A home-filmed video showing a four-year-old Chinese boy being forced by his parents to run almost naked through the snow in bitterly cold New York has gone viral and sparked an online uproar.
The father was reportedly trying to train his son to be strong and healthy, and the footage has sparked debate about “Chinese”-style tough parenting — as famously illustrated by Chinese-American Tiger Mother author Amy Chua.
In the video, the little boy runs towards his father, who is filming him, in thick snow with only his shoes and underpants on, at times crying bitterly and pleading with his dad to take him in his arms.
On several occasions, both parents tell their son to lie down in the snow, which he does eventually when his mother presses him.
The film — posted online by his father, who comes from the Chinese city of Nanjing — has been viewed by tens of thousands of people on various video sharing Web sites and has caused outrage.
“I don’t agree with this. We should give children a happy childhood, those terrible parents say they do this for their child’s own good, but I think their purpose is just to be able to brag in the future,” one netizen said.
“I really don’t support this, poor kid, does the kid’s mother let the father do whatever he wants to do?” another person said on the popular Sina Weibo microblogging site.
The father has been given the nickname of “Eagle Dad” in reference to Chua, who sparked controversy when she wrote a book extolling the benefits of tough parenting.
Chinese reporters who managed to interview the father found out the family was on holiday in New York during the Lunar New Year holiday last month, when the video was shot, and the temperature was minus-13oC.
The father — an entrepreneur — was trying to train his son to be tough after he was born two months premature, suffering from various health problems.
China’s one-child policy has created a generation of only children widely viewed as spoiled.
At the same time, kids are increasingly being forced by their parents to study hard at the expense of leisure activities to succeed in an increasingly competitive job market.
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly
RSS