, what you see can be false.”
After several rounds, Chen shook his head feebly and turned his face away, fighting back tears. “Look at me! Hey, look at me!” And he said, “Don’t you think you’re looking at me like you’re looking in a mirror? We’re the same.”
The policeman beside laughed, “You’re not like your father. Who are you like?”
Xinran Chen cried, and So did Gang Chen. The girl finally said, “I think I’m crazy. You made me crazy, you know?” His voice was solemn and stirring, and his eyes were piercing and his teeth were clenched.
3
Six months later, I met the father and daughter again. The daughter lost weight and the father gained weight.
Chen Gang’s hair is black, without the sparse whiteness we saw last time. But before he opened his mouth, his eyes turned red first. “The hair is dyed, so you can’t see it without dyeing.” He is 42 years old.
At the end of the investigation phase, the case was transferred from the public security to the local procuratorate. Prosecutors arranged for counseling for the father and daughter.
At their first meeting, the psychological counselor asked Chen Xinran to paint “House trees”, which was painting therapy. “When a child her age paints, there is no way to hide her inner self. What she paints are projections.”
When the counselor was still looking at the painting, Chen xinran suddenly asked, “Why don’t you ask me, why only draw a person?” There is a small man in the picture.
The counselor said, “You want to talk about it. Well, then, why did you draw only one man?”
Xinran Chen retorted, “Do you think there is only one person in the painting? I saw more than one person.”
“Is that so? Who else?”
‘There must be somebody, because the chimney is smoking in the house. There must be somebody.’
Everyone knows in a flash.
The first psychological counseling Chen Xinran painting
The counselor asked, “So do you think there’s a reason why someone doesn’t want to draw that person?”
“No need to draw.”
“Oh?”
“Because she must be in there.”
A line of tears flowed from Chen Xinran’s eyes. For a moment no one spoke.
The counselor finally said, “Ok, then we wish the person happiness in the room.”
4
After several sessions of counseling, everyone noticed the problem with the father and daughter’s communication mode.
Competing for the right to speak, not showing weakness, hostile eyes, barbed words… There was little emotional expression.
After a counseling session, the father and daughter were asked to “say something heartfelt,” but Xinran asked, “How much money are you going to save for me a month after prison?”
Chen gang’s reaction was one of shock. He looked at the prosecutor in embarrassment and asked, “Does it cost money to go to prison?” Chen says he actually hates it when his daughter talks to him about money. He missed his daughter, who was very clever when he was a child. “Once you say something, you smile and two tiger teeth come out.” And very caring, Wenchuan earthquake donated 200 yuan. “It’s pocket money she’s been saving for a long time. Her mother teased her. Why don’t you save some for yourself? And she said, I won’t.”
Since entering high school, Xinran Chen has never spoken to his father except to ask for money. When Chen xinran finally took control of his mother, Li Mei, he also asked Chen Gang for 50,000 yuan. Chen xinran explained that she wanted to use the money to attend a sports school for tuition and living expenses, but Chen gang suspected that she had other plans. Before he missed it, he said, “I gave her a dollar for every dollar, and fifty cents for every dollar.” He also especially hated the “bad friend” that Chen Xinran had made. He followed Xinran away from home and lived outside. “My daughter pays for the man’s company, meals and lodging.”
Looking at Chen Gang thoughtfully and without speaking, Chen Xinran added, “You saved enough money last month, absolutely enough. When I get there, I’ll need twenty more dollars a month.”
In an awkward atmosphere, the counselor told Xinran, “Son, your father won’t mistreat you in life. Money is not a problem, as long as it is justified.” Xinran Chen was busy explaining, “I know, I just asked him how much money he gave me, and I planned it.”
Listen to the girl solemnly say for dozens of dollars “plan”, the tone is not a joke, some funny. The expenses were nothing to the family. During the detention center, Chen gang intentionally deposited a fixed amount of money every month, but refused to save more, to let his daughter know, “After all, this is a place to be punished. Ability has boundaries. You can’t do what you want.” Once When Chen gang was on a business trip for a few weeks out of the blue, Xinran Chen sent him a message, “Dad, don’t you want me anymore? The money’s almost gone…”
A daughter with no sense of security, and a father with love he can’t say. The counselor interrupted, “Gladly, you don’t have to make plans when you need to, like see a doctor or something, and your dad won’t turn it down. You don’t have to worry. It may be your reflections that your father wants to hear, and you should take the time to talk about them.”
The girl twitched the corners of her mouth. “I, I don’t know what to say. That is, feel it individually.”
5
Each time for counseling, Chen xinran asks her father to bring her books.
At home, she has a bookshelf full of books, teaching materials, youth novels, world classics. “She likes reading books,” Chen said. “I buy them for her for hundreds and hundreds of dollars.”
For the first counseling session, Chen xinran asked his father to bring a set of books. “What is the myth of India?” It’s the Ramayana. Chen xinran also mentioned several novels, Chen gang listened to some difficulty, took paper and pen to write down.
“I belonged to you. Dad, remember to bring this book.”
“From you? What?”
“All over the world. This one’s at home.”
“Is there?”
“Yes, upstairs, yellow leather.”
There is. But the second time Chen gang did not bring all the books with him. Neither the third time.
Xinran Chen’s desk and “I Passed by You all over the World” are also among them
In the third session, the counselor asked father and daughter to share their thoughts about each other’s recent performance. Apparently unable to resist, Chen asks first, “Why don’t you take all the books every time I ask you to give me?”
Chen’s expression is stunned. Perhaps he thinks it’s a small thing. “I’ve been too busy lately. And I don’t think it’s going to be long before we get to court, and you won’t be able to see all that. Have you not already sent in the whole set?”
“I’m sure I’ll finish all the books you send me, and all the books I ask for. And you’ve got it all memorized. Why don’t you take it? The prosecutor’s aunts saw it. I just don’t understand, my little request…”
Chen Gang smiled helplessly. “What you said is not about the book any more.”
It may have been because of such “words do not mean words”, Chen Xinran slowly lost confidence in his parents.
“Did you take the treasure?” she pursued. With no confidence, did she get used to assuming the worst about her father?
She had been suffering from eczema for some time and asked her father to give her a big treasure. But she didn’t see it.
A prosecutor answered for Chen gang, “Last time I was here, you said you had eczema. Then your father sent me several messages asking if there was any good medicine to wipe it off. I didn’t come back in time. I didn’t tell your father until the evening. At nine o ‘clock, your father went out and bought some for you. I left Dabao and the other medicine with the guard today. He didn’t show it to you. Well, my boy, you must trust your father.”
6
During a psychological counseling session, the counselor asked Xinran to close his eyes and imagine coming to a strange place. “It’s a road,” Said Chen Xinran. There are trees along the road. “The sun shines on the leaves.” “Are there clouds in the sky?” “Just a few, like ribbons.”
Xinran Chen said she saw a fork in the road. “One leads to a bustling city, and the other,” she said slowly, after a long pause of thought. “Far away. Maybe there are mountains and rivers, maybe the scenery is very nice, maybe it’s very quiet, a small village.”
So, where to go? “I don’t know,” said the girl. “Choose one.” Or silence, this time the silence really some long. The counselor, who had been watching her, suddenly noticed that she seemed to be in tears. “Are you crying? Do you remember anything?”
“I really don’t know where to go.”
“Never mind. The teacher will follow you wherever you go. I’ll protect you. It doesn’t matter if we make a mistake. We can turn around.”
“I actually prefer to go far away, but the city also attracts me.”
“You’re conflicted right now. Stay with that conflict for a while and see what happens.”
Finally she said, “I want to go far away.”
7
“She may have some suicidal tendencies,” the counselor commented. Many people with psychological trauma have to live with the trauma, the mode of coexistence for each person to find their own. There are many challenges for this young girl.
Before that day of counseling, there was an episode. The consultant had some stomach problems and usually kept snacks in his pocket. He brought a cake bag and left it on the floor. Before starting, Chen xinran suddenly said, “I’m hungry.” Keep your eyes fixed on the ground.
With permission, the counselor handed her two pieces of cake, then two pieces of cake, a total of six, and Xinran almost devoured them.
One side of Chen Gang tears hua Hua to fall.
“We may suppose that this little girl had nothing to eat while her mother was still alive.” The prosecutor handling the case was also moved.
Before that, Chen had taken the prosecutors back home. Can you still call it “home”? Chen had been renting out his apartment since the incident. Now a large lock has locked up unpleasant memories of the crime scene, Chen said, and he wants to sell the place.
And the small building of double entry, family group photo, Chen Xinran’s portrait… They are still in their place, talking quietly.
8
The court case will come to court soon. Court officials made a special trip to find Li Mei’s parents and relatives.
According to the Guiding Opinions of the Supreme Court on Sentencing, in criminal cases, if the victim or his/her family understands the case, comprehensive consideration can reduce the benchmark sentence by less than 20%.
Chen Gang, the husband of li Mei, expressed early understanding for his daughter and hoped for a lighter sentence. What about Li Mei’s parents?
After the incident, Li Mei’s parents were kept in the dark for a while. “Often ask, can’t help, they bit by bit all ask out.” Li Mei’s brother said that the old man now knows the general process.
After knowing the old man’s health is not very good. “Especially my mother. She spoke very slowly. She had a bad heart. She was hospitalized several times.” Li mei’s father, on the other hand, “became irritable” and went away for two months alone at the beginning of the year, only to return and say he had gone to Xinjiang. The whole family knew that he was in a bad mood.
So when court officials approached them and asked “lighter or heavier”, Li Mei’s mother reacted angrily. ‘She said,’ Don’t ask me if it makes sense to do it lightly. If you really want to ask, I say, “Take it seriously and shoot Xinran Chen!” Because to make a record, before leaving, the staff again asked, confirm. “The old man is kind, my mother said, and will not insist. Because it’s already happening. No more sorrow, no more man, no more use. Judge as you please.”
On the day of the trial, Li Mei’s relatives did not show up. “To be honest, it’s hard to make eye contact. Now, we’re still not over it.”
The Old man and Xinran Chen when they were young
Li Mei’s brother said that when she got married, it was very hard. Both came from rural families and were fresh graduates, penniless. The days are slowly getting better. “To tell you the truth, it’s only improved in the last few years.” But Li Mei was always frugal and reluctant to eat and use food, but she was generous to her daughter. “This child is her life, her heaven.” Li Mei’s brother also criticized her. “You should teach your children strategies and methods. She promised to be fine, but the sight of the child made her forget everything. There was only love and obedience in his eyes.”
Li Mei’s contribution is far greater than Chen Gang’s. After the summer and winter when his daughter went to school, he rode an old bicycle. “Chen Gang seldom does this, even when he is resting at home. And running an entire family. Chen’s father has been living with the family, and her two nieces have been living with the family for a while, which makes Li look old. “She’s already two years older than Chen, and she doesn’t like to work out.”
Li Mei’s brother sighed with tears. “It can be said that he worked as a horse and a cow for his family and didn’t enjoy any happiness at last.”
When attending Li Mei’s funeral, Li Mei’s brother heard from a neighbor that when Chen Xinran did not allow Li Mei to enter his home later, “Li Mei just sat by herself on the steps, sitting and waiting.” He guessed that Li Mei was trying to persuade her with her mother’s love. “If the child is even a stone, I should warm her. But why are children so cold-blooded? To be honest, none of us can figure it out right now.”
9
That day’s court hearing scene, heard that “hears the person cry”.
The day before the trial, mindful that Chen would be nervous, the counselor went to see her again.
Xinran Chen said she had written a letter of repentance to read at the trial, with some lines saying, “No one speaks in my ear to care about me, no one cares about my warmth or cold, and I can’t call her mom anymore. I really love you, Mom.”
That day, Chen Xinran also said a surprise Chen Gang words. “Dad, I’ve been in there with people much older than me, and some of them have kids. I just understand, you did not care about me, not do not love me, but have too much to do. Responsibilities, careers, and families. It’s too complicated. A man, he has to face his wife and children, and elders, and social things. You used to think that you ought to listen to me and respect my opinion, but now I see how much responsibility you have.”
But when they first met in October, Xinran said to her father through gritted teeth: “Chen Gang, you are the only man in the family. Have you never thought about such a result? Have you never reflected on yourself?”
This unexpected understanding came too late, the price need not be so heavy. Chen Gang said nothing but tears.
“Is there any nervousness about tomorrow’s trial?” “The counselor asked.
“Yes, there must be.”
“Never mind, the procureur’s aunts and teachers are going to court tomorrow. We encourage you to take responsibility and correct yourself, ok?”
“Good.”
“What do you suppose your father thought? He might want to go in and you come out. Do you believe it?”
“I do.”
On the day of the trial, Chen xinran vomited all the way, either because he hadn’t been in the car for a long time or because he was nervous.
10
After the trial, before going to jail, one last counseling session.
What happens when you go to jail, there are a lot of things, a lot of variables. However, In the future, Chen gang will be able to see his daughter regularly. “She needs her father as a pull, to pull her.” So the counselor gave father and daughter an assignment to say to each other, “I love you.”
Chen just held it for a long time, but after several times of enlightenment, he still hesitated and hesitated. Finally he said, “There are three of us who are not good at this. It’s all done in silence. For example, girl what do you like to eat, girl what clothes do you like. In fact, everything we do, every step we take, is for the sake of the child, but, the way we take the method, the child feels is hurt. I’m sorry. In fact, daddy loves you deeply from the bottom of his heart. I don’t know if you can feel it right now.”
The counselor said, “If you say it, the child will feel it. When you don’t say anything, the effect is totally different. How can you make a 16-year-old feel it? You say it out loud right now. It’s simple. It doesn’t need all that stuff.
“Xinran, daddy loves you so much and loves you so much. Otherwise…”
“Stop, that’s enough. Just five words.”
“Girl, I love you.”
Xinran Chen’s diary when he was nine years old, and the following is Chen Gang’s comments on it
The counselor turned to Xinran Chen. “Your life came from him, and you grew up because of your father. How do you put it? I think it must be hard for you to express yourself, but let’s start growing today…”
Silence, one minute of silence. Xinran Chen sighed, shook his head and cleared his throat. Finally he said, “dad, I love you.” After a pause of a few seconds, it was as if the tap had been turned on. “Dad, Dad, Actually I have always loved you. In fact, I have always loved you, really. Only, only you don’t feel it either.” She burst into tears again.
“Sometimes I feel like I don’t need love. I feel like I need love. Dad, you’ve never expressed that before. Words and actions were not what I expected. I still want to be loved by you and love you. I can feel it now.”
11
Interview her, face her, see her being interrogated, receiving counseling, mostly frowning and crying. Listen to others talk, always proud expression, eyebrows hang very high. It seems that Xinran Chen is going to rebel a little bit more than the typical rebellious teenager.
Come to think of it, she laughed twice. The first time was after police questioned her and routinely asked, “What more do you have to say?”
She raised an eyebrow suddenly and asked, “Can I have a pack of cigarettes?” Facial expression can use only “evil spirit mad Juan” four words describe.
The captain of the serious case squadron laughed. “What do you say?” This seemed to break the solemn mood, and she smiled sheepishly.
The second time was when I drew “Fangshuren”. She said she was “not much of a painter,” and she ended up with something really simple — a house, a stick figure, a tree. The consultant took the painting, looked at it for a few seconds, and the analyst said, “You’re feeling limp.”
She froze for a few seconds, lifted the wrists of the handcuffed, smiled, “All right, just inconvenient.”
The counselor continued, “You can’t face yourself right now.”
She frowned very quickly, and the smile that had appeared vanished, the corners of her mouth twitching. “Maybe.”
The consultant analyzed, “Look, the person you drew has no nose, no eyes and no mouth. Do you want to see, hear and speak?”
‘She laughed again.’ No, because I can only draw such simple pictures. ‘
As if the heart was said, but the explanation is far from the topic.
It turned out that she could laugh, but even with a heavy smile. I suddenly think of Chen Gang said, when I was a child, she also once “smile two tiger teeth to show.”
12
Before WeChat “just show your friends for the last three days”, Chen often posted his friends circle.
In September 2015, he commented on the news that children do not take care of their elders. “What society? Does a child know what a parent is? Do you know what Lao Tzu means…”
In January 2016, Chen Ran away from home. “My son, love you, but it’s far away! Because I don’t know how to express it!” “Love it or hate it, compared to parental grace,” he commented.
In June 2016, having just picked Xinran Up from his special school, he posted on his wechat moments, “Baby girl, my parents will never lose you again…” And on parenting WeChat: ‘it’s true that most parents don’t understand their children’s hearts.’
In October 2016, shortly after the murder, he posted on his wechat moments, “Who has ever heard of my daughter bleeding her mother’s last drop of blood in ignorance, and how much she hates me?” He added, “Even crying makes my back to you.”
In January 2017, he wrote, “It’s a New Year’s eve, but people are wrong. On the moon alone drinking wine, empty heart desolate; My eyes are dim with tears.”
He didn’t like the term “matricide.” He probably thought it was harsh. In his mind, his daughter had less terrible motives. The girl’s performance also let a person say a word, in the end is terrible, or ignorant. Li Mei died of respiratory and circulatory failure. She was strapped to a stool for the first five days of her confinement, causing poor circulation, and did not eat or drink for several days after that. At first Xinran gave her something to eat. Li once wrote a note: “Ordered a takeaway late at night and asked me if I would have it. I didn’t want it. She sent it from the window of her father’s house. I was afraid she was in danger.” However, In the process, Chen Xinran also beat his mother with a swinging stick and electrocuted her with an electric stick. These all left marks on Li Mei’s body.
In May 2017, after Dangal was released, Chen posted another message on his wechat moments. “In this world, maybe the people you love will abandon you. But not Daddy, because you’re Daddy’s daughter.”
13
On the last night of this interview, I passed a brightly lit middle School. It is the best school in the area and the one that Chen xinran wanted to take but failed. When she failed, she was depressed for a while and mentioned a second time. If she does pass the exam, she may not meet her “bad friend”, or she may not have anything to do at all.
On the day of the murder, she called out to her “bad friend.” ‘It was all like a joke,’ she says. If it weren’t for so many things, I might still be in school, taking classes, being a student who doesn’t study well but works hard.” Did she not think clearly about her future, or did she decide on her own early on?
In the 16-year-old’s account, her life was in a mess before the attack. “Affection, friendship, trust, I am all missing.” She has also taken a picture of herself standing on top of a tall building with one half of her feet dangling.
But her family provided her with enough food and clothing, her parents were still alive and her family was complete. Is it really as bad as she says?
Father and daughter tell very different stories. Xinran Chen described how she could not bear to be disrespected by her parents, and how her family saw nothing but cold violence and a messy relationship. Parents check her phone records, track her, locate her, and eventually send her to that school. ‘School is not the point, and neither are the parents,’ Mr. Chen said. ‘Making that bad friend is the point.’ He complained to the police that his bad friends had abetted the crime and he was told that there was not enough evidence to investigate.
Xinran Chen sent a long WeChat to his “bad friend” after his mother died. Her panic and bewilderment were plain in her voice. “I don’t have a conscience in my heart anymore,” she added. “There’s no goodness, no softness.” But she was too young. Perhaps one of the signs of being “adult” is to automatically lose a part of “kindness and softness”. But how can I blame her? Perhaps Providence had put in an extraordinarily sensitive soul, and I have no right to say that her pain was “too small” at the time.
Without it, she would have grown into one of a million ordinary people. Get married, have children, leave the original family, start a new family, and then gradually forget their parents gave her “insignificant” “harm”. But isn’t that good? Isn’t such ordinariness precious? At least she doesn’t have nightmares, she doesn’t wake up, she doesn’t live with a growing sense of guilt. When one day she found that she could no longer blame her father, she had to examine herself, would she feel the pain to the point that she could not help herself?
Like her urticaria, it lurked thickly under the skin.
14
Xinran Chen was born in June 2000, after the lunar summer solstice. Lunar May is unlucky, May 5 Dragon Boat Festival is more fierce on fierce. “Motutong” from the late Eastern Han Dynasty mentions that children born on May 5 are “harmful to the father and harmful to the mother”.
Nature is superstition.
At the end of May 2017, two weeks before his 17th birthday, Chen xinran waited for the verdict. She was sentenced to seven years in prison for intentional injury.
Afterword.
After the interview with Xinran Chen, I also went to Shandong and found the Shandong Science and Technology Defense College which the girl hated so much.
In September 2016, the shandong Provincial Education Department and the Jinan Education Bureau formed a joint investigation team to investigate the incident. The final conclusion is that “there are many cards in one school, irregular recruitment publicity, disordered management, opaque fees, corporal punishment or corporal punishment in disguised form and other illegal school-running behaviors”, and the order is to “immediately stop holding the education and training of minors and adopt the military-style completely closed management”. The headmaster pointed this out to me word by word. He had evidently studied it many times and understood it thoroughly. “You see, the word minors, with a comma after it, makes sense.”
The principal said that while students in the secondary school system were able to attend classes normally, those who had been sent in to be corrected for bad behavior, like Chen xinran, were already informing their parents to take their children home. At that time, there were about a hundred such students in the school. “But parents trust our school and don’t want to take their children home, saying the term isn’t over.” The headmaster also sent me dozens of screenshots of WeChat, all of which showed that parents believed in the school and hoped their children would continue to stay in the school after seeing the news of xinran Chen.
In the school, the white wall, red words, “save one, happy family” is very striking. Then I thought of What Xinran Chen had said, “They might be too eager for me to change.” Is this urgency, this hope that their children will suddenly meet all their expectations, in the minds of Chinese parents, not all?
We shot a lot of shots on campus that day. All the smiling faces of children… Rubber band skipping, playing basketball, eating… There are also messages written by children on the school blackboard. “Happy Mid-Autumn Festival, happy every day.” “Mom, Dad and brother, I wish you good health. No worries… I’m here to change my bad habits and show a new me.”
Xinran Chen once described the school as “hell”, “beating you if you want, scolding you if you want”, “eating into the toilet if you can’t finish eating”, “corporal punishment is needless to say, and mental torture”… And when I got to school, what I saw in the interview was quite different from what she said. Incredulous, I looked for dozens more instructors and students who had spent time at the school. Different accounts, but not as exaggerated as Chen Xinran said.
The news should be objective and balanced, and there is no way to verify or falsify what really happened in the school. I did not expand on the last report — the only thing I can confirm is that Xinran Chen was taken to the school by force, and she was beaten on the way, and she also attacked the drill instructor.
I’m conflicted. If, as she says, schools are a sort of purgatory unknown to parents, a voice is crying out, small movements and protests are being kidnapped by mismatched ugliness and rules that only lead to further remoteness of children and parents, and your reporting is evoking the point; But another little voice reminds me that you grew up at her age, too. You know very well that there is a certain narcissism in this age of extreme freedom and the desire to break free of all possible restraints. Isn’t it?
(” Coming Out of the Abyss “was broadcast on CCTV’s” Today talk “program on June 24, 2017.)
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