[09:14](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqC3YUXq_Q8&t=554s) Teenage Rivalry, Extreme Bullying, and the Gaps in Basic Education
The conversation turns to the vicious roots of school bullying and interpersonal cruelty among adolescents. Responding to an earlier point about two girls competing for the affection of the same boy, Professor Li Meijin shares a harrowing case from over a decade ago that illustrates how far teenage spite can go. A teenage girl enlisted two accomplices to target her supposed close friend. The trio deceived the victim, lured her to an isolated location, beat her unconscious, and callously dragged her limp body onto active train tracks, assuming she would never wake up and would be crushed to death by an oncoming train. Miraculously, the unconscious victim came to and crawled away in the nick of time, bewildered as to why her best friend would try to kill her—unaware it was solely because the boy she liked harbored feelings for the other girl.
The panel reflects on how adolescents can act out adult sexual jealousy and dark impulses without possessing the internal checks that keep mature adults in line. While adults are restrained by moral codes and fear of legal consequences, young people often lack that baseline discipline. Li points out a glaring blind spot in modern Chinese family and school education: parents push their children to memorize sophisticated trivia—such as esoteric bird species, space shuttles, or astrophysics and black holes—yet completely ignore elemental life skills and physical health. Children rarely know how to brush their teeth properly, understand how a common cold functions, or even pinpoint where their liver or gallbladder is located inside their own bodies.
```mermaid
flowchart TD
accTitle: Educational Deficits Leading to Behavioral Failure
accDescr: Diagram contrasting high-level academic cramming with missed foundations in physical health, basic law, and impulse control.
subgraph Deficit["Educational Imbalance"]
A["Academic Trivia Cramming<br/>(Black holes, space shuttles)"]
B["Missing Fundamentals<br/>(Physical health & anatomy)"]
C["Rote Legal Knowledge<br/>(Memorizing statute numbers)"]
end
subgraph Impact["Psychological & Behavioral Result"]
D["Absence of Legal Spirit<br/>(Social empathy & public order)"]
E["Unfiltered Emotional Impulses<br/>(Jealousy & peer cruelty)"]
F["Extreme Delusions<br/>('If I hide it well, I won't get caught')"]
end
Deficit --> Impact
```
- In the railway track case, three girls knocked a close classmate unconscious and left her on the tracks purely over a mutual romantic crush on a boy.
- Li Meijin emphasizes that parents boast about children understanding complex scientific phenomena while failing to teach basic self-care, biological awareness, and civic morality.
---
[11:02](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqC3YUXq_Q8&t=662s) The Letter of the Law vs. the Spirit of the Law
Li Meijin explains that legal education in schools suffers from the exact same superficiality as health education: students are taught the cold text of legal articles without ever grasping the foundational "spirit of the law." Many teachers themselves cannot explain why laws exist beyond mere punishment. When Li lectures police officers, she reminds them that while enforcement must follow the written code, officers must never lose sight of law's true purpose: safeguarding the well-being of the people and maintaining a harmonious social order.
To illustrate the stark divide between blind bureaucracy and genuine justice, a police commander once approached Professor Li after a talk to share an incident from an urban cleanup campaign. During a strict anti-illegal parking crackdown, officers were ordered to fine every improperly parked vehicle without exception. A struggling driver pulled over outside a public restroom for an emergency stop lasting less than five minutes. When he emerged, an officer had already written him a ticket. In desperation, the driver pleaded, "I haven't earned a cent all morning, and I’ve already gotten two tickets. I really don’t have any money. I was only in the restroom for less than five minutes. Could you please cancel this ticket?" Unmoved, the ticketing officer simply snapped, "The rule today is, illegal parking gets a fine," mounted his motorcycle, and sped away. The police leadership later realized that this rigid, unfeeling enforcement alienated the public, prompting a shift toward training officers in humane, community-minded policing.
- Rote legal education trains students to know regulations mechanically rather than understanding social contracts and mutual respect.
- Humane law enforcement requires recognizing the human reality behind minor infractions rather than blindly issuing fines.
---
[13:14](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqC3YUXq_Q8&t=794s) The Illusion of Impunity: Ma Jiajue, Fragrant Hills, and Premeditation
The table moves to what guest Ma Weidu ("Ma Ye") describes as the psychological "safety valve"—the internal threshold that stops a murderous impulse from becoming physical reality. Li Meijin observes a universal cognitive distortion among intentional homicide perpetrators: they harbor an unshakable, arrogant delusion that "If I do this well, I won't get caught by you." Far from relying on pure luck, criminals obsessively convince themselves of their own superior cunning.
This delusion cuts across all demographics, from teenage murderers who pre-dig shallow burial pits to high-IQ university students. Li cites the infamous 2004 murder spree by college student Ma Jiajue, who painstakingly purchased multiple train tickets going in different directions and forged fake identification cards well before executing his roommates, calibrating his escape plan to how the crime unfolded. Similarly, in her book *Subtle Human Nature* (幽微的人性), Li details a 1980s case she investigated involving a respected 60-year-old researcher about to retire. The intellectual engaged in an extramarital affair with an institute typist who demanded marriage, threatening to expose him to his daughters abroad and his wife, a prominent middle school principal.
Terrified of public disgrace, the researcher lured the woman to a secluded spot in Beijing's Fragrant Hills (香山) on a weekend evening under the romantic guise of moon-watching. As she sat peacefully admiring the night sky, he stood up, stretched his back to feign relaxation, grabbed a heavy brick he had pre-stashed, and bludgeoned her to death. By Monday morning, detectives were waiting at his office desk. When interrogated, the shocked academic blurted out: "Oh, I always thought the police were incompetent. I never imagined you were this capable." The detectives laughed; because the victim was struck while sitting comfortably without any signs of defensive struggle, it was self-evident she had been murdered by someone intimate. A routine check of her immediate circle immediately exposed him.
- Murderers universally fall victim to extreme stupidity disguised as calculated cleverness, mistakenly believing no one can trace them.
- Premeditation—whether buying decoy train tickets like Ma Jiajue or pre-arranging bricks on Fragrant Hills—proves criminals plan around self-preservation rather than spontaneous madness.
---
[15:23](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqC3YUXq_Q8&t=923s) The Inescapable Net: Forensic Progress from Cold Cases to the Digital Era
The guests discuss whether the justice system should more aggressively publicize police investigative capabilities as a deterrent. Dou Wentao notes that his acquaintances in public security have convinced him that committing a major crime in modern China is virtually impossible. Between the nationwide "Sky Net" (天网) camera surveillance network, mobile tracking, and pervasive digital transaction trails, everyone leaves an indelible electronic footprint that eliminates anonymity.
Li Meijin points out that while stranger-on-stranger crimes in desolate alleys or unmonitored intersections were historically the hardest to solve, forensic science eventually catches up. The ancient adage that "the net of justice is cast wide, and though it may be coarse, nothing escapes it" is validated by modern breakthroughs. She points to cold cases cracked after decades of silence:
- The gruesome Baiyin serial killings (白银案), solved after more than twenty years through familial DNA advances.
- The Xinhuang Middle School playground burial case (操场埋尸案), where a victim's body remained concealed beneath a running track for 16 years before being excavated.
Li cautions that when murderers believe their concealment is flawless—like burying a victim where they assume nobody will dig—an unsolved crime creates a fatal psychological feedback loop. Once an offender gets away with murder the first time, their internal threshold collapses, inevitably leading to a second and third murder with measurable, escalating frequency. Today, advanced criminal investigation techniques, such as those pioneered by Beijing’s elite homicide squads, have closed that gap, ranking among the world's most sophisticated investigative forces.
[17:59](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqC3YUXq_Q8&t=1079s) Forensics, Flawless Alibis, and 1990s Cold Cases
Discussing criminal premeditation versus detection, an investigator recounts a meticulously orchestrated homicide: a man lured a woman to an isolated location, arranged for his accomplice to kill her, and incinerated her body inside an oil drum. The fire blazed for more than twenty-four hours until she was virtually reduced to nothing. When her family reported her missing, investigators traced the final call made to her phone. The recipient of that call had deliberately boarded a flight, establishing what appeared to be an airtight alibi.
Detectives dug deeper into the flyer's call records, systematically vetting each contact until one suspicious associate emerged who had ties to a vacant property. Arriving at the scene, police were told by neighbors that smoke had billowed from the site for over a full day. Despite the body being seemingly annihilated by fire, forensic technicians successfully extracted identifiable DNA from the remnants, cracking the case wide open. "Nothing goes unnoticed," the speaker remarks, contrasting modern technological capabilities with the 1990s. Back then, many cases stalled permanently because investigators lacked witnesses, bloodstain matching, and DNA technology. The most terrifying crimes of the 1980s and 1990s were motiveless, random attacks, leaving behind files that remain cold cases to this day.
- **The Oil Drum Case**: The suspect coordinated an alibi by taking a flight while his partner burned the victim's remains in an oil drum for over a day; DNA extraction solved it.
- **The Blind Spot of 1990s Policing**: Investigators often suspected the culprit but had to drop cases due to the absence of DNA extraction and physical trace forensics.
---
[19:39](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqC3YUXq_Q8&t=1179s) Hormonal Surges and the Pressure Cooker of Adolescence
The conversation pivots from adult premeditation to juvenile delinquency and bullying: are adolescent offenses calculated or impulsive? From a juvenile justice research perspective, the teenage years starting around age twelve involve a violent surge of endocrine changes and sexual maturation. This biological shift is compared to handling a spirited pet dog: even an ordinarily docile dog that becomes agitated must be kept on a tight leash, or it will run wild, fight other dogs, or dart in front of a car. In human teenagers, this intense hormonal influx produces sudden, irrational agitation and "a kind of madness."
A male speaker notes that teenage boys frequently experience unprovoked, explosive anger that stems directly from biology. At age eleven or twelve, boys harbor an overwhelming reserve of physical energy whose natural release is rigorous exercise. However, Chinese society traps them in the exact opposite environment:
1. **Academic Siege**: They enter middle school preparing for the grueling *Zhongkao* (high school entrance exam).
2. **Vertical Living**: Confined within high-rise apartments with restricted room to move.
3. **Sedentary Transit**: Driven directly between home and school without walking or active exertion.
4. **Over-Nutrition**: Excess calories and rich food fuel an abundance of physical energy with zero functional outlet.
---
[21:23](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqC3YUXq_Q8&t=1283s) Three Generations of Neglect: The Unstoppable Downhill Car
Bringing a journalistic perspective to the table, Zhou Yijun reflects on how deeply family origins dictate child neglect and abuse, citing a heartbreaking case from 2000 that kept her awake at night. A teenage couple who had two children while still in high school allowed their three-year-old daughter to starve to death at home. The case involved the clinical phenomenon of "failure to thrive"—infants who are physically deprived of touch, skin contact, and holding will eventually shut down, lose the will to feed, and waste away.
```mermaid
flowchart TD
accTitle: Transgenerational Transmission of Neglect
accDescr: Three generations of emotional abandonment leading to fatal neglect of an infant.
subgraph G1["Generation 1: Grandparents"]
A["Severe Childhood Neglect / Abandonment"]
end
subgraph G2["Generation 2: Teenage Parents"]
B["No Model of Maternal Warmth"] --> C["Mechanical Feeding (Towel-Propped Bottle)"]
C --> D["Emotional Absence (Glued to Phone)"]
end
subgraph G3["Generation 3: The Child"]
E["'Failure to Thrive'"] --> F["Physical Deterioration & Starvation"]
end
A --> B
D --> E
```
Investigative reporting into the couple revealed that this neglect was not an isolated aberration, but a pattern stretching back three generations. Neither the young mother nor her own parents had ever experienced physical affection or maternal warmth as children:
- The young mother fed her baby by propping up the milk bottle with a rolled towel around the infant's neck so the baby drank mechanically while she stared at her phone screen, completely unaware that this was unnatural. Her own mother had fed her the identical way.
- Multiple social institutions observed the toddler's developmental issues and tried to step in, but bureaucratic coincidences—such as experienced case workers being on leave or away—consistently derailed early intervention.
- The journalist describes the tragedy as a car rolling downhill with failed brakes: "It should have been stopped at the first intersection, but it wasn't. It just kept sliding down, missing every single chance—those 'automatic brakes' you mentioned—at every intersection."
---
[23:45](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqC3YUXq_Q8&t=1425s) Neuroscience of Somatic Markers and Infant Trauma
Dou Wentao picks up the metaphor of broken brakes, explaining that neuroscientific research—particularly the work of neuroscientist Antonio Damasio—shows that "emotion precedes reason." Modern brain imaging demonstrates that the cerebral cortex continuously maps external sensory inputs, like a dynamic neon sign flickering across neural circuits to eventually construct higher-level self-awareness. Crucially, emotional processing resides lower down, in the primitive brainstem. From an evolutionary perspective, the brainstem developed long before rationality to govern immediate survival: comfort versus danger, safety versus pain. Because emotions are anchored in bodily awareness, the brain primarily monitors internal visceral organs, giving rise to idioms like "heart-wrenching grief" or feeling a fire boiling up from the gut.
Dou Wentao shares a personal realization sparked by Professor Li Meijin's theories and recent workplace feedback. His team told him that while he is warm and easygoing among friends, at work he displays zero tolerance for errors, losing his temper over a single typo in a script:
- Dou acknowledges that an individual typo is intellectually trivial, but he physically feels a visceral rage surging straight out of his internal organs before reason can intervene.
- He traces this somatic reactivity back to his first year of life: his mother worked in a garment factory in a poor household with three children and no adequate childcare. After breastfeeding him, she would wedge him between heavy pillows on the bed and leave for an eight-hour shift.
- Returning home from work, his mother could hear him screaming from a hundred meters down the street. Professor Li Meijin explains that infant crying in the first year of life is purely physiological rather than emotional or manipulative; when a crying baby is denied physical holding and comfort, the intense distress registers as somatic, visceral trauma that marks the nervous system for life.
讨论从婴儿早期的身体受困感切入。婴儿由于无法自主翻身，身体长时间处于极度难受的僵滞状态。窦文涛以成人的身体经验作比：正如成人骨折打石膏，或者术后被沙袋压住完全无法动弹时，那种求生不得、甚至“觉得想死”的急迫挣扎感，正是婴儿经历的日常。神经科学研究（如达马西奥 Antonio Damasio 的观点）指出，脑干中的情绪中枢与“内感受”（interoception）直接相连，人类为了生存演化出了对内脏状态的高度敏锐，因此情绪反应本质上与肠胃内脏紧密交织。
[36:27](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqC3YUXq_Q8&t=2187s) Spare the Rod or Law of the Cane: Western Rationality vs. Asian Discipline
The discussion opens with the ancient proverb "spare the rod and spoil the child," launching a debate over whether corporal punishment produces filial piety or merely resentment. The panel observes that contemporary attitudes against hitting children stem largely from Western sociology, which prizes individual rights and legal rationality. In the United Kingdom, for instance, striking a child was criminalized to the point where children could report their own parents to the authorities; yet British society later had to walk back absolute prohibitions to permit "mild corporal punishment," recognizing that parents had been left entirely powerless while modern youngsters quickly mastered how to weaponize the legal system against household authority.
Different cultures establish fundamentally opposing standards for what it means to be human. In the Nordic countries, touching a child inappropriately invites immediate police intervention. By contrast, a guest recalls visiting Singapore and finding retail shops openly selling rattan canes specifically designed for disciplining minors. When asked how such items could be freely marketed, local Singaporeans matter-of-factly explained: "If you aren't caned at home when you're young, the government will use a cane on you when you're older." Caning was also viewed as an accepted valve for parents to vent pent-up frustrations, though the panel questions whether emotional discharge should ever justify violence.
The conversation turns provocative when evaluating the deterrence value of harsh physical punishment. Singapore enforces some of the world's strictest penalties, including judicial caning, and has virtually avoided vicious, large-scale mass murders. Conversely, Norway—renowned for its progressive, gentle social atmosphere—witnessed an extremist single-handedly massacre scores of people. One speaker bluntly remarks that if that Norwegian killer had lived under Singaporean law, he would have been flogged long before he could carry out such a slaughter, arguing half-seriously that Nordic nations could stand to borrow Singapore's cane.
```mermaid
flowchart TD
accTitle: Divergent Cultural Models of Child Discipline
accDescr: Contrasting the legalistic Nordic and UK approaches with the punitive Singaporean deterrence model.
subgraph West["Western Rationalist Model"]
W1["Legal bans on corporal punishment"] --> W2["Children report parents to police"]
W2 --> W3["Parental authority undermined; UK reintroduces 'mild' discipline"]
end
subgraph East["Singapore Deterrence Model"]
E1["Rattan canes sold openly at retail"] --> E2["Strict domestic caning in youth"]
E2 --> E3["State judicial caning prevents vicious crime in adulthood"]
end
```
- **The UK Legal Pendulum**: After completely banning physical reprimands, Britain had to formally redefine "mild corporal punishment" as acceptable because parents found themselves legally paralyzed.
- **Singapore's Open Cane Market**: Canes are sold commercially with the explicit cultural premise that early domestic discipline prevents severe state-administered floggings later in life.
- **Social Atmosphere vs. Extreme Crime**: The panel juxtaposes Singapore’s near-zero mass casualty record against the Norwegian mass shooting (referencing Anders Behring Breivik killing scores of youth), debating whether total permissiveness inadvertently invites unchecked horrors.
---
[38:03](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqC3YUXq_Q8&t=2283s) Beneath the "Demon" Mask: Inferiority, Moral Idiocy, and the Japan 2000 Case
The panel cautions against drawing universal conclusions solely from sensational headlines, noting that public discourse around education remains fixated on extreme atrocities. Society reflexively brands child abusers and murderers as irredeemable "demons." In reality, those who torment vulnerable dependents or domestic animals are rarely powerful monsters; they are almost invariably the most pathetic, psychologically damaged, and insecure members of their social circles, transferring their own humiliation downward.
A chilling case from Japan in the year 2000 illustrates this dynamic. The public assumed the parents who neglected and abused their child were sadistic monsters from the underclass, but the father held a respectable job and the household had stable earnings. Their defining flaw was that they had parented far too young without guidance, plagued by an overwhelming sense of inferiority. They were so incapable of social assertiveness that they could not even turn away aggressive door-to-door salesmen. A salesman would walk into their living room, slice their bedding open, claim the cotton was spoiled, and sell them an unneeded replacement—and they would meekly purchase it. Burdened by this crippling powerlessness, they vented their suppressed rage and inadequacy onto their own helpless child.
Professor Li Meijin introduces a clinical explanation: the mother likely suffered from an antisocial personality disorder characterized by "emotional dementia" or "moral idiocy" (缺乏情感反应能力). In nature, even mammals possess basic maternal attachment; a viral video is cited showing a mother cat unable to rescue her kitten from a trap, lingering for days and repeatedly looking back in heartbreak as she was forced to leave. Humans with emotional dementia, however, are congenitally blind to empathy, much like someone born with severe cognitive deficits who cannot learn regardless of medication. While an ordinary mother told her newborn might be blind would instinctively cradle and protect the infant regardless of hardship, an emotionally detached parent views an ailing or unwanted child solely as an intolerable burden and abandons it without remorse.
- **The 2000 Japan Quilt Incident**: An abused child's parents were completely submissive to predatory salesmen who cut their bedding open to force sales; their home abuse stemmed directly from this external cowardice.
- **Moral Idiocy / Emotional Dementia**: A congenital psychiatric defect where an individual entirely lacks empathetic emotional resonance and natural parental bonding instincts.
- **Instinctive Mammalian Compassion**: Animal behavior—such as the mother cat mourning her trapped kitten—demonstrates that nurturing protection is an innate biological baseline that personality-disordered abusers lack.
---
[40:31](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqC3YUXq_Q8&t=2431s) Self-Defense, "Picking on the Weak", and the Logic of Deterrence
The dialogue shifts toward practical interventions for childhood bullying. Professor Li Meijin's long-standing recommendation is reviewed: when a schoolboy is bullied, parents should enroll him in contact sports and combat arts—whether Taekwondo, wrestling, Chinese grappling (*shuai jiao*), or boxing. The objective is never to teach a boy to strike first, but rather to activate his physical presence, improve posture, and build reflexive bodily resilience so that he no longer telegraphs vulnerability.
A concrete anecdote is shared about "our friend Luo," an American chef who was relentlessly harassed and beaten during his school years in the United States. Feeling cornered, he dedicated himself to rigorous martial arts, mastering Wing Chun. Once he developed a hardened, capable physique, his peers immediately sensed the shift and ceased targeting him. Because his newfound self-assurance deterred potential attackers before any blow was struck, he rarely needed to use his martial skills in actual combat. Physical capability generated psychological deterrence.
The panel emphasizes that juvenile bullying across the board operates on a base animal instinct: picking on the weak while cowering before the strong (欺软怕硬). Bullies are fundamentally cowardly predators who fold instantly in the presence of overwhelming authority or physical strength. If three juvenile bullies who beat another child to death had been confronted on the street by a tougher older youth who slapped each of them across the face, they would have immediately submitted. The speakers argue that applying high-minded, overly gentle "rational education" to hardened young bullies often backfires: locked up for a brief stint, they emerge believing they were unfairly victimized rather than recognizing the justice of reciprocal pain.
- **Deterrence Through Physical Arts**: Martial training transforms a timid child's body language, eliminating the submissive posture that schoolyard predators naturally target.
- **The Case of the American Chef**: Luo's teenage transition from bullied victim to confident martial artist illustrates that physical deterrence eliminates conflict without requiring violence.
- **Predatory Psychology**: Bullies possess an innate hierarchy scanner; they do not respect polite moral appeals, but immediately capitulate when confronted with decisive, superior physical force.
---
[42:27](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqC3YUXq_Q8&t=2547s) Factory Compound Justice vs. Modern Excuses: The Lost Code of Parental Accountability
The older generation recalls how neighborhood communities enforced parental discipline decades ago in industrial factory compounds. Back then, if a boy beat up another child, community justice was swift: parents dragged their offending son behind closed doors and gave him a thorough thrashing with a wooden switch, ensuring he never dared repeat the offense. A vivid, humorous memory is recounted of neighboring families calling upon each other in the evening. A set of parents would arrive leading their child, whose head was wrapped in fresh bandages. The adults would politely sit down, sip tea together, and exchange casual pleasantries ("Hey, old friend, how have things been lately?") without uttering a word about the fight. The offending child's father, recognizing the ritual instantly, would immediately grab his guilty son and administer a beating right in front of the injured party's parents as a non-negotiable act of social accountability.
The speakers lament that modern parenting has largely abandoned this communal standard of honor and self-discipline. Today, parents whose children bully others rarely offer an apology. Instead, they defend their child with arrogant dismissals: "Who told your kid to be so incompetent?" They readily accept their child's self-serving excuse that the victim "provoked" them first, rationalizing the violence and failing to instill basic moral boundaries.
```mermaid
flowchart TD
accTitle: Communal Compound Discipline vs Modern Deflection
accDescr: Comparing traditional communal accountability with modern parental deflection.
subgraph Traditional["Old Factory Compound Code"]
T1["Injured child brought over with bandaged head"] --> T2["Parents drink tea politely without accusation"]
T2 --> T3["Offender's parent beats son in front of guests"]
T3 --> T4["Mutual honor restored; bully deterred"]
end
subgraph Modern["Contemporary Parental Deflection"]
M1["Child assaults classmate at school"] --> M2["Parent accepts child's excuse of 'provocation'"]
M2 --> M3["Parent blames victim's weakness and refuses apology"]
M3 --> M4["Bully feels validated and behavior escalates"]
end
```
Dou Wentao challenges the panel, asking with amused skepticism whether they are genuinely advocating for a return to violent traditions and child-beating. The speaker clarifies that the core principle is discipline and reciprocal responsibility rather than wanton brutality. True deterrence requires teaching a bully what physical pain feels like and confronting the offender directly at the school gates alongside their parents. The conversation concludes on the friction between families over schoolyard fights, referencing the American movie adaptation of Yasmina Reza's *God of Carnage* (directed by Roman Polanski), where two civilized bourgeois couples meet in a living room to resolve an altercation between their young sons, only to gradually unravel into petty, hysterical hostility.
- **Tea and the Switch in Factory Quarters**: Communal living in work-unit compounds relied on immediate, ritualized parental discipline in front of neighbors to mend social breaches.
- **Modern Victim-Blaming**: Contemporary parents increasingly excuse their children's aggression, blaming the bullied student for being weak or provoking the fight.
- **Cultural Cinematic Parallel**: The discussion references the film *Carnage*, highlighting how polite adult negotiations between parents over childhood bullying inevitably degenerate into tribal self-defense and chaos.
[44:45](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqC3YUXq_Q8&t=2685s) Bullying, Asymmetric Power, and Judith Rich Harris's "Nurture Assumption"
The conversation begins with a vivid depiction of adult hypocrisy in interpersonal conflicts, reminiscent of the play *God of Carnage*: when children get into a fight, their parents initially arrange a meeting under the pretense of being civilized, highly educated, and rational adults, only for the facade to collapse into a vicious, bloody brawl. While adults fighting adults is one thing, intervening physically against another person's child is condemned because the power dynamic is inherently mismatched. Yet, as the table observes with dark humor, bullying itself is fundamentally defined by asymmetry—an aggressor only picks on someone precisely because it is *not* an even match. Dou Wentao and the guests joke about physical intimidation: if one speaker wanted to throw a punch at Wentao, it would be pure bullying due to their size difference, whereas if Wentao looked like Mike Tyson, everyone would treat him like royalty. Assessing who is vulnerable and who is dangerous is an instinct hardwired into human survival.
```mermaid
flowchart TD
accTitle: Competing Influences on Child Development
accDescr: Diagram contrasting Judith Rich Harris's peer group theory with Li Meijin and Hannah Arendt's framework of early parental authority.
subgraph PeerTheory["The Nurture Assumption (Judith Rich Harris)"]
A["Family Upbringing<br/>(Limited impact in normal homes)"] -.-> C["Child Personality & Behavior"]
B["Peer Groups & Schoolmates<br/>(Dominant environmental force)"] ==> C
end
subgraph AuthorityFramework["Parental & Cultural Rules (Li Meijin & Hannah Arendt)"]
D["Parental Rules Before Age 12<br/>(Foundation of boundaries & shame)"] ==> G["Resilience Against Delinquency"]
E["Community Authority & Impartiality<br/>(Enforces order & deterrence)"] --> G
F["Peer Group Pressures<br/>(Active social environment)"] -.-> G
end
```
This dynamic leads into a debate surrounding a provocative counterargument put forward by an American female scholar (Judith Rich Harris in *The Nurture Assumption*). Her contrarian thesis suggests that society places an unfair, overwhelming burden of guilt on mothers and fathers, assuming that every personal flaw or failing in a child is the fault of their upbringing. Harris argues that, aside from severely pathological or abusive households, ordinary parents actually exert far less influence over their children's long-term personalities than peer groups do. She cites identical twins who, despite sharing the exact same household, diverge significantly in character, shaped predominantly by their classmates and social circles. While the table notes her outlier status among developmental theorists, Li Meijin concedes that peer influence is undeniable, but stresses that its power depends heavily on developmental timing. If a child receives solid, structured moral upbringing and internalizes firm behavioral rules from their parents before the critical age of 12, even negative peer circles later in adolescence will struggle to derail them.
- **The Asymmetry of Bullying**: Bullies target those who cannot fight back; when strength is equal, conflict is deterred.
- **Judith Rich Harris's Thesis**: In standard households, peer group socialization and subcultures outweigh parental socialization in shaping personality and adult outcomes.
- **The Critical Window (Li Meijin)**: Parental rules and character formation established before age 12 act as a lifelong inoculation against delinquent peer pressure.
---
[46:41](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqC3YUXq_Q8&t=2801s) Law of the Jungle: Ma Weidu's Years as "Director of Security" in the Countryside
Dou Wentao reflects on how their generation grew up in a semi-lawless environment where parents were largely absent or working, leaving children to navigate brutal playground hierarchies on their own. Ma Weidu illustrates this through his experience as an 18-year-old sent-down youth (*zhiqing*) in the countryside. He was placed in a village with over a hundred educated youths who hailed from dozens of disparate schools across the city, bringing with them varied backgrounds, personal grudges, and domestic turmoil. For the first year, the settlement operated purely on animal instinct and physical violence until an internal pecking order was hammered out. Everyone constantly weighed who was weak, who was dangerous, and who commanded respect. To maintain basic order, the community needed individuals who were fearless, appointing a tough local villager and a sent-down youth who didn't shrink from conflict. Ma Weidu took on that role for two years, earning the title "Director of Security" (保卫部长).
Major brawls were terrifying, chaotic, and over in less than a minute, leaving cleavers flying and blood everywhere. Ma recalls stepping out into the pitch-black winter night—equipped only with a dim flashlight in an era without electricity—to find a young man beaten unconscious and lying in the snow, foaming at the mouth like a crab due to punctured lungs. Ma and seven or eight youths scrambled to haul him to the commune clinic on a makeshift wooden door-plank stretcher. When the boy finally regained consciousness, his very first words, looking straight at Ma, were: "I want revenge." Because individual villages struggled to maintain internal peace, retaliatory village-versus-village gang wars erupted across seven or eight neighboring settlements, each mobilizing hundreds of youths locked in endless cycles of vengeance.
Ma Weidu was not spared physical violence himself. On one occasion, a shorter youth ambushed him from behind a set of grain-measurement bins, resentful of Ma's disciplinary authority. While the boy could never defeat Ma in a fair, one-on-one fight, he struck from behind with a sharp, heavy steel grain scoop—the kind calibrated down to precision ounces. The blow cracked Ma's skull open, leaving a permanent scar that remains visible on his head to this day, prompting Dou Wentao to joke, "No wonder you're so smart today."
- **The Rural Educated Youth Cohort**: Over 100 youths from dozens of schools thrown together, requiring roughly a full year of physical clashes to establish a natural social hierarchy.
- **The Winter Stretcher Incident**: A severely beaten youth, foaming at the mouth from lung injuries, awoke from a coma with an immediate vow: "I want revenge."
- **Ma Weidu's Ambush**: Struck on the head with a sharp steel grain measuring scoop behind the bins, resulting in a lifelong scar.
---
[50:36](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqC3YUXq_Q8&t=3036s) Community Authority, Hannah Arendt, and the Erosion of Parental Power
Reflecting on how he managed to maintain control over more than a hundred unruly youths, Ma Weidu explains that authority fundamentally depends on composure: you can never show fear or let them see your hands shaking, because human crowds react to perceived weakness exactly like a pack of predatory animals waiting for a sign of hesitation. A parallel is drawn to sociological studies of overseas worker families in regions like the Philippines, where parents are frequently abroad for years at a time. Despite the prolonged absence of traditional parental supervision, many of these children grow up without severe behavioral delinquency. The stabilizing factor is often a respected, impartial community figure—an informal "security director" or village elder—who steps into disputes with legitimate authority. For such an arrangement to hold, however, the figure's reputation for genuine fairness is non-negotiable.
The discussion then turns to political philosopher Hannah Arendt's view on education: parental authority must never abdicate or surrender to peer authority. The roles of parents and peers cannot simply substitute for one another; parents, schools, and teachers must actively hold the line against destructive societal fads and peer pressures. Li Meijin emphasizes that schoolyard bullying can never be completely eradicated by external policing alone, as it begins as early as kindergarten. The essential defense is instilling strict moral boundaries into children from early childhood.
First and foremost, parents must establish clear, non-negotiable red lines—such as older children never hitting younger ones, and boys never hitting girls. In traditional culture, hitting someone smaller or striking a female was branded as inherently "shameful" (丢人), captured by the old adage that "a good man doesn't fight with women" (好男不跟女斗). This sense of shame served as an internal cultural brake. Yet today, this cultural inheritance has broken down, leaving modern parents increasingly vulnerable, uncertain, and stripped of their natural authority compared to previous generations. Li Meijin recounts an educational program she conducted for CCTV, where she sat on stage confronting the stark dynamics between 50 children and their 50 parents.
- **Pack Psychology in Crowds**: In high-conflict social environments, showing fear invites immediate aggression; maintaining authority requires unwavering outward composure.
- **Hannah Arendt on Parental Authority**: Parents cannot surrender their disciplinary authority to the sway of peer groups; family and peer structures serve fundamentally distinct functions.
- **Internalized Cultural Restraints**: Traditional ethics framed attacking the weak or striking women as deeply disgraceful, providing a natural moral brake that modern permissive parenting has neglected to pass down.
subgraph Relief["救济路径选择"]
A["遭受校园霸凌"] --> B["私力救济: 以暴制暴"]
A --> C["公权力救济"]
B -.->|"弱势学生无法达成"| D["陷入孤立绝境"]
C --> E["司法系统: 流程漫长成本高"]
C --> F["学校体系: 惩戒权空心化"]
end
subgraph SchoolDilemma["学校管教困境"]
F --> G["教师不敢管教学生"]
G --> H["家长投诉与法律诉讼压力"]
H --> I["学校全面规避责任与平息事端"]
end
[01:02:17](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqC3YUXq_Q8&t=3737s) The Culture of Blame, Institutional Fear, and Societal "Lying Flat"
The panel opens with an examination of the deteriorating relationship between parents, schools, and public institutions. In an ideal educational dynamic, parents mediate between the school and the student: when an issue arises, the parent coordinates with the teacher—promising to handle discipline at home while explaining to the child that the teacher's strictness stems from good intentions. Today, however, that bridge has collapsed. Teachers report that they can no longer speak even slightly sternly to students; any reprimand risks triggering an immediate uproar as "the parents explode in the group chat." Even institutional interventions have withered: while schools previously appointed police officers as vice principals for legal affairs, those officers rarely visit anymore because merely scolding misbehaving pupils produces zero results in the current climate.
This paralyzing fear of liability extends far beyond the classroom into hospitals and daily life. The speakers argue that schools and medical professionals desperately need a baseline legal immunity. Doctors have grown excessively cautious, approaching patients with constant anxiety over potential lawsuits rather than focusing purely on medical intervention. This defensive posture mirrors the pervasive moral decay seen in everyday public life, where bystanders who assist injured elders are routinely accused of having caused the accident. Malicious accusers are rarely penalized for framing good Samaritans, forcing the entire society into a frantic quest for "self-exemption from liability."
This universal risk aversion has directly fueled the modern phenomenon of "lying flat." When helping others or exercising professional duty can result in hundreds of thousands of yuan in damages, retreat becomes the rational choice. Teachers no longer dare to teach, doctors shy away from complex interventions, and personal accountability evaporates. Where culture once celebrated "shouldering burdens with iron shoulders," people now carry sloped shoulders, unwilling and unable to take on any weight.
- **Defensive Medicine & Teaching**: Professionals across education and healthcare prioritize legal self-preservation over proactive intervention due to an absence of institutional liability protection.
- **Erosion of Good Samaritan Trust**: The lack of swift punishment for malicious accusers (framing rescuers for injuries) has normalized bystander apathy and deepened social cynicism.
- **The Shift from Responsibility to "Lying Flat"**: Societal risk has driven professionals from bold civic duty ("iron shoulders") to complete risk-avoidance.
---
[01:04:24](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqC3YUXq_Q8&t=3864s) Professional Dignity, Boundaries, and the Risk of Defensive Teaching
The conversation turns to the balance of power within schools. Granting teachers unchecked authority carries genuine risks of abuse, as evidenced by frequent media reports of educators mistreating students—scandals that inevitably trigger public demands to strip teachers of all disciplinary power. However, the panel contends that the solution lies not in disarming educators, but in establishing clear behavioral boundaries, raising the entry barriers to the profession, and safeguarding professional dignity.
Zhou Yijun shares observations from filming a documentary in Finland, where prospective teachers must undergo comprehensive psychological evaluations and profiling. This vetting ensures that behind a warm, pleasant exterior, candidates do not harbor hidden anti-child or anti-human tendencies. In a mature educational framework, physical abuse—such as a physical education teacher kicking a student—is completely impermissible. While some guests remark that comparing domestic schools to advanced Nordic systems has limitations, and note that students themselves can sometimes be cruel and verbally abusive toward teachers, the panel agrees that policy cannot be built solely around extreme confrontations between toxic teachers and toxic students.
Without institutional protection and clear guidelines, educators are stripped of their dignity and left with no choice but defensive self-preservation. Teachers must retain the right to enforce moderate, non-abusive disciplinary measures—such as assigning extra homework—without fear of career-ending retaliation.
```mermaid
flowchart TD
accTitle: Cycle of Defensive Teaching and Disciplinary Erosion
accDescr: A flowchart illustrating how public backlash against extreme abuse strips teacher authority, resulting in defensive teaching and student fragility.
subgraph PublicReaction["Public Outcry & De-powering"]
A["Extreme Abusive Incidents Exposed"] --> B["Blanket Stripping of Disciplinary Authority"]
end
subgraph ClassroomReality["Classroom Consequences"]
B --> C["Teachers Retreat into Self-Preservation"]
C --> D["Erosion of Teacher Dignity & Boundaries"]
D --> E["Children Enter Society Unprepared & Fragile"]
end
```
---
[01:05:51](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqC3YUXq_Q8&t=3951s) "The Coddling of the American Mind": Fragility, Feelings, and Binary Tribalism
Dou Wentao asks Zhou Yijun whether this educational predicament is unique to China or part of a broader global trend. Zhou explains that youth fragility and coddling have become widespread across developed nations, citing social research epitomized by books analyzing modern hyper-sensitivity (such as *The Coddling of the American Mind*).
She illustrates this with the example of New Zealand. Children there grow up in an idyllic, stress-free environment that supports healthy physical and hormonal development. Yet once they enter the workplace, employers find them intensely difficult to manage. If asked to work overtime one day, they will claim to feel unwell the next, refusing to provide a doctor's note and staying home simply because they do not feel like working. Any basic workplace demand is immediately labeled as "oppressing" them.
```mermaid
flowchart TD
accTitle: The Three Fallacies of Modern Fragility
accDescr: A diagram showing the three cultural fallacies contributing to hypersensitivity and ideological polarization among youth.
subgraph Fallacies["Three Cultivated Cultural Dogmas"]
F1["Pain Avoidance<br/>'Hardship must be eliminated'"]
F2["Subjective Truth<br/>'Trust emotional feelings over norms'"]
F3["Manichaean Tribalism<br/>'Life is a war between good and evil'"]
end
subgraph Impact["Social and Psychological Outcome"]
R["Extreme Personal Fragility & Aggressive Echo Chambers"]
end
F1 --> R
F2 --> R
F3 --> R
```
Zhou synthesizes modern youth fragility into three deeply damaging premises:
- **The Rejection of Antifragility**: Society historically recognized that hardships and adversity forge resilience ("what doesn't kill us makes us stronger"). Modern culture instead teaches children to avoid anything painful, leading them to question why they should ever struggle rather than pursuing a frictionless life.
- **The Sanctification of Feelings**: Objective social rules, family traditions, and rational norms have been superseded by subjective emotion. Young people are taught to place absolute trust in their momentary feelings ("I feel this, therefore it is valid and supreme").
- **Manichaean Black-and-White Tribalism**: The most destructive lesson teaches youth that the world is divided neatly into good and evil camps. This fuels online mobbing, ideological warfare, and even physical violence, as young people convince themselves that anyone who disagrees with them is an inherently evil adversary who must be crushed.
This toxic combination creates a generation incapable of tolerating opposing viewpoints, unwilling to endure discomfort, yet eager to violently denounce anyone outside their ideological camp—a climate where vocal, radical minorities increasingly dictate terms to the majority.
---
[01:08:10](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqC3YUXq_Q8&t=4090s) Inherent Good vs. Evil: Criminal Psychology, Confucius, and Balancing Love with Authority
The discussion shifts to foundational philosophy and human nature. The panel contrasts the Western legal tradition—which operates on the premise that human nature is fundamentally flawed or evil (*xìng'èshùn*)—with the traditional Chinese ethos that assumes human nature is inherently good (*xìngshànshùn*). Managing society under the presumption of human fallibility enables effective rule of law by establishing firm, non-negotiable bottom lines. Relying instead on moral enlightenment and personal virtue routinely fails because genuine moral awakening is exceedingly rare.
The reason Chinese thought defaulted to inherent goodness traces back to Confucius, whose foundational role was that of an educator. To a dedicated teacher, every pupil is lovable and capable of moral instruction ("he is teachable"). However, when managing a broad society or an institution, an administrator cannot know every individual intimately; one must establish legal and institutional boundaries assuming people can and will act maliciously.
Li Meijin addresses critics who dismiss her parenting and educational commentary with the objection: "You study criminal psychology, what right do you have to talk about education?" She counters that this is precisely her greatest qualification:
> "It is precisely because I have seen the darkest side of humanity that I know how to prevent people from becoming bad. If you have no idea what 'bad' looks like in people, then the people you lead are bound to turn out poorly."
Echoing Ma Weidu's perspective, Li Meijin emphasizes that true love in education cannot simply mean superficial pampering—endlessly praising children, assuring them of guaranteed success, and keeping them comfortable at all costs. Life is inherently demanding. When parents permit children to indulge every impulse—eating whatever they crave and sleeping whenever they wish—their physical health and moral character deteriorate. Sound education requires a harmonious balance of "both yin and yang": deep parental love paired with unmistakable authority. Disciplinary authority is not oppressive "authoritarianism," but a practical, indispensable boundary that keeps developing human beings from slipping into ruin.
```mermaid
flowchart TD
accTitle: 中式家庭教育的脱敏错位
accDescr: 展示父母在孩子幼年溺爱与初高中突然高压施加带来的心理脱敏错位
subgraph EarlyStage ["幼年时期（0-12岁）"]
A["过度溺爱 / 百依百顺"] --> B["缺乏挫折脱敏训练"]
end
subgraph LateStage ["青春期与升学期（12-18岁）"]
C["中考/高考学业压力骤增"] --> D["内分泌突变与情绪失控"]
B -.->|"错失最佳教育窗口"| E["突施高压与严厉指责"]
C --> E
D --> E
E --> F["冲动崩溃 / 极端极端危机"]
end
```
[01:26:39](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqC3YUXq_Q8&t=5199s) Permissive Education vs. Resilience Training
The discussion opens with a critique of how modern schooling has drifted into an overly permissive, hands-off approach where educators constantly step back out of fear of parental backlash. Dou Wentao and the panel reflect on an earlier observation made by Professor Li Meijin: children need to cultivate a thicker skin and build up genuine "critique tolerance" from a young age rather than being shielded from every slight discomfort. The panel notes that physical resilience training is virtually nonexistent in contemporary Chinese family life, drawing a sharp contrast with Japan, where young schoolchildren are famously made to run through winter snow in shorts to build grit and physical endurance. In contrast, if a Chinese school attempted anything remotely similar, parents would immediately march into the principal's office and make a massive scene, indignantly demanding: "My kid caught a cold, what are you going to do about it?"
```mermaid
flowchart TD
accTitle: Transition from Permissive Parenting to Jingwei
accDescr: A flow chart mapping out how healthy discipline and emotional presence produce reverence rather than trauma.
subgraph Culture ["Cultural Foundation"]
C --> D["Bedrock of Family Affection<br/>(CCTV 'Communication' survey)"]
end
subgraph Outcome ["Psychological Maturity"]
D --> E["Wei (Awe / Healthy Fear)"]
E --> F["Jing (Respect / Reverence)"]
F --> G["Jingwei (True Reverence)"]
end
```
- **Japanese Winter Training vs. Domestic Protectionism**: Japanese schools use snow running in shorts to instill somatic grit, whereas domestic parents treat even a mild cold as a liability issue for the school.
- **Critique Tolerance**: True mental resilience begins with being desensitized to minor criticisms and physical hardships during early childhood rather than being bubble-wrapped.
---
[01:27:12](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqC3YUXq_Q8&t=5232s) Rule-Based Discipline, Freedom, and Childhood Memories
The conversation shifts to the nature of parental discipline in traditional Chinese households, distinguishing between temperamental, abusive rage and disciplined, rule-based punishment. While many parents strike their children out of raw emotional frustration, a panelist explains that when discipline is governed by clear ground rules—"if you do such and such, I might hit you"—children understand the boundaries, making it an early lesson in the "rule of law" rather than arbitrary violence. Reflecting on their own childhoods, the speakers recall receiving severe corporal punishment that left indelible physical memories, yet resulted in zero lifelong resentment:
> "My dad wouldn't just use his hands, he'd take a feather duster and lash you, so your butt would be too sore to sit on a chair for a whole week... But I don't resent my parents at all, not one bit."
When asked why this physical punishment did not morph into hatred, the speaker identifies two crucial factors: absolute childhood presence and complete adult autonomy. Back then, parents accompanied their children constantly, walking them to and from school; yet the moment the children reached adulthood, parents stepped back entirely, never interfering with their dating, marriage choices, or life directions.
Another panelist shares an enduring, poignant memory of being slapped across the face by his mother in front of a neighbor auntie. The auntie—who had three daughters, longed for a son, and adored the boy—immediately pulled him into her arms and wept bitterly. The speaker notes that he only remembers the slap because the neighbor was moved to tears while hugging him; had she not cried, the incident would have vanished from his memory completely. Far from feeling traumatized, he assumed he simply had done something wrong, knowing his educated parents would never hit without reason. A humorous neighborhood memory is recalled where a father had a "horizontal palm line" (*duanzhang*, believed to pack an unusually heavy blow), prompting the mother to ban the father from ever laying a hand on the son. Instead, whenever the boy misbehaved, his mother would chase him across half the neighborhood bungalow compound while alarmed neighbors poured out to watch the commotion—only for the mother to bring him home and not lay a finger on him at all.
---
[01:29:57](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqC3YUXq_Q8&t=5397s) Cultural Differences and the Role of "Jingwei" (Reverence and Awe)
The panel examines the stark divergence between Western legal perspectives on child discipline and Chinese cultural realities. In the United States, corporal punishment triggers immediate police intervention, child protective services, and public outrage; American adults frequently trace lifelong psychological disorders and personal dysfunction back to childhood spankings. Yet, as the speakers observe, "culture is the final, most powerful wall." Within the traditional Chinese cultural framework, childhood spankings did not automatically fracture family bonds or spawn psychological trauma because they were cushioned by an unspoken consensus of parental devotion.
Professor Li Meijin recalls hosting the CCTV program *Communication* (*Goutong*) roughly fifteen to twenty years ago, where parents sat on one side of the studio and their children on the other. When she asked the young audience, "Who here has been hit?", nearly the entire room raised their hands. But when she followed up with, "How many people hate their parents?", virtually no hands went up. Deep family affection (*qinqing*) neutralized the bitterness. Li Meijin emphasizes that during human psychological growth, love alone is insufficient; a person must also develop *jing* (敬, respect) and *wei* (畏, awe or healthy fear):
> "Where does this *jing* (respect) come from? I think it must first come from *wei* (awe/fear); you have to fear first before you can respect. If you don't fear them, you won't respect them. These two words combined are called *jingwei* (reverence/awe)."
The panel concludes that while adults can respect cultural figures or scholars out of intellectual admiration—much like respecting Master Ma Weidu—a child's reverence toward elders and authority figures invariably begins with a foundational sense of healthy fear and boundaries. Without the initial anchor of *wei*, genuine *jingwei* cannot take root.
> [01:29:57](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqC3YUXq_Q8&t=5397s) Where does this jing (respect) come from? I think it must first come from wei (awe/fear); you have to fear first before you can respect. If you don't fear them, you won't respect them. These two words combined are called jingwei (reverence/awe). — 李玫瑾
## Mentioned
窦文涛, 李玫瑾, 马未都, 周轶君, 蒋方舟, 马加爵, 安东尼奥·达马西奥 (Antonio Damasio), 白银案, 新晃一中操场埋尸案, 幽微的人性, 圆桌派, 朱迪斯·哈里斯 (Judith Rich Harris), 教养的迷思 (The Nurture Assumption), 汉娜·阿伦特 (Hannah Arendt), 杀戮 (God of Carnage / 雅斯米娜·雷札), 罗曼·波兰斯基 (Roman Polanski), 怪物 (Monster / 是枝裕和), 被娇宠的美国心灵 (The Coddling of the American Mind), 迈克·泰森 (Mike Tyson), 孔子, 摩西, 伊曼努尔·康德 (Immanuel Kant), 《沟通》, 中央电视台 (CCTV), 上海卢浦大桥
## Video description
💡订阅我们，换个视角看懂万象：
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwiWVn-hZq3_zuOk570kyGA
[0:00] 我害怕
[0:00] 我们自己知道什么是对的
[1:12] 谁要是把人打伤了，回来我就打死谁。
[2:40] 逼急了我让我家小孩弄死你，反正他还没到岁数不用坐牢！
[4:40] 李玫瑾: 你不是周全，你只是‘周圆’，你根本没有纵向的时间思维。
[11:02] 今天规定，违章停车就罚款。
[13:14] 如果我做得好，我就不会被你抓住。
[13:14] 哎呀，我过去一直以为你们公安挺笨的，没想到你们这么有能耐。
[15:23] 李玫瑾: 天网恢恢，疏而不漏
[21:23] 周轶君: 本来应该在第一个红绿灯路口把它截停，但没有，它就一路滑下来，滑过了所有路口——你说的那些‘自动刹车’——在每个路口都错过了。
[36:27] 小时候在家里不挨藤条，长大了政府就用藤条打你。
[68:45] 李玫瑾: 正因为我看过了人性最恶的一面，我才知道怎么能让人不变坏。如果你连人变坏都不知道怎么变的，那你领的人肯定变坏。
[89:57] 李玫瑾: Where does this jing (respect) come from? I think it must first come from wei (awe/fear); you have to fear first before you can respect. If you don't fear them, you won't respect them. These two words combined are called jingwei (reverence/awe).
Original transcript
[0:00] There’s a school in New Zealand
[0:01] that’s quite extraordinary. When
[0:03] they’re young, the main focus is just
[0:05] letting them play, but how do they play
[0:07] ? Their recess breaks are exceptionally
[0:09] long, lasting 45 minutes. They can
[0:11] roughhouse and play however they like,
[0:13] with only one rule—though it's a bit
[0:15] of a joke—that you can't kill anyone.
[0:17] Other than that, you're free to play.
[0:20] But the strange thing is, when you tell
[0:22] them to do whatever they want. I’ve
[0:24] found that the children are actually
[0:25] quite sensible with each other. For
[0:27] example, when they play something, both
[0:29] older and younger kids are involved,
[0:30] and it’s quite high up, and they
[0:31] aren't restricted; you just play freely
[0:33] with no adults watching. The moment one
[0:35] child says, "I'm scared." Everyone
[0:37] stops immediately. I asked, "Did
[0:39] someone teach you this?" Did someone
[0:41] actually teach you to follow these
[0:42] rules? They said, "We just know what's
[0:44] right." They gradually learn these
[0:46] boundaries between one person and
[0:48] another. Even when they’re riding
[0:49] those scooters, rushing downhill, I’d
[0:51] say, "Wow, that’s so scary!" I
[0:53] noticed they weren't even wearing
[0:54] helmets. They explained that their rule
[0:56] is you only need a helmet on the road;
[0:58] if there are no cars around, you don't
[0:59] need one. Go for it. Then one child
[1:02] would help clear the rocks off the dirt
[1:03] path they were rushing down, saying, "
[1:05] Someone might trip on these, so I’m
[1:07] moving them." I thought, "Wow, where
[1:08] did you learn these things?"
[1:10] Hey, how did they learn this?
[1:12] I think it still comes down to family
[1:15] upbringing. Actually, when everyone
[1:17] comes into this world, they first learn
[1:19] many of the world's rules within their
[1:21] family. Like when a father says you
[1:23] can't do this or that. Once, while
[1:25] getting a haircut, a barber told me his
[1:27] father was rarely home, working on the
[1:29] railroad, and his mother was extremely
[1:31] busy raising three sons. He said the
[1:33] three of them were quite mischievous.
[1:35] My mom didn't talk much; she’d just
[1:37] yell and scold, saying, "Listen here:
[1:39] first, you are not allowed to steal.""
[1:41] Second, you are not allowed to lie.""
[1:44] Third, you are absolutely not allowed
[1:45] to hurt people outside. If you hurt
[1:47] someone, I’m telling you, when you
[1:49] come home, I will beat you to death."
[1:51] So, he said, even though the three of
[1:53] us were mischievous, none of us ever
[1:55] committed a crime. Later, I told him, "
[1:57] Your mother is amazing." It's about
[2:00] making sure that what is absolutely
[2:02] forbidden is communicated very clearly
[2:04] at a very early age. This you
[2:06] absolutely cannot do. I can't control
[2:08] everything you do, but if you do this,
[2:09] I will never hear the end of it with
[2:11] you. So many parents say we don't know
[2:13] how to educate, but I think this isn't
[2:14] an issue of education at all. It's
[2:16] about what you absolutely cannot do.
[2:19] That's why I say rules are something
[2:20] parents must tell their children. You
[2:22] can talk about this at the dinner table
[2:24] .
[2:24] Right? You mention who did what, and
[2:26] say, look at how someone beat someone
[2:28] else up, and they were beaten so badly.
[2:30] Their dad would immediately say, "I'm
[2:32] telling you, you better be careful in
[2:34] the future, otherwise, if I find out, I
[2:36] will beat you to death." The child
[2:37] would then know in their mind not to be
[2:39] too heavy-handed.
[2:40] Oh, if there is no education or
[2:43] upbringing at all. If a child grows up
[2:46] like a little animal, would they lack
[2:48] the ability to empathize with human
[2:51] life or the harm others suffer?
[2:54] Gosh, I felt that when this case
[2:56] happened, I mentioned that out of the
[2:59] three children, not one of them said, "
[3:01] Hey, let's just stop."
[3:03] Just to prevent it, to end it. Right,
[3:06] why is that? That's why I'm asking, to
[3:08] what extent has this problem reached?
[3:11] It's that our society currently gives
[3:13] minors—children doing bad things—
[3:15] two misconceptions: first, if you're
[3:17] under age, criminal law won't touch you
[3:19] ; second, criminal immunity.
[3:21] What do you mean?
[3:22] Actually, what we call criminal
[3:24] exemption, because the child is a minor
[3:27] .
[3:27] So I think it might not be that you're
[3:29] intentionally spreading this, but as
[3:32] long as one case is like this, it
[3:34] happens. Look at that 2019 case in
[3:36] Dalian where a teenager raped and
[3:38] murdered a girl. Wasn't it that, in the
[3:40] end, after he was taken back and
[3:41] detained for a few days, there was
[3:43] nothing to be done because he wasn't 14
[3:44] yet? That child even told people, like
[3:46] you said, he was big and tall, but he
[3:48] hadn't reached the age of 14 for
[3:50] prosecution, right?
[3:51] He judged the pros and cons even more
[3:52] clearly than you do.
[3:53] Right, he even said it himself, "I'm
[3:54] not there yet, I'm not that old,
[3:56] there's nothing you can do to me," and
[3:57] he used that as a reason to commit
[3:58] crimes. He uses this as a pretext to
[4:00] commit crimes, and that is terrifying.
[4:02] That is essentially all about pros and
[4:04] cons. It's like, for us adults, if we
[4:06] say someone is a villain, the only
[4:08] standard for judgment is whether they
[4:10] act out of self-interest.
[4:12] It's not just children. There was once
[4:14] a mother who yelled at the police.
[4:16] Whatever happens, I'll have my child
[4:18] kill you; he's not [a certain age], he
[4:20] doesn't bear responsibility. Someone
[4:22] has even said that to me.
[4:23] That person should be locked up, I
[4:25] think.
[4:26] It's just very arrogant, you know? So I
[4:28] sometimes feel that a single case, a
[4:30] specific individual case, can actually
[4:32] help improve the judicial system.
[4:34] They don't see the price, meaning
[4:36] beyond how many years you're formally
[4:38] locked up, the other invisible costs or
[4:39] whatever they may be.
[4:40] The issue you mentioned is what I often
[4:42] call temporal thinking.
[4:44] Right. Many of us lack practical
[4:47] thinking. I remember I once spoke to a
[4:50] criminal, he said he...
[4:51] He gave himself the alias "Zhou Quan"(
[4:53] meaning "comprehensive"). Why? He said,
[4:56] "I think things through comprehensively
[4:58] ."
[4:59] As it turned out, he escaped after
[5:00] several crimes, and our police failed
[5:02] to catch him multiple times. They even
[5:04] got close to him, but he still got away
[5:05] . He felt he was really something. When
[5:08] I met him, I asked, "What does the '
[5:10] Zhou' in 'Zhou Quan' mean?""A circle,
[5:12] right?" He said, "It's a circle, the
[5:14] lines I drew inside it, it's two sticks
[5:16] ." I said, "Two sticks mean two types
[5:18] of thinking. Don't you claim to think
[5:20] comprehensively?" I said, "What are
[5:21] those two types of thinking?" What does
[5:23] that mean? Later, I told him, "You're a
[5:24] person who, when dealing with problems,
[5:26] considers everything around you—front
[5:28] , back, left, right, up, down—very
[5:29] quickly." You react appropriately, so
[5:32] you can always find the best way to
[5:34] escape. But I said, if you were truly
[5:37] smart, you would know whether you'd
[5:40] earn more money living to 80 or by
[5:42] robbing people now. His first reaction
[5:45] was to say, "If I really did business,
[5:46] I'd probably be quite good at it." I
[5:48] said, "Do you understand now?""Are you
[5:50] still 'Zhou Quan'?""You can only be '
[5:52] Zhou Yuan'(the one who's gone full
[5:54] circle)." So, many people don't think
[5:56] that far ahead. I often talk about this
[5:59] issue. I tell the kids, why can't you
[6:01] be number one? I say if you commit a
[6:04] crime, even if you're sentenced to
[6:05] under ten years, you'll delay your
[6:07] schooling, job hunting, dating,
[6:09] marriage, and seeing your own children.
[6:11] This whole series of events will be
[6:13] pushed back, and when you get out,
[6:15] finding a job will be hard. Finding a
[6:17] partner will be hard. By then, half
[6:19] your life will essentially be wasted.
[6:22] No one tells them these things.
[6:24] This Professor Meijing is still a
[6:27] professor. If you ask me, this matter
[6:30] isn't that complicated. Why? There is
[6:33] an old Chinese saying we often use, "
[6:35] playing the lute to a cow." What did
[6:37] the ancients say? "Playing the lute to
[6:39] a cow—it's not that the cow can't
[6:40] hear, it's that it has no heart for it.
[6:42] " All that he just talked about, if
[6:44] those kids have no heart for it, they
[6:46] won't take it in; it goes in one ear
[6:48] and out the other. I think the simplest
[6:51] way is punishment. I feel the best way
[6:54] for a child to grow into an adult with
[6:56] a complete personality is discipline,
[6:59] but now we focus more on guidance.
[7:02] Right, did your parents beat you up a
[7:04] lot when you were little?
[7:06] The parents in that whole building all
[7:07] beat their kids, they lived in a
[7:09] military compound.
[7:10] Because the internet is so developed
[7:12] now, we see it often. I used to think
[7:14] bullying only happened among boys, but
[7:17] now seeing it between girls in those
[7:19] videos is terrifying. I feel like this
[7:22] could even be analyzed through animal
[7:24] psychology. I’ve realized that
[7:27] regardless of whether a country is
[7:30] civilized or not, even in the West,
[7:32] like in American military academies,
[7:34] there’s this thing where the seniors
[7:37] have, well, you can't exactly call it
[7:39] bullying, but they give you a hard time
[7:42] to let you know who's the boss. And
[7:45] regarding girls, I met a girl the other
[7:47] day who said they have this in college
[7:50] dorms; they call it "breaking in the
[7:52] freshmen." Of course, I don't know if
[7:55] it's really that serious, it's just
[7:57] that new students have to go to the
[7:59] seniors 'rooms. Sounds like you've
[8:01] experienced it, right?
[8:03] No, I've seen it—well, not really, I
[8:06] just heard about it from chatting with
[8:08] them. They say bullying among girls is
[8:11] often related to boyfriends, like if a
[8:14] girl likes a boy who might like someone
[8:16] else, some girls get tangled up in that
[8:19] .
[8:19] Right.
[8:20] It forms among boys who are good at
[8:23] their studies.
[8:24] Right, but what I heard was seniors
[8:26] calling juniors over, asking, "Hey, why
[8:29] are you talking to that senior?" If you
[8:31] don't answer, *slap*—right in the
[8:33] face. You'd call that bullying, right?
[8:36] The situation is as you said; bullying
[8:38] is indeed related to gender. However,
[8:41] in this specific case, it’s not
[8:43] entirely that; these kids actually used
[8:46] to hang out together. The reason he was
[8:48] targeted is that among the four kids,
[8:50] his family was relatively better off.
[8:53] He could carry some money on him, while
[8:55] the main perpetrator was quite poor. So
[8:57] , regarding this case, that’s why I
[8:59] once said online that we need to
[9:01] distinguish between bullying and
[9:03] criminal acts. When we talk about
[9:05] bullying, the character "ling" actually
[9:08] implies humiliation; the goal when
[9:10] bullying someone is to demean and
[9:12] insult them.
[9:13] Mhm.
[9:14] What is the reason for this humiliation
[9:16] ? Wang, the reason you just mentioned
[9:18] is that two girls fell in love with one
[9:19] boy. Then one of them wants to scheme
[9:21] against the other. Some will slap you
[9:23] in public to deal with you, and some do
[9:26] it secretly.
[9:26] How do you mean secretly?
[9:28] Secretly means—this was probably
[9:30] years ago, over a decade ago—there
[9:33] was a case. One girl recruited two
[9:35] others, a total of three people who
[9:37] tricked that girl, who had always been
[9:39] her very close friend. After tricking
[9:41] her and getting there, they started the
[9:43] attack. After they beat her and knocked
[9:45] her unconscious, they dragged her onto
[9:47] the train tracks and left. At the time,
[9:48] they figured she wouldn't wake up and
[9:50] would definitely be crushed by a train.
[9:52] As it turned out, the girl woke up
[9:54] later and crawled off. She didn't even
[9:56] know why, just because the boy she
[9:57] liked liked the other girl.
[9:59] Oh my,
[10:00] Two best friends. So I'm saying, this
[10:03] is truly bullying, the kind from the
[10:06] 80s.
[10:06] It's just that they took an adult's
[10:08] inner...
[10:09] Her feelings for the opposite sex...
[10:11] And acted on them, just like that.
[10:14] A lot of our inner thoughts, we...
[10:17] For adults, everyone has moral and
[10:20] legal constraints.
[10:22] But it's the same, if two people are in
[10:24] a relationship and a third person comes
[10:27] in, one of them...well...I don't know
[10:29] if this is related. I sometimes wonder,
[10:32] in our family education, parents
[10:34] nowadays teach a lot of knowledge; if
[10:36] you ask a child about various birds,
[10:39] space shuttles, or black holes, they
[10:41] know everything, but some basic things
[10:43] seem to be taught less. For instance,
[10:46] about physical health, do we have any
[10:48] classes for that? If you ask kids how
[10:50] to brush their teeth, what a basic cold
[10:52] is, or where their liver or gallbladder
[10:54] is, how many actually know? And another
[10:56] thing is the law; I later realized that
[10:59] we teach that we shouldn't break the
[11:01] law far too late.
[11:02] They say we have law classes, but they
[11:04] just cover the articles; in reality,
[11:06] our law classes are more about
[11:08] so-called knowledge, just whether you
[11:10] know the regulation or not.
[11:11] But they don't explain why, and I
[11:13] suspect many teachers couldn't explain
[11:16] that either. Because we often mention
[11:18] the issue of the spirit of the law;
[11:20] sometimes when I lecture our peers, I
[11:22] discuss this topic too. I say that as
[11:24] police, we should enforce the law
[11:26] according to the articles, but we must
[11:28] understand the spirit of the law; what
[11:29] do I mean by the spirit of the law?
[11:31] It’s about making life better for the
[11:33] people and keeping social order.
[11:35] Afterward, when I finished speaking, a
[11:36] police officer—their leader—came
[11:38] over and said to me, "Professor Li,
[11:39] you're absolutely right. Let me share
[11:41] another example with you." Back in the
[11:43] day, they were cleaning up the city and
[11:45] strictly forbidding illegal parking.
[11:47] They would fine anyone who parked
[11:49] illegally. Police were patrolling the
[11:52] streets to issue tickets. A driver
[11:54] parked near a public restroom, probably
[11:56] just went inside to use it, and came
[11:58] out to find a ticket. The driver took
[12:00] the ticket and said, "I haven't earned
[12:02] a cent all morning, and I’ve already
[12:03] gotten two tickets. I really don’t
[12:05] have any money. I was only in the
[12:07] restroom for less than five minutes.
[12:09] Could you please cancel this ticket?"
[12:11] The officer replied, "The rule today is
[12:12] , illegal parking gets a fine." The
[12:14] officer just turned and rode off on his
[12:16] motorcycle. The leader told me that
[12:18] later they started training officers on
[12:20] how to enforce the law with more
[12:22] humanity. So, I ask, what does this
[12:24] incident represent? It’s about the
[12:26] difference between enforcing the letter
[12:28] of the law and understanding its spirit
[12:30] .
[12:30] Yes, but I’m actually more interested
[12:32] in what Ma Ye mentioned—the "safety
[12:35] valve." That is to say, what keeps
[12:38] human impulses from turning into actual
[12:41] actions? It’s like this: all
[12:43] murderers—anyone who commits
[12:45] intentional homicide—harbor a certain
[12:47] belief deep down. They think, "If I do
[12:50] this well, I won't get caught by you."
[12:52] Hmm.
[12:53] Exactly.
[12:54] You might call it wishful thinking, but
[12:56] to them, they don’t see it as luck.
[12:58] For instance, in this recent case,
[12:59] those kids dug a pit a day in advance.
[13:01] Then they buried him, thinking no one
[13:03] would ever find out. Right? So many
[13:05] criminal cases are just like that. Even
[13:08] with college students, as smart as they
[13:10] are, whether it's poisoning or murder,
[13:12] it's the same. Take that 2004 Ma case I
[13:15] mentioned; before the crime, he bought
[13:18] two train tickets and prepared multiple
[13:21] fake IDs. He hadn't even decided which
[13:23] train to take first. Because he had to
[13:26] see how the crime played out, but he
[13:27] had prepared two sets of tickets. What
[13:30] does this mean? It means many criminals
[13:32] , before they commit a crime, have
[13:33] self-protective considerations. They
[13:35] truly believe they won't be discovered,
[13:37] that you won't catch them. You say
[13:39] there's a kind of extreme stupidity
[13:41] under the guise of extreme intelligence
[13:43] ; isn't there? I've seen many such
[13:45] stories, and in my recent work, "Subtle
[13:47] Human Nature," I added this article at
[13:49] the very end. I discussed a case from
[13:52] my work in the 1980s involving a 60-
[13:54] year-old researcher who was about to
[13:56] retire. What did he do? He got involved
[13:59] with a typist at his institute, and
[14:01] after that, they started a relationship
[14:04] . This girl thought the old man was
[14:06] wonderful and was willing to marry him.
[14:08] But this man, he had his own daughters,
[14:10] two children abroad, and his wife was
[14:13] actually a school principal.
[14:14] Hmm.
[14:16] A middle school principal. How could he
[14:18] possibly marry her? Then, the girl kept
[14:20] pestering and making a scene, saying if
[14:21] he didn't, she would expose everything.
[14:22] In the end, he decided to get rid of
[14:24] her. Where did he take her? Back then,
[14:26] we didn't have full weekends off, just
[14:28] one day. He scouted a spot at Fragrant
[14:30] Hills and prepared some stones. He told
[14:32] the girl to join him to see the moon
[14:34] over the weekend. Once they were at
[14:35] that spot and she was sitting down, he
[14:37] stood up, stretched his back, picked up
[14:39] a heavy brick, and smashed her to death
[14:40] . He committed the act on Saturday
[14:42] night, and by Monday, we police
[14:43] officers were already at his workplace.
[14:45] He thought he wouldn't be caught.
[14:47] Think about it; he felt that on such a
[14:48] dark mountain with no witnesses, who
[14:50] could possibly discover what he had
[14:51] done?
[14:52] Later, when we arrested and
[14:53] interrogated him, he said, "Oh, I
[14:55] always thought the police were
[14:56] incompetent. I never imagined you were
[14:59] this capable."
[15:00] He didn't know how we caught him. We
[15:02] just smiled and said, "The girl was
[15:03] sitting there when she was killed; if
[15:05] it wasn't someone she knew, who else
[15:06] could have done it?" It’s that simple
[15:08] . When we see a girl sitting there and
[15:10] being smashed to death, it’s
[15:12] obviously someone she knew. We just
[15:13] looked at who was closest to her, and
[15:15] the culprit was lined up right there.
[15:17] Exactly.
[15:18] That’s why I say that in every trade,
[15:20] there is a mountain; many criminals
[15:21] think they are very clever and can
[15:22] evade you.
[15:23] Shouldn't we then publicize more about
[15:25] how brilliant and formidable our police
[15:27] officers are?
[15:27] Always playing devil's advocate. There
[15:30] is a theory in criminology about why
[15:32] people commit crimes. Many believe
[15:35] first and foremost that they can escape
[15:38] —escape legal punishment—and
[15:40] historically, that has indeed been the
[15:42] case. Not every homicide case is solved
[15:46] . So, the stories circulating among the
[15:48] public, the stories among criminals,
[15:49] and those among ordinary people are two
[15:51] very different things. They truly
[15:53] believe they can get away with it.
[15:55] So you see.
[15:56] That's why he commits a crime. Right,
[15:58] so look, why don't I commit a crime?
[16:00] It’s not quite like that. My
[16:02] assumption comes from friends I have in
[16:04] public security; we often swap stories.
[16:07] They’ve painted a picture for me that
[16:09] you simply cannot commit a crime in
[16:11] China today. They say, "Oh," mentioning
[16:13] the "Sky Net" system, and the fact that
[16:15] since everyone uses mobile phones now,
[16:17] you have a digital trail for every
[16:19] single action. They’ve told me many
[16:21] stories of how cases are solved.
[16:23] It’s easy to solve crimes now. I just
[16:26] feel like—well, naturally, I
[16:27] wouldn’t commit a crime anyway—but
[16:30] I’ve formed this understanding that
[16:32] there is no escaping the public
[16:33] security authorities.
[16:35] Regarding what I just said, let me add
[16:37] a little more to that.
[16:38] Actually, what you’re referring to,
[16:40] it falls under a specific category.
[16:42] It’s just that people often hear
[16:43] about cases that were hard to solve in
[16:45] the past, specifically those involving
[16:47] strangers.
[16:47] Mm.
[16:48] Stranger relations, like a girl walking
[16:51] at an intersection, by a bridge, or in
[16:53] an alley. Random crimes.
[16:55] Yes, random ones. But in fact, it
[16:57] really is true that "the net of justice
[16:58] is cast wide, and though it may be
[17:00] coarse, nothing escapes it." Through my
[17:02] own work experience, I’ve seen cases
[17:03] from ten or twenty years ago still get
[17:05] solved. Like a few years ago, we saw
[17:07] cases that hadn't been solved for over
[17:09] twenty years, including that famous
[17:11] Baiyin case, all solved. Look at that
[17:13] playground burial case; wasn't that
[17:14] solved in the end? Who would have
[17:16] thought someone would be buried
[17:17] underground right under a playground?
[17:19] But the net of justice, at a certain
[17:21] point, will still uncover it, perhaps
[17:22] by accident.
[17:23] Exactly, they think they can do it
[17:25] flawlessly.
[17:26] Take the simple case I just mentioned;
[17:28] why did he bury the child? Because he
[17:30] thought you wouldn’t find them. If he
[17:31] had truly hidden them well and nobody
[17:32] could find them, this case would still
[17:34] be unsolved today.
[17:34] And if they truly can't be found, he
[17:36] might really choose a second target to
[17:37] do it again.
[17:38] Do you understand?
[17:39] Oh my.
[17:40] You can’t find them, you just can’t
[17:41] find them. So, this is what we’ve
[17:42] learned from studying many cases; you
[17:43] come to understand their psychology.
[17:45] Once they succeed the first time, there
[17:46] will be a second and third time.
[17:47] And their frequency can even be
[17:49] calculated. For some cases, like the
[17:50] ones I know the Beijing criminal
[17:52] investigation teams handle, their
[17:54] technical expertise in solving crimes
[17:55] really does rank among the best in the
[17:57] world. Mm.
[17:59] Essentially, he lured a woman to a
[18:01] location, had his buddy harm her, and
[18:04] then burned her in an oil drum. It
[18:06] burned for a day or so, and she was
[18:08] basically gone. Eventually, when the
[18:10] woman went missing, her family reported
[18:13] it. We police investigated and tracked
[18:15] her last phone call. The person on the
[18:18] other end of that call had boarded a
[18:20] plane, so he had an alibi. Then, we
[18:22] checked his phone records and found a
[18:24] few other contacts, so we investigated
[18:26] them one by one. During this process,
[18:28] we found one person highly suspicious,
[18:31] someone who had a connection to the
[18:33] person who took the flight. We tracked
[18:35] it down to a vacant property of his,
[18:37] and when we arrived, someone mentioned
[18:39] that smoke had been coming from there
[18:41] for over a day. After burning for over
[18:43] a day, everything was already gone. Do
[18:46] you know what our technicians did?
[18:47] They extracted DNA.
[18:49] Once it was proven to be that woman,
[18:51] that was it; the case was solved. So
[18:53] you see, even though he planned it so
[18:55] intricately, we still cracked it.
[18:57] Nothing goes unnoticed.
[18:58] So, some of the things you mentioned
[19:00] might have existed,
[19:01] for example, cases from the 90s that
[19:03] remain unsolved to this day.
[19:05] What was missing back in the 90s? It
[19:07] was the evidence and witnesses. Even if
[19:10] you knew who the suspect was, for many
[19:12] cases, we couldn't get things like
[19:14] bloodstains or DNA from back then—but
[19:17] nowadays, that's not a problem.
[19:19] Many cases from 20 or 30 years ago are
[19:22] just like that. I know a lot about it
[19:24] because I once read many case files
[19:26] when I wanted to write a crime novel.
[19:28] There was simply nothing to find. What
[19:30] we feared back then were random crimes
[19:33] with no clear motive. There were many
[19:35] such cases, and many major crimes from
[19:37] that era remain unsolved today.
[19:39] What we are discussing here relates to
[19:41] the methods and planning of crimes.
[19:44] Whether someone commits a crime or acts
[19:47] out in bullying, is it rational or
[19:49] impulsive?
[19:50] Right, just as you said, in our
[19:52] research field, there's a perspective
[19:54] regarding minors. Why do we handle them
[19:57] the way we do in the justice system?
[19:59] It's because in the adolescent years—
[20:01] say from 12 onwards—this age group is
[20:03] going through what you might call a
[20:05] period of hormonal surge. So, I’ve
[20:07] said this before, you know when we keep
[20:09] a pet at home, even a dog that’s
[20:11] usually so docile, once it gets
[20:13] restless, taking it out without a leash
[20:15] is dangerous. First, it might fight,
[20:17] and second, it runs wild. You can’t
[20:20] control its speed, and it’s easy for
[20:21] it to get hit by a car. Humans have a
[20:24] similar dangerous phase. Puberty is
[20:26] essentially a period of endocrine
[20:28] changes and sexual development. What
[20:30] kind of problems can this sexual
[20:31] development cause? It can lead to this
[20:33] kind of agitation and madness.
[20:35] Yes, exactly.
[20:37] That’s the characteristic.
[20:38] During puberty, I feel some boys have
[20:41] this anger that comes out of nowhere,
[20:43] and you clearly sense it’s hormonal.
[20:45] What is the root of the problem? At
[20:48] this age, say around 11 or 12, they
[20:50] have this surge of energy, and the best
[20:53] way to release it is through intense
[20:55] physical exercise.
[20:57] But, this is exactly when academic
[20:58] pressure hits its peak, leading up to
[21:00] the high school entrance exams—they
[21:01] start at 12, and then there’s the
[21:03] middle school period before the exam.
[21:05] So for these children, those three
[21:07] years bring, first, immense academic
[21:09] pressure. Second, we live in high-rises
[21:11] now. And third, sometimes they are
[21:13] driven to school, so you’ll find that
[21:15] these kids have no way to release that
[21:17] physical energy.
[21:18] Most importantly, fourth, is that they
[21:20] eat too well and are over-nourished.
[21:22] There’s another thing; as a reporter,
[21:25] I often feel I haven’t seen enough
[21:27] investigation into their family
[21:29] backgrounds. I recently read a case
[21:31] that kept me awake at night. It
[21:36] happened in 2000, where a very young
[21:38] couple—they got pregnant and had two
[21:41] kids while still in high school—
[21:43] actually let their three-year-old
[21:45] daughter starve to death at home. Of
[21:49] course, the couple was arrested, right?
[21:51] They have a term called "failure to
[21:54] thrive." I didn’t know this before,
[21:56] but if you don’t hold a child—
[21:58] people say infants—they will
[21:59] eventually refuse to eat. It’s
[22:01] completely different if the parents
[22:03] have physical contact with them versus
[22:05] just setting the food down. People were
[22:07] very shocked by this result, but how
[22:09] could this kind of child-rearing be
[22:11] formed? Later, a reporter spent many
[22:14] years interviewing everyone around them
[22:17] . It turns out the parents definitely
[22:19] had issues; you have to look back three
[22:21] generations. Their parents, and their
[22:23] parents before them, were all neglected
[22:25] during their upbringing.
[22:27] They were all abandoned, and this has
[22:29] been inherited to a degree that you
[22:30] aren't even aware of. What is it? For
[22:33] example, when this mother feeds her
[22:35] child, she doesn't hold him. She plays
[22:37] on her phone instead, wrapping a towel
[22:39] around the baby's neck to prop up the
[22:41] bottle so he can feed himself, without
[22:42] her even noticing. And her own mother
[22:44] didn't hold her either when she was
[22:46] being fed. It’s something that gets
[22:48] passed down without them even knowing
[22:50] it. Three generations have all been
[22:52] neglected during their childhood for
[22:53] various family reasons, never having
[22:55] received that love. Mm.
[22:57] Furthermore, the reporter found that
[23:00] along the way, many social institutions
[23:02] noticed that the child wasn't
[23:04] developing well and attempted to
[23:06] intervene, but some accidental factor
[23:08] always caused them to miss the
[23:10] opportunity. For instance, when they
[23:12] took the child in, there were clear
[23:14] issues, but at another agency, the
[23:16] experienced person in charge happened
[23:17] to be on break or away, so no
[23:19] intervention took place. He said it’s
[23:21] like a car with this couple and their
[23:23] child inside, where the brakes have
[23:25] failed. As it rolls downhill, it should
[23:27] have been stopped at the first
[23:28] intersection, but it wasn't. It just
[23:30] kept sliding down, missing every single
[23:32] chance—those "automatic brakes" you
[23:34] mentioned—at every intersection. In
[23:36] the end, it led to this tragedy.
[23:38] Everyone was shocked, but when you look
[23:40] back, so many inevitable and accidental
[23:42] factors were intertwined, leading to
[23:44] this final state.
[23:45] As for this "automatic braking" device,
[23:47] I recently read a book, and I think I
[23:50] understand why braking is so difficult.
[23:52] It’s because emotion precedes reason.
[23:55] There is a neuroscientific authority in
[23:58] the U.S. named Professor Damasio. He
[24:02] explains that we now have ways to study
[24:04] the brain, like how the "self" is
[24:06] formed, thanks to new technology.
[24:10] Regardless, what he says about the
[24:13] human brain is very interesting. Our
[24:17] brains perceive our surroundings, and
[24:19] through various connections in the
[24:21] cerebral cortex, they actually build a
[24:24] sort of "brain map." Even the
[24:28] distribution of neurons in your brain
[24:30] when you hear sounds, from far to near,
[24:32] he says you could even slice a piece of
[24:35] the cerebral cortex and it would
[24:37] basically correspond to your
[24:39] surrounding environment. He uses an
[24:42] analogy, saying it's a bit like a neon
[24:44] sign, where the neurons just flicker on
[24:47] and off. He believes that the self is
[24:49] formed within our increasingly
[24:51] developed human perceptions and
[24:53] emotional responses, ultimately
[24:55] creating a sense of self-awareness in
[24:57] the highest reaches of the cerebral
[24:59] cortex. This is, of course, a
[25:01] hypothesis, but there is one part that
[25:03] isn't. That is, emotions are located in
[25:06] the brainstem. The brainstem is a more
[25:09] primitive part of the brain. You know,
[25:11] when I saw this, I even formed a
[25:13] hypothesis that dinosaurs had no reason
[25:16] , but they did have emotions. Isn't it
[25:18] said that the brainstem is the first
[25:20] part to develop? To ensure its survival
[25:22] from the start, it actually needs to
[25:25] react directly to external stimuli that
[25:27] make it safe or dangerous, comfortable
[25:29] or uncomfortable. It immediately
[25:31] produces a feeling, which helps it
[25:33] survive better. This feeling is related
[25:35] to emotions. This emotional center, why
[25:38] is it so often somatic, related to the
[25:40] body? So, gosh, you know, when I read
[25:42] this the other day, I immediately
[25:44] associated it with what Professor Li
[25:46] Meijin told me last time. Recently, my
[25:48] team—I think my colleagues are great
[25:50] —they dared to give me some feedback,
[25:52] and I am very open to criticism. They
[25:54] said something very accurate, that I
[25:56] have a very low tolerance for error and
[25:58] am not forgiving enough. In reality, I
[26:00] am very easygoing among friends, but
[26:02] when it comes to work, I don't know why
[26:04] , if even one character is wrong. I
[26:06] know that a single typo is a minor
[26:08] matter, you know? But I can actually
[26:10] feel it, when a character is wrong.
[26:12] Crucially! The key is that I can feel
[26:14] this fire rising from my very gut, from
[26:17] my internal organs. Damasio says that
[26:19] emotions are the first things we
[26:21] establish as bodily awareness; it's
[26:23] your brain actually monitoring the
[26:25] entire body, especially the viscera. I
[26:27] now understand what Chinese people mean
[26:29] by "heart-wrenching grief" or "pouring
[26:31] one's heart out."
[26:32] This refers to within the first year of
[26:34] life.
[26:34] Now, it has been confirmed by
[26:36] neuroscience. What does he mean? Let me
[26:38] tell you, I've mentioned that when I
[26:39] was a child, my mother worked at a
[26:41] garment factory. Back then, both
[26:42] parents worked, and having three kids
[26:43] meant no time to care for them.
[26:45] Childcare wasn't perfect either.
[26:46] I was never really held.
[26:48] So, my mother would go to work after
[26:51] breastfeeding me. She would leave me
[26:53] there and prop me up with a big pillow.
[26:55] Back then, you know, our family was so
[26:58] poor. She’d block me in with pillows,
[27:00] and then, after her eight-hour shift,
[27:03] my mom said that every time she got
[27:05] home, even a hundred meters away, she
[27:07] could hear my crying. Then Professor Li
[27:10] said last time that when an infant
[27:12] cries, they are demanding your
[27:13] attention, asking you to hold them; if
[27:16] you don't, it seems it causes this kind
[27:18] of visceral reaction.
[27:19] When a child is within their first year
[27:21] , their crying is physiological. It’s
[27:24] not an emotional cry. What do we mean
[27:26] by emotional crying? "I want that toy;
[27:28] if you don't buy it for me, I'll cry"
[27:30] —that's emotional, intentional crying
[27:31] . But physiological crying is when they
[27:33] truly feel pain; for instance, a child
[27:35] suffers because they cannot roll over
[27:37] on their own. When you can't turn over
[27:38] —if you're an adult in a cast, for
[27:40] example, you'd understand that feeling.
[27:42] I once had surgery and was weighed down
[27:44] by a sandbag; I couldn't move, and, oh,
[27:45] I truly felt like dying. You just have
[27:48] this desperate urge to move.
[27:49] Damasio’s research found that the
[27:52] emotional center in the brainstem is
[27:54] directly linked to what we call
[27:56] interoception. To survive, we have an
[27:58] awareness of our internal organs, which
[28:01] is why emotions are so often tied to
[28:03] our gut.
[28:04] It’s not just a matter of the
[28:06] brainstem. Now, when I discuss
[28:08] children’s mental health issues, I
[28:10] point out that we have nerve cells
[28:13] throughout our entire body. We used to
[28:15] think higher mental activity was all in
[28:18] the brain, especially the cerebral
[28:20] cortex, but in fact, the small
[28:22] intestine is like a second brain.
[28:24] When a child is young and cannot move,
[28:27] they can only cry out to demand help.
[28:29] But if you don't respond in time, they
[28:32] remain in prolonged distress, crying
[28:34] for their lives. Consider these two
[28:36] things combined: first, the visceral
[28:38] discomfort, and second, the act of
[28:40] crying itself, which is physically
[28:42] painful because it involves straining
[28:44] the body. These two sensations persist
[28:46] because this situation doesn't last
[28:48] just a day; it takes six months to a
[28:50] year before they can move their bodies
[28:53] effectively.
[28:54] So, their internal organs develop nerve
[28:56] memories, without even needing the
[28:57] brainstem. Hmm.
[28:59] Their internal organs have memories,
[29:01] but to what extent? Well, into
[29:02] adulthood, whenever a certain stimulus
[29:04] appears and they feel that internal
[29:05] tightness—
[29:06] Right. —
[29:07] they have to erupt. This eruption is
[29:09] effectively a manifestation of that
[29:11] childhood crying. I often reflect on
[29:13] why I can't keep my cool; it’s like
[29:15] seeing a typo somewhere, and suddenly I
[29:17] just flare up. It doesn’t originate
[29:19] here [in the higher brain].
[29:21] In reality, the later-developing valve
[29:23] is the higher cerebral cortex, which
[29:25] says, "Don't get angry," or "There's no
[29:27] need to get angry," and you have to
[29:28] swallow that discomfort.
[29:30] But this part here is just—
[29:32] Yes, you have to take a breath, so you
[29:35] can let it go. If you see someone who
[29:38] is gentle and refined, I feel it’s
[29:40] someone who was raised very well in
[29:42] their first year of life. That’s the
[29:45] only way they would have that grace and
[29:47] stability. Really, for this person—
[29:51] when we see someone who is truly
[29:53] cultured, they always speak softly.
[29:56] And when others get impatient with them
[29:58] , they just look at the other person
[30:00] calmly, still speaking their own words
[30:02] slowly. Why is this kind of person so
[30:04] composed? It must be that, before the
[30:06] age of three, their upbringing was spot
[30:08] on. Last time I went to France, they
[30:10] had infant psychology experts there.
[30:12] This whole system was established by
[30:14] the French, and they have a very simple
[30:16] method. It’s just talking. They talk
[30:19] to children from such a young age—
[30:21] right after they are born.
[30:23] As soon as they are born from the
[30:24] mother's womb, the nurse says, "I am
[30:26] going to change your diaper and feed
[30:27] you now." They believe that the infants
[30:30] can actually understand. Small children
[30:32] have a sense of language, and even in
[30:34] the infant’s mind, it really goes
[30:35] beyond our imagination. They mentioned
[30:37] a mother who brought her child in,
[30:39] saying, "This child cries all night and
[30:41] can't sleep, what's going on?" After
[30:44] asking the mother about her situation,
[30:46] she said she was a single mother who
[30:48] had to work and would come home late,
[30:51] and sometimes she would have a bad
[30:53] temper. The expert then explained the
[30:56] reason. The child is actually worried
[30:58] about you. It’s not that the child is
[31:00] uncomfortable; the child is worried
[31:02] about the mother. Because the child
[31:03] can't express it, they keep crying and
[31:06] refusing to sleep. The expert said, "Do
[31:08] this: go home and talk to the child.
[31:10] Even if the baby is just over a year
[31:12] old, talk to them and say,' Mom is in
[31:14] this situation, but I hope you can
[31:16] sleep well, and I will take good care
[31:18] of our life. '" It turns out it really
[31:21] is that simple.
[31:22] I’m in that state today, and I do the
[31:25] same with our cat. I tell the cat
[31:28] everything, because as you grow old,
[31:30] your children are far away, and you
[31:32] can't expect them to always be by your
[31:35] side. Raising a cat or a dog—some
[31:38] elderly people living alone with a pet
[31:40] keep talking to them, telling them
[31:43] everything, which is also good for
[31:45] themselves.
[31:46] It’s not entirely just that issue,
[31:48] though. You're all being too profound,
[31:50] talking about child psychology. Do you
[31:52] expect ordinary people to follow your
[31:54] child psychology textbooks, flipping
[31:55] through them page by page every day to
[31:57] practice?
[31:58] It's very difficult; I want to speak
[32:00] gently as much as I can. It depends on
[32:03] the parents' standard of living. They
[32:05] are busy and exhausted every day, right
[32:08] ? They work for money, get scolded by
[32:10] their bosses, and then come home—
[32:12] it’s very hard to ask them to be
[32:14] extremely gentle.
[32:15] Very hard. Everyone has human nature
[32:18] issues.
[32:19] But if someone had a good upbringing
[32:20] from a young age, you can even tell
[32:22] when they’re driving. Some people get
[32:24] worked up and aggressive, while others
[32:26] are just…
[32:26] Calm and steady. It’s not about your
[32:29] status; what is it about? Just as I
[32:31] said, it’s about how you were raised
[32:32] in your early years. So you see, people
[32:34] from places like Wuxi, including those
[32:35] near Chengdu, tend to have milder
[32:37] temperaments, but look at the north of
[32:38] the Yangtze. That’s why, during the
[32:40] War of Resistance, the most guerrilla
[32:41] warfare happened in the north. Their
[32:43] temperaments were just exceptionally
[32:45] fiery.
[32:45] They could be soldiers, so that’s the
[32:47] culture.
[32:47] There are factors of geographical
[32:49] character studies involved. No, no, to
[32:51] follow Professor Li’s point, Wuxi has
[32:52] historically been a place of merchant
[32:54] culture; it has been relatively
[32:56] affluent.
[32:56] Right.
[32:57] Asking people living in poverty to
[32:59] maintain a good mindset—I think
[33:00] that’s being incredibly hard on them.
[33:02] No, that’s not the issue. You’re
[33:04] speaking from an economic perspective,
[33:05] while he is speaking from a
[33:06] psychological one. I’m talking about
[33:07] the issue of upbringing. As long as
[33:09] there are two people in the house,
[33:10] childcare is no problem, because if one
[33:12] is busy, the other steps in, and if
[33:13] that person is busy, the first one
[33:14] steps in. But if it’s just one person
[33:16] and they are often not around, the care
[33:18] in that situation will definitely have
[33:20] issues. It’s not a matter of
[33:21] character; it’s about the emotional
[33:23] issue you just mentioned. So I ask, why
[33:25] does that child cry? It’s a visceral
[33:27] memory of pain. It’s not just about
[33:30] talking; talking to the child is
[33:31] useless. Why is the child in pain?
[33:34] It’s because they were very
[33:35] distressed during the day, and they
[33:36] will have dreams at night. Even in
[33:37] their dreams, this unresolved tension
[33:39] is still there. It’s like when we
[33:41] were children sometimes, for example,
[33:42] getting beaten by parents and feeling
[33:44] aggrieved, crying for half the day.
[33:45] Later, you notice that even when they
[33:47] sleep at night, they will still exhibit
[33:49] this phenomenon. You see, that’s what
[33:51] we mean when we ask: what is emotion?
[33:53] It starts as a visceral impulse, tied
[33:56] to your internal bodily sensations;
[33:58] it's a more primal, instinctual
[34:00] reaction when something doesn't go your
[34:03] way, and then your brain simultaneously
[34:06] experiences self-awareness, and in the
[34:09] latter part of this emotion, you feel
[34:11] that anger.
[34:13] When people get angry, it starts with
[34:15] an impulse, and then you feel like you
[34:18] can't breathe—that’s the visceral
[34:20] sensation; so I say the key is how to
[34:23] contain it, and you attribute this to
[34:25] childhood.
[34:26] Sometimes when we analyze people, it's
[34:28] just like that; you see how someone is
[34:31] now, and you basically know their
[34:32] background, that is, how they were
[34:34] raised. The earlier it happens, the
[34:36] more it determines a person's later
[34:38] emotional patterns. And then there are
[34:40] patterns in dealing with others, which
[34:41] is generally a problem by age three;
[34:43] for instance, when a child first
[34:44] encounters strangers, what is the
[34:46] parents 'attitude? If you take them to
[34:48] someone else's house and they jump on
[34:49] the bed and ransack drawers, and the
[34:51] father just looks on and laughs, this
[34:53] kind of child will have no manners in
[34:54] the future.
[34:55] Mm.
[34:56] That’s after the age of three.
[34:58] But before three, it's mainly about
[34:59] addressing your physiological needs.
[35:01] The underage murder we were just
[35:02] talking about isn't that kind of issue.
[35:04] What you described is an emotional
[35:06] problem for us adults. But underage
[35:08] murder seems to involve some kind of
[35:10] twisted rationality.
[35:11] Right, it's what you call calculation.
[35:14] This calculation exists, but they have
[35:16] no control over it.
[35:18] I just feel the punishment isn't severe
[35:19] enough; if the punishment were
[35:20] sufficient, they wouldn't dare. No,
[35:22] even if you want to punish, there are
[35:24] still complexities. Why do I say let's
[35:26] handle it this way? Even if you're a
[35:28] minor, you still go to prison and get a
[35:30] 20-year sentence; right, that would
[35:32] satisfy the public. But according to
[35:34] research, adults are more likely to
[35:35] recognize that prison and discipline
[35:37] are punishments for them, but sometimes
[35:39] when you lock up a child, they can't
[35:41] understand it correctly; they might
[35:43] perceive it as society acting against
[35:45] them, and after they get out, they
[35:47] might still harbor a desire to
[35:49] retaliate against society. So, dealing
[35:51] with a juvenile delinquent is actually
[35:53] a systematic project; how you treat
[35:54] them in prison, and the fact that they
[35:56] often can't find work or lack social
[35:58] resources once they are released—how
[36:00] to prevent them from retaliating
[36:02] against society at that point is not
[36:04] just a simple matter of locking them up
[36:06] .
[36:06] It's just that social management has
[36:08] become increasingly complex now. Back
[36:10] when we were kids, things weren't
[36:12] nearly as complicated, even though many
[36:14] problems still existed. For instance,
[36:16] bullying in schools has always been
[36:18] around; it’s happened in every era.
[36:20] In the past, China had a unique
[36:21] approach—though modern legal scholars
[36:23] , especially people like Professor
[36:24] Meijing, would certainly disagree with
[36:26] it—that was simple and effective.
[36:27] There was a saying: "Spare the rod and
[36:29] spoil the child."
[36:30] Mhm.
[36:31] That logic is debated. I hit you, so
[36:34] how can you show me filial piety? I
[36:36] feel that our modern society's view on
[36:38] punishment comes from Western sociology
[36:40] , which emphasizes rationality. For
[36:42] example, in the UK, corporal punishment
[36:45] is a crime, and children can report it.
[36:47] Later, the UK even had to walk that
[36:49] back, deciding that mild corporal
[36:50] punishment is reasonable, simply
[36:52] because they reached a point where they
[36:54] felt they had no other choice. Kids
[36:55] today sometimes know how to use the law
[36:58] better than you do. Exactly. I often
[37:00] think education is really how a culture
[37:02] defines a human being; it varies across
[37:04] different cultures. Take Nordic
[37:05] countries, for example. If you even
[37:07] touch a child, the police have to
[37:09] intervene. But when I went to Singapore
[37:11] , where there are many ethnic Chinese,
[37:12] I saw canes for sale in society. Canes
[37:14] are used for hitting. I asked, "How can
[37:16] you people just buy these things?"
[37:18] They hadn't even grown up yet. Exactly.
[37:21] That's what they said: "If you aren't
[37:22] caned at home when you're young, the
[37:23] government will use a cane on you when
[37:25] you're older." I said, "Is that really
[37:27] okay?" They said that if parents don't
[37:29] hit their kids, the parents have
[37:30] pent-up frustration they can't release.
[37:32] They saw it as a way for parents to
[37:34] vent their emotions, but...hmm.
[37:36] But following that line of thought, it
[37:38] points to a very significant issue.
[37:40] Take Singapore, for example; their
[37:41] punishments are the harshest,
[37:42] specifically caning, right? That's why
[37:44] Singapore hasn't had any large-scale,
[37:46] vicious murder cases. Nordic countries
[37:48] have the best social atmosphere, yet
[37:49] one person came out and killed over 100
[37:51] people, right? Over 100 people—what
[37:53] kind of situation is that? You're
[37:54] essentially condoning it. If that
[37:56] murderer in Norway had been in
[37:57] Singapore, he would have been caned to
[37:59] death before he could have killed even
[38:00] one person. Nordic countries should
[38:02] adopt caning.
[38:03] We can't just look at extremes.
[38:05] We shouldn't use extreme examples, yet
[38:06] our current approach to social
[38:08] education—including the examples
[38:09] we're discussing today—is all based
[38:11] on extremes, because those cases are
[38:12] extreme cases. Another thing is that we
[38:14] always think of bullies or murderers as
[38:17] demons, but very often, those who bully
[38:19] children or small animals are actually
[38:21] the most psychologically vulnerable
[38:23] people in their social or family
[38:25] circles. Let me go back to that
[38:27] Japanese case from the year 2000; when
[38:30] those parents were exposed, everyone
[38:32] assumed they must be demons. But as it
[38:34] turns out, their income wasn't
[38:36] necessarily at the absolute bottom of
[38:38] society; the father actually had a
[38:40] proper job. The thing is, they had
[38:42] children at a very young age and had no
[38:44] guidance, so they always felt deeply
[38:46] inferior—and how low did that go?
[38:48] Salespeople would just show up at their
[38:50] house. They couldn't refuse any
[38:52] door-to-door sales. A salesperson would
[38:54] walk in, cut open their quilt, and say,
[38:56] "Look, the cotton is ruined, let me
[38:58] sell you a new one," and they’d buy
[39:00] it. It wasn't that they were
[39:01] unintelligent, though they were a bit
[39:03] slow; they bought everything because of
[39:06] this psychological weakness, and they
[39:08] would take this weakness out on their
[39:10] children.
[39:10] Yes, exactly; this family is an example
[39:13] . The mother might have had what we
[39:15] call an antisocial personality—she
[39:18] lacked the instinctive emotional
[39:19] capacity that most people have. Most
[39:22] mammals have this; take cats, for
[39:24] example. I saw a video the other day
[39:26] where a kitten had fallen into a trap.
[39:28] The mother cat stayed for days, but in
[39:31] the end, there was nothing she could do
[39:33] . She kept looking back as she walked
[39:35] away because she couldn't save it.
[39:37] Animals, even mammals, have this
[39:39] emotion, so humans should have it even
[39:41] more. But there is a situation, just
[39:43] like with intellectual disabilities—a
[39:45] child with a moderate cognitive
[39:46] impairment can't attend school no
[39:48] matter what medicine they take; they
[39:49] simply cannot overcome that genetic
[39:51] limitation. There is a condition many
[39:52] people might not be aware of, which is
[39:54] emotional dementia. We also call it
[39:56] moral idiocy. These people lack human
[39:58] emotional capacity. You'd think every
[40:00] mother would hold their newborn in
[40:01] their arms, but some mothers, when told
[40:03] at birth that their child couldn't even
[40:04] open their eyes, would be asked, "Do
[40:06] you still want this baby?" They would
[40:07] say, "Yes, even if they are blind, I
[40:09] still want them." That is just the
[40:10] natural instinct of a mother. This is
[40:12] about having emotional capacity;
[40:13] maternal love is innate. Even if I lost
[40:15] my own child, I’d be willing to take
[40:17] in another to help them through danger.
[40:18] But for the woman in the family you
[40:20] mentioned, I believe she simply lacks
[40:22] this emotional capacity. She ended up
[40:24] taking all her life’s pressures and
[40:25] frustrations out on that child. When
[40:27] the child later fell seriously ill, she
[40:29] just felt like giving up.
[40:31] That could be a valid reason. If
[40:33] that’s her situation, it’s like
[40:35] some mothers who want a son but get a
[40:36] daughter; they blame her for everything
[40:38] , convinced she’s the reason they
[40:40] can’t have a son. It happens. But
[40:42] under normal circumstances, they all
[40:44] have that instinct to hold a child in
[40:45] their arms. So, she might have a
[40:47] personality disorder. Actually, Teacher
[40:49] Li, I find his methods quite practical
[40:50] and down-to-earth. I remember years ago
[40:52] he taught for a while. I told many
[40:54] parents that it’s effective for boys.
[40:56] He’d address what to do if a child is
[40:58] being bullied at school. Teacher Li
[41:00] would suggest letting them learn some
[41:01] self-defense. Recently, several parents
[41:03] told me it’s a great thing. It’s
[41:05] not that it teaches them to hit others;
[41:07] some learn Taekwondo, some learn
[41:09] wrestling, others learn grappling.
[41:10] The point is, the child’s body starts
[41:13] to get active. It’s like our friend
[41:15] Luo, do you remember? Our American cook
[41:17] , the American chef—what was he like
[41:19] when he was young? He was also bullied
[41:21] and beaten in his school in the US.
[41:22] He was picked on and intimidated, and
[41:24] just like us when we were kids, he
[41:26] started training himself. He learned
[41:28] Wing Chun and martial arts. Once he did
[41:31] , people saw his physique and were
[41:33] afraid to mess with him. Plus, he
[41:35] rarely had to use what he learned
[41:38] because the opportunities didn’t
[41:40] arise. His self-confidence grew, and he
[41:43] wasn't afraid anymore.
[41:45] Right, you’ve hit on an essential
[41:47] point. Everything we see, regardless of
[41:50] age—all these juvenile bullying and
[41:53] abuse cases—share one common trait:
[41:56] picking on the weak and fearing the
[41:58] strong.
[41:59] These people become incredibly
[42:01] submissive the moment someone of a
[42:03] higher status appears. Take those three
[42:05] kids, for example. Suppose they were
[42:07] bullying that child who died. If an
[42:10] older kid showed up and slapped each of
[42:12] them twice, those three would
[42:14] immediately submit and stop everything.
[42:16] It absolutely taps into childhood
[42:18] experiences.
[42:19] It’s definitely like that; they
[42:21] submit to that
[42:22] power.
[42:23] When this power emerges, it’s the
[42:24] same logic as me being broken like this
[42:26] .
[42:26] You can no longer move me. Right? Today
[42:29] we use gentle education, a rational
[42:31] approach that fits a high-level society
[42:33] —we’ve made it clear, a high-level
[42:35] society. You absolutely cannot educate
[42:37] him that way. Lock him up for a few
[42:39] years, and once released, he’ll just
[42:41] continue to wreak havoc, and he’ll
[42:43] even think, "I've been wronged." You
[42:45] only make him feel he wasn't wronged by
[42:47] saying, "I deserved to be locked up.""I
[42:49] deserved a beating." Didn't you hit
[42:52] someone else? Well, someone stronger
[42:54] than you comes along and beats you up.
[42:55] Then you’ll be completely honest.
[42:57] Nowadays, you certainly aren't allowed
[42:59] to do that with kids; the law and
[43:00] everything else restricts it. When we
[43:01] were little, whoever hit someone, the
[43:03] adults would bring them in, close the
[43:04] door, and give them a good thrashing
[43:05] with a stick, and that child would
[43:07] never dare hit anyone again. Yes, we
[43:08] were like that back then; we were all
[43:10] employees of the same factory. And
[43:12] often in the evening, a parent would
[43:14] lead their child in. It was—I think
[43:16] that scene was very interesting—the
[43:18] two parents would bring their child in,
[43:20] and the child would have a bandage
[43:22] wrapped around their head. Then the
[43:23] parents wouldn't even talk about the
[43:25] kids; they’d just drink tea and say,
[43:27] "Hey, old friend, how have things been
[43:29] lately?" As soon as I saw that, I knew
[43:30] my brother had gotten into a fight that
[43:32] day, and then they'd grab him.
[43:33] Give him a beating right in front of
[43:35] the others.
[43:35] Giving him a beating right in front of
[43:37] them is simply mandatory.
[43:38] Those were sensible parents, but it's
[43:39] not like that now, Grandpa. Let me tell
[43:41] you, many people today—really, my
[43:43] child, sigh...
[43:44] After hitting someone, they don't
[43:46] apologize first, and second, they think
[43:47] , "Who told your kid to be incompetent?
[43:49] " They pull that trick, you know? They
[43:51] give you that excuse because their own
[43:53] son will surely say, "He provoked me,
[43:55] that's why I hit him." So they even
[43:56] think it was right for their son to hit
[43:58] them. That's why I feel many parents
[44:00] today lack the self-discipline we had
[44:02] back then. Are you two trying to turn
[44:04] back time, returning to violent
[44:05] traditions? Are you advocating for
[44:07] beating children? I’ve been talking
[44:09] about discipline; I didn't just say "
[44:11] beating" as discipline.
[44:12] The point is still about this
[44:14] discipline. What I am talking about is
[44:15] ...It needs to be reciprocal. Why do I
[44:17] want to hit back in those situations?
[44:19] It’s to let the child—that trick
[44:21] you just mentioned is really effective
[44:22] —if a child hits someone, I bring
[44:24] that person over, right? You beat him
[44:26] up, let my kid beat him up. If you
[44:28] don't dare to do it, then if I get out
[44:29] of the car to hit you, can I leave the
[44:31] child out of it?
[44:31] No, it's about cornering him at the
[44:33] school gate, and if his parents are
[44:34] there, just let them know about the
[44:35] situation. But the key is that, like I
[44:37] said, the other parents won't resolve
[44:39] it.
[44:39] Is there a movie about this? There's an
[44:41] American movie where two couples are in
[44:43] a room, and because their kids got into
[44:45] a fight, the parents meet to discuss it
[44:47] . At first, they all pretend to be
[44:48] civilized, educated, and rational, but
[44:50] they end up brawling and beating each
[44:52] other bloody. Parents can fight each
[44:54] other, but I don't advocate for an
[44:55] adult to hit someone else's child. I
[44:57] don't support that because, after all,
[44:59] you two are not evenly matched. Are you
[45:00] really going to do that?
[45:01] No, but when he's bullying someone,
[45:03] it's never an even match. If we were
[45:04] evenly matched, why would I bully you?
[45:06] That's the world for you.
[45:07] Right. With Wentao and me, given our
[45:10] sizes, if I wanted to, I could throw a
[45:12] punch because I'm bullying you. If
[45:13] Wentao looked like Mike Tyson, I'd be
[45:15] treating you like a king every day. Who
[45:17] doesn't know how to judge for
[45:19] themselves? What you just said actually
[45:21] has a counterargument. There's a female
[45:24] scholar in the US who recently
[45:25] published a book, but I think her ideas
[45:28] are a bit eccentric. She opposes
[45:29] everything, saying we shouldn't put too
[45:31] much pressure on parents. Every time a
[45:33] child isn't doing well, people blame
[45:35] the parents, which makes modern people
[45:37] feel like they can't be parents anymore
[45:39] . Like, what exactly should I do? She
[45:41] claims that according to her research,
[45:44] except for a very small number of
[45:46] dysfunctional families, for most
[45:48] average families, parents don't have
[45:50] that much of an impact on their
[45:52] children. She believes that the
[45:54] influence of parents on children is
[45:56] definitely less than the influence of
[45:59] their peer groups. For example, she
[46:02] points to identical twins raised in the
[46:04] same household who still end up with
[46:06] different personalities. She argues
[46:09] that you are more influenced by your
[46:12] classmates and the peer groups you hang
[46:14] out with than by your parents.
[46:16] That influence on you. Parents might
[46:18] still have that genetic memory we
[46:20] mentioned earlier.
[46:21] That has absolutely no basis.
[46:23] See, that's why I said she's part of
[46:25] the minority.
[46:26] No, I can't completely dismiss this
[46:28] viewpoint, but the extent of peer
[46:30] influence really depends on the age.
[46:32] But if a child has been raised
[46:33] exceptionally well, with a solid
[46:35] upbringing before the age of 12, even
[46:37] if they encounter such peers, they
[46:39] won't end up being that bad. Regarding
[46:41] these two points, I don't know, it
[46:43] reminds me of your childhood. It's
[46:44] somewhat similar; your generation was
[46:46] actually a bit lawless, with parents
[46:48] away. Not exactly.
[46:49] But there were still principles.
[46:51] It was within a framework, I...
[46:53] Yes, that principle did exist. But your
[46:56] parents weren't really able to directly
[46:58] supervise you, right? Among your circle
[47:01] of kids,
[47:02] right, dominating others, or how could
[47:04] children who lacked power avoid being
[47:06] bullied?
[47:07] Would you say it was more often solved
[47:09] by yourselves?
[47:10] For example, let me give you an example
[47:11] : back then, I was 18, an adult, and
[47:13] went to the countryside. When I went to
[47:14] the countryside at 18, there were over
[47:16] a hundred educated youths in that
[47:17] village. They came from dozens of
[47:18] different schools. That’s quite
[47:20] daunting, because each school had a
[47:21] different background. Yes.
[47:24] And among those who came, it wasn't
[47:26] just personal issues like stealing or
[47:28] fighting; some had family issues, like
[47:31] trouble at home. To get along, it took
[47:34] about a year for these people to reach
[47:36] a balance among themselves. They all
[47:38] had to resort to physical force. It was
[47:40] pure animal instinct. Then, slowly,
[47:43] everyone figured out where they stood.
[47:46] For instance, one person might be harsh
[47:49] to you but gentle to another; they were
[47:51] constantly weighing things. At that
[47:54] time, we needed to find a villager who
[47:57] wasn't afraid of trouble and an
[47:59] educated youth who wasn't afraid of
[48:01] trouble to manage them.
[48:02] For those two years, I was the one
[48:04] handling these matters.
[48:06] That’s why some educated youths
[48:07] called me the "Director of Security"—
[48:09] that’s what it meant. I had to manage
[48:11] them. Why? I wasn't afraid of them
[48:14] fighting.
[48:14] But when they fight, that's no ordinary
[48:16] scuffle. When they were fighting, could
[48:18] you go in and pin them down?
[48:19] No, I wouldn't fight them. If I fought
[48:21] them, there would be no peace for me.
[48:23] That’s not what I meant. I mean, when
[48:25] they were fighting, if you arrived at
[48:26] the scene, how would you control them?
[48:27] The major incidents we had were always
[48:29] over by the time you arrived. A major
[48:31] incident is usually over in a minute;
[48:33] cleavers flying everywhere, with blood
[48:36] all over the place.
[48:37] For example, one of us was beaten, and
[48:39] I remember it so clearly because it was
[48:41] winter. And they said he was just lying
[48:43] on the road. You know, back then it was
[48:46] so poor and there was no electricity. I
[48:48] had a little light, which was already
[48:49] quite something, so I took that and
[48:51] went out. After going out, this guy was
[48:53] lying in the middle of the road, right
[48:54] in the dead of winter. I had never seen
[48:56] a person foaming at the mouth like a
[48:58] crab before.
[48:59] It was all foam, something was wrong
[49:01] with his lungs, his lungs.
[49:03] Then, we quickly found a board to use
[49:05] as a stretcher. Seven or eight of us
[49:07] were scrambling, and we carried him
[49:09] over to the commune clinic. You know,
[49:11] like a stretcher? He was in a coma, and
[49:14] then when he woke up, his first words
[49:16] —he looked at me and said, "I want
[49:18] revenge." That was the first thing he
[49:20] said. He wasn't afraid at all. Later,
[49:23] as I came to find out, because his
[49:25] village was struggling to stay balanced
[49:26] , he had issues with the neighboring
[49:28] village. At that time, there were seven
[49:30] or eight villages, each with over 100
[49:32] or 200 people. It turned into
[49:34] village-versus-village fights, which
[49:36] were all about repetitive retaliation.
[49:39] "You sent people to beat up our group,
[49:41] and how many of us have any money?" In
[49:43] the countryside, I even had my own head
[49:45] cracked open once.
[49:46] Just imagine, it was always like this.
[49:49] One of those times, a guy was lurking
[49:50] behind the grain measurement tools; he
[49:52] thought I was managing him. The guy was
[49:54] shorter than me. One-on-one, he
[49:56] couldn't beat me, but when I walked in,
[49:58] my head went hot, and I didn't even
[50:00] know what was happening.
[50:01] Then I got hit. Back then, to buy grain
[50:04] , there were large scoops and smaller
[50:05] scoops for precision, to measure out
[50:07] half an ounce or an ounce. That thing
[50:08] was made of steel, very sharp. He used
[50:10] it to give me a gash on the head. Even
[50:12] now, if I shave my head, I still have
[50:14] the scar.
[50:15] No wonder you're so smart today.
[50:17] But back then it was just a fight; it
[50:18] wasn't like you were run off. How did
[50:20] you eventually settle things as the
[50:22] director? I just managed them, those
[50:24] 100-plus people. For those two years, I
[50:26] was the one managing them. So there was
[50:28] authority there. It seems, first of all
[50:30] , you cannot be afraid of trouble. No
[50:31] matter how big the issue is, even if
[50:33] you’re a bit rattled, you can't let
[50:34] them see that you’re nervous, right?
[50:35] Sometimes, for example, if they
[50:37] threaten you. You see, there’s no
[50:39] difference between humans and animals.
[50:41] You look at animals, they share a look,
[50:43] and suddenly everyone pounces.
[50:44] It’s all the same. Someone has
[50:46] actually researched this. Like in
[50:48] places like the Philippines, they say
[50:50] many families always have one person
[50:52] working abroad, right? Ideally, the
[50:53] family's care and education here aren't
[50:55] entirely complete, but it basically
[50:57] seems like there isn't much of an issue
[50:59] , and the family is quite balanced; the
[51:01] child grew up without much violence or
[51:03] anything like that. Some say there's a
[51:05] reason for this, which is that in their
[51:06] community, just like you mentioned,
[51:08] there is someone like a security
[51:09] director, someone with authoritative
[51:10] management in the community.
[51:12] They have authority, and this person
[51:13] might hold some level of prestige in
[51:14] the community, so if anything happens,
[51:16] they step in.
[51:17] Also, first of all, their heart must be
[51:18] fair; if you aren't fair at heart, you
[51:20] definitely can't do this job.
[51:22] And another thing you mentioned,
[51:23] regarding the influence of parents
[51:25] versus the influence of friends, I feel
[51:27] that, no, it's definitely quite
[51:29] different. But I remember Arendt said
[51:31] something, and I find it reasonable;
[51:32] she said the authority of parents
[51:34] cannot give way to the authority of
[51:36] friends. Meaning these two things, they
[51:38] don't, you cannot let one give way to
[51:39] the other; parental management must
[51:41] remain and cannot be mutually replaced.
[51:43] It's like parents are competing against
[51:45] negative social trends, and teachers
[51:47] and schools are also competing against
[51:49] these trends, as well as against the
[51:51] children's peer groups.
[51:52] It’s not just negative trends; it’s
[51:54] that the children who are now
[51:56] committing crimes basically never had
[51:58] parents who taught them any rules at
[52:00] all. It’s a concept; the other day at
[52:04] a forum, at a meeting, I said this: I
[52:07] said it's impossible to completely
[52:09] eliminate bullying, as bullying starts
[52:12] as early as kindergarten.
[52:15] So the most important thing is to
[52:17] instill these rules into the child
[52:19] during their growth process. Therefore,
[52:22] the first to provide these rules should
[52:24] be the parents. What things you
[52:25] absolutely cannot do; then secondly,
[52:27] it's school education. For example,
[52:29] boys cannot bully girls, older kids
[52:31] cannot hit younger ones—these rules
[52:33] must be taught, and hitting someone
[52:34] smaller is shameful. In the past, we
[52:36] said a good man doesn't fight with
[52:38] women; no matter what, you shouldn't
[52:39] hit a woman. If you're capable, fight a
[52:41] man; you can't hit a woman. She's not
[52:43] your match, is it a sign of strength to
[52:45] hit her? We all had this sentiment when
[52:47] we were growing up.
[52:48] We also had this when we were young,
[52:49] that you can't hit girls, boys cannot
[52:51] hit girls.
[52:51] That’s called being shameful. Exactly
[52:53] , we call it being shameful, so why is
[52:55] it now that...
[52:56] It's a cultural factor; feeling that
[52:57] it’s shameful is culture at work, but
[52:59] the key issue now is that this culture
[53:01] of ours hasn't been passed down very
[53:03] well.
[53:03] It's just like that. In the past,
[53:06] parents were in a very powerful
[53:07] position, but now, after decades of
[53:09] education, parents have become
[53:10] extremely vulnerable.
[53:12] That's the truth.
[53:13] Let me give you an example. A few years
[53:15] ago, I was doing an educational program
[53:18] on CCTV. We invited 50 children and
[53:20] their 50 parents. As I sat on stage, I
[53:23] saw a particularly strange scene. These
[53:27] 50 parents—on stage, all 50 of them
[53:29] were sitting like this, perched on the
[53:32] edge of the sofa or half of their
[53:34] chairs, all 50 parents leaning forward.
[53:37] The 50 children were all sprawled out,
[53:40] completely relaxed, and you could see
[53:42] it very clearly. These 50 children
[53:44] didn't take their parents seriously at
[53:46] all. Hmm.
[53:48] The parents were very engaged in the
[53:49] program, wanting to learn some skills,
[53:52] but I mean, look at this vulnerable
[53:53] group, it's very clear. The parents are
[53:56] clearly the weaker party, very
[53:58] submissive. Whenever they said
[53:59] something, the kids would just show
[54:01] this disdain. The parents just listened
[54:03] like that—how are you supposed to
[54:05] educate them? We used to say that
[54:07] parents have authority.
[54:09] So you see...
[54:10] Are you trying to rebel? I always say
[54:13] this is...So you see, behind it all is
[54:15] something quite ruthless: the mechanism
[54:17] of power. I mean, if you talk about
[54:20] bullying, or someone getting beaten up
[54:22] or injured, that's crossing a line. But
[54:25] if we don't consider that limit,
[54:26] broadly speaking, you want children to
[54:28] be civilized and polite toward each
[54:30] other—but even adults can't achieve
[54:32] that, no one can. That would truly be a
[54:34] society without oppression, a society
[54:36] where no one bullies anyone, but that
[54:37] doesn't conform to the laws of nature.
[54:39] Bullying cannot be eliminated. It's
[54:42] just that this child, he has a certain
[54:45] desire for power. I always say that
[54:47] bullying and intimidation are
[54:49] essentially the same as sexual
[54:50] harassment; it's about power. So, if I
[54:52] use bad language or hit women, that's
[54:54] not called having power, that's just
[54:56] being useless, right? But what else can
[54:58] I rely on to show that I'm the boss?
[55:00] What can I rely on to show that you're
[55:02] weak and I'm strong? Actually, isn't
[55:05] this kind of thing a human instinct? In
[55:07] any group, children will fight, or try
[55:10] to establish authority. Actually, I
[55:14] don't think it's bad for boys to fight.
[55:16] Why? Because it channels all that
[55:19] muscle and strength.
[55:20] So, letting them vent those hormones is
[55:22] the right thing to do.
[55:23] As a form of physical education.
[55:24] Exactly, but I still believe what I
[55:26] said earlier: this word "bullying"
[55:27] follows us throughout our entire lives,
[55:28] only for adults, bullying takes the
[55:30] form of scheming against one another.
[55:31] Right.
[55:32] So, bullying is still related to gender
[55:35] . Take the bullying we were just
[55:37] discussing, for example. If a girl
[55:39] finds out a boy is dating another girl
[55:41] and tells other classmates, rumors
[55:43] spread through the class. Then the boy
[55:46] finds out, corners the girl, and slaps
[55:48] her face, meaning "Why are you
[55:50] spreading gossip?" Things like this are
[55:53] all called bullying. From a
[55:55] professional perspective, regarding the
[55:57] issue of bullying, we still need to
[55:58] establish rules and provide education.
[56:00] However, you don't necessarily have to
[56:02] treat it like a criminal case. That’s
[56:05] why I’ve been saying we need to
[56:06] distinguish bullying from illegal and
[56:08] criminal acts. As for the Han case,
[56:10] that isn't bullying, because they all
[56:11] hung out together; there was no
[56:13] bullying issue, it was purely about
[56:15] money. So, it’s actually criminal in
[56:17] nature. Age doesn't matter; even a
[56:19] ten-year-old can still commit murder.
[56:21] Age doesn't matter. I believe we need
[56:23] to distinguish the nature of a child's
[56:25] behavior. If the behavior is what we
[56:27] call "limited to adolescence," like
[56:28] street racing—which is very common
[56:30] among teens—when have you ever seen a
[56:32] 40-year-old go street racing?
[56:33] Maybe a professional racer.
[56:35] Right, so if we see this behavior, even
[56:37] if it's egregious, it's just adolescent
[56:40] behavior. Once they pass this stage,
[56:42] the behavior disappears.
[56:43] Mm.
[56:44] For such behavior, we must strictly
[56:46] control it, provide necessary training,
[56:48] punish them as required, and even let
[56:50] it affect their grades or other
[56:52] privileges. But you cannot say that you
[56:54] should handle it as a criminal case
[56:55] because of this. So regarding this
[56:57] issue, I personally feel—and I am
[56:59] speaking from an academic perspective
[57:01] —that these are my personal views.
[57:02] They may not be entirely correct, and
[57:04] everyone is free to criticize them. I
[57:06] personally think that if this behavior
[57:08] is limited to adolescence, we should
[57:10] try to stop it, but honestly, you can't
[57:12] wipe it out. No country in the world
[57:14] can.
[57:14] Bullying exists in every single country
[57:17] .
[57:17] But if it stops after that phase, what
[57:19] can we do? You must impose strict
[57:21] discipline during that stage. Schools
[57:23] and parents need to understand this
[57:25] phenomenon. You can fight back, but
[57:27] there are things you simply cannot do,
[57:29] like causing serious injury or assault.
[57:31] There has to be a limit. For instance,
[57:34] there are only two types of power. The
[57:36] first is private power: if you hit me,
[57:37] I’ll be tougher than you and beat you
[57:39] up, then won't you submit? This is very
[57:41] simple, but many victims of bullying
[57:43] always feel cornered, which calls for
[57:45] public authority. We currently pin our
[57:48] hopes on the judicial system, but that
[57:50] process is unbearable; therefore,
[57:51] schools have no real authority. Should
[57:53] we grant the education system—like
[57:55] schools—some moderate authority, such
[57:57] as the power to discipline or assign
[57:59] standing, to handle things? There's
[58:01] nothing wrong with that.
[58:02] I couldn't agree with you more; that is
[58:03] exactly what schools are missing right
[58:05] now.
[58:05] Schools lack authority. If they aren't
[58:08] given any, they can't act. Even if a
[58:09] teacher calls a student out, the
[58:11] student doesn't fear them because the
[58:12] teacher is told they're wrong for
[58:14] disciplining them. Let me tell you, do
[58:15] you know to what extent parents are
[58:17] suing teachers nowadays? Parents won't
[58:19] give up until the teacher is punished.
[58:21] Look at the examples; in the U.S.,
[58:22] bullying leads to immediate expulsion,
[58:24] and you lose the opportunity to receive
[58:26] further education. No, I don't want
[58:28] your punishment; this is very serious,
[58:30] and the school can make that decision.
[58:32] But is that the law, or is it the
[58:34] school?
[58:34] The school, the school makes the
[58:35] decision to expel.
[58:36] Expulsion.
[58:37] Once a school expels them, other
[58:39] schools won't accept them.
[58:40] If others won't accept them, then
[58:42] parents will have a problem on their
[58:43] hands. That doesn't work either;
[58:45] pushing them out into society after
[58:46] expulsion is even more terrifying.
[58:48] I—I’d like to add something. Since
[58:51] you just mentioned the issue of money,
[58:53] as a parent, I’m not sure if we talk
[58:55] enough about the concept of money at
[58:57] home. I keep running into these cases.
[59:00] Sometimes a friend tells me about a
[59:03] young relative, maybe 11 or 12, who
[59:06] wants a toy that "only" costs 3,000.
[59:09] You’d be shocked that they say "only
[59:12] 3,000," and personally, among my own
[59:15] relatives, I’ve seen kids who want
[59:17] the newest phone whenever they ask.
[59:21] And the adults, just like you said,
[59:23] just give it to them because their
[59:25] peers have one, too. You watch them
[59:28] grow up changing phones using money
[59:30] they didn't earn, doing things like
[59:33] borrowing money they can't pay back,
[59:35] eventually turning to loan sharks, and
[59:37] nearly ending up on a path of crime.
[59:40] You just watch how they grow up without
[59:43] a proper concept of property or money.
[59:45] I said before that we focus too much on
[59:47] knowledge, but shouldn't we be teaching
[59:49] these basic principles of being a
[59:51] decent person?
[59:52] Is there just too much that parents
[59:53] need to be educated on these days? I
[59:55] think the biggest issue is that during
[59:57] our rapid development over these years,
[59:59] some of our good values—like men not
[60:01] using their strength to bully others,
[60:02] and the strong not picking on the weak
[60:04] —have been lost, which is really
[60:06] disgraceful. In the past, we all
[60:08] emphasized fairness. But nowadays, it
[60:10] seems we don't intentionally promote
[60:12] these things anymore. Also, regarding
[60:14] the dignity teachers used to have, I
[60:16] know there are bad teachers too, but
[60:17] generally speaking, if teachers are to
[60:19] manage children, you have to give them
[60:21] some dignity.
[60:21] It's not like that now.
[60:23] Our teachers today—I've met so many
[60:25] who tell me they don't dare to
[60:26] discipline students anymore; how could
[60:28] they? It’s not just that they don't
[60:30] manage them; there are many other
[60:32] issues, like why many schools are
[60:33] canceling spring field trips—it’s
[60:35] all about avoiding liability.
[60:36] Right, exactly. So, instances of the
[60:39] strong bullying the weak are becoming
[60:40] more and more frequent, all coming out.
[60:42] Ultimately, I feel some basic rules
[60:45] have changed. For example, in the past,
[60:47] older generations would kowtow when
[60:49] hiring a private tutor for their
[60:51] children, right? But now, it seems to
[60:53] have turned into a...a society of
[60:55] rights and liability, right? And
[60:57] schools seem to be focused on
[60:58] exam-oriented education, only caring
[61:00] about acceptance rates, right?
[61:01] Everything has become so delicate; for
[61:03] instance, if a P.E. teacher kicks a
[61:06] student. Yes.
[61:07] Even a kick can become a serious
[61:09] problem, and parents today are like, "
[61:12] How dare you teachers hit our child?"
[61:14] True.
[61:15] That's a huge deal. Actually, I think
[61:18] this isn't just in China; perhaps the
[61:20] whole world is treading on thin ice.
[61:22] You know that Japanese director, what's
[61:24] his name? The one who made, I forgot, a
[61:26] film called*Monster*released recently.
[61:29] At first, the second half of the movie
[61:31] is quite unexpected, but the first half
[61:34] is actually just that: a mother thinks
[61:36] the teacher said something to her child
[61:38] , so she goes to the school to confront
[61:40] them. The school has to hold a meeting,
[61:43] and the teacher is forced to apologize.
[61:45] Or they say, "Don't explain, don't
[61:47] mention any background, just apologize,
[61:49] apologize, apologize" to appease the
[61:51] parents. If that's the case, the school
[61:54] is really...
[61:55] And I feel that if it goes on like this
[61:57] , teachers will have no dignity or
[61:59] authority in the eyes of the children.
[62:02] So, I think many children have no
[62:03] regard at all for their teachers, or
[62:05] even talk back to them, entirely
[62:07] because of the arrogance of many of our
[62:09] parents, who just say, "What do you
[62:11] want?" Gosh...Actually, as a parent,
[62:13] you should understand how the teacher
[62:15] is disciplining them and why they are
[62:17] criticizing them for certain things.
[62:18] Then, you need to work on both sides,
[62:20] for example, communicate with the
[62:21] teacher: "If there's anything, tell me,
[62:23] and I'll help you educate them." At the
[62:24] same time, tell the child that although
[62:26] the teacher might be strict, what the
[62:27] teacher's motivation is. But many
[62:29] parents now don't do that, which leads
[62:31] to what many teachers I meet say: we
[62:33] simply can't speak even slightly
[62:35] sternly, let alone do anything else. If
[62:37] we do, after the complaints, the
[62:39] parents explode in the group chat. In
[62:42] the past, we had the rule of law, like
[62:44] police coming into schools as vice
[62:46] principals for legal affairs, but when
[62:48] I asked them later, they said the
[62:50] police basically don't come anymore.
[62:52] Because just scolding them a few times
[62:54] doesn't work.
[62:55] Exactly that.
[62:56] Right, I think it's the administrators;
[62:58] schools should be granted a certain
[62:59] degree of immunity, and hospitals and
[63:01] doctors should be granted a certain
[63:03] degree of immunity. Doctors nowadays
[63:04] are even more cautious; when you see a
[63:06] patient, they're always worried about
[63:08] liability. Actually, some things are
[63:09] unnecessary; they are professionally
[63:11] trying to save you. You have to believe
[63:13] that the people at the overall level of
[63:15] this society are fine.
[63:16] Not to mention anything else, just look
[63:18] at how people help others now, and
[63:19] after you help, they turn around and
[63:20] say you hit them.
[63:21] I personally feel that as long as these
[63:23] things can be investigated, we should
[63:24] directly punish this person. Why? This
[63:26] is called framing someone, this is a
[63:28] malicious accusation. Right.
[63:29] So now the whole society is...
[63:31] Everyone is careful and tries to keep
[63:33] their hands clean.
[63:34] The whole society is now seeking
[63:36] self-exemption from liability.
[63:37] Right.
[63:38] And that's why "lying flat" appeared;
[63:39] everyone says, "I just can't do this
[63:41] anymore."
[63:41] Teachers don't dare to be teachers,
[63:42] doctors don't want to be doctors.
[63:44] Becoming a person who avoids
[63:45] responsibility. Right? In the past,
[63:47] they talked about "shouldering burdens
[63:49] with iron shoulders," but now
[63:51] everyone's shoulders are sloped; what
[63:52] can they shoulder? Nothing.
[63:54] You kindly help someone, and in the end
[63:56] , you're asked to pay hundreds of
[63:57] thousands in compensation. Who can
[63:58] afford that? This is with surveillance
[64:00] now; what if there's no surveillance?
[64:02] Without surveillance, many things are
[64:03] hard to explain.
[64:04] Exactly. But if you grant that power,
[64:06] it will lead to the problem of abuse of
[64:08] power.
[64:09] Well, it can be limited.
[64:11] There have certainly been many
[64:13] instances of teachers abusing students.
[64:15] There are so many cases like that;
[64:17] every time such news breaks, everyone
[64:19] starts calling for stripping teachers
[64:20] of their power and demanding more
[64:22] supervision over how they treat
[64:24] students.
[64:24] Actually, I think regarding abuse, we
[64:26] can set some behavioral regulations for
[64:27] teachers, defining the limits of their
[64:29] authority. The barrier to entry for the
[64:31] profession needs to be higher. I mean,
[64:33] when I was filming in Finland, they
[64:35] told me teachers have psychological
[64:37] profiles. You have to pass numerous
[64:38] psychological evaluations to ensure
[64:40] you're not just acting like a sweet
[64:42] teacher while actually harboring
[64:44] anti-child or anti-human sentiments
[64:46] inside. In a country like Finland, it's
[64:48] impossible that they would allow a P.E.
[64:50] teacher to kick a student, right?
[64:51] Those are advanced countries; it's
[64:54] meaningless for us to discuss them.
[64:56] Maybe the teacher only kicked the kid
[64:58] because the kid cursed at them first.
[65:00] That’s not necessarily true;
[65:02] sometimes I think those kids can be
[65:04] quite vicious too.
[65:05] Anyway, I believe that during human
[65:08] development, if you don't properly set
[65:10] boundaries at every stage, chaos is
[65:13] inevitable. So, we shouldn't base our
[65:15] discussion on extreme cases in schools
[65:17] —like an extreme teacher versus an
[65:19] extreme student—because when they
[65:21] clash, there's no way to talk.
[65:23] I think we need a unified standard,
[65:25] like respecting the dignity of the
[65:27] profession; a teacher must maintain a
[65:29] certain level of dignity in front of
[65:31] students. If a teacher uses moderate
[65:33] punishment, like assigning extra
[65:35] homework, it should be within the
[65:37] permissible range. If you strip all of
[65:39] that away, I feel teachers will only be
[65:41] able to focus on self-preservation.
[65:43] Yijun, you've been abroad—is this
[65:45] educational problem something happening
[65:47] all over the world? Are there any
[65:49] approaches that provide some
[65:50] inspiration?
[65:51] The most common, major issue is that
[65:53] everyone now thinks children are very
[65:56] fragile—or coddled. Look at American
[65:58] social research; isn't there a recent
[66:01] book called "How Steel Was Not Tempered
[66:03] ," arguing that these kids are
[66:05] particularly spoiled? Take New Zealand
[66:07] for example, which I just mentioned;
[66:09] people there have a great time growing
[66:11] up, and their personalities and
[66:12] hormones develop well. But when they
[66:14] start working, employers find them a
[66:16] headache. If they work overtime today,
[66:18] they’ll say they feel unwell tomorrow
[66:19] , and they don't even need a doctor's
[66:21] note—if they don't feel like coming
[66:23] in, they just don't. If I ask them to
[66:25] show up, I'm "oppressing" them. They
[66:27] are very fragile. There are probably
[66:29] many reasons for this, but some have
[66:32] summarized it into three key points.
[66:34] The first is that in the past, we
[66:36] believed that things that didn't kill
[66:38] us would make us stronger; we had to
[66:41] experience hardship.
[66:42] We thought suffering would make us
[66:44] stronger, but now kids are told not to
[66:46] touch anything that might hurt them.
[66:48] Why should you have to suffer? Why
[66:50] should I, you know, struggle with this?
[66:53] I should just pursue a life without
[66:55] pain. The second point is to trust your
[66:57] feelings. Some argue that we didn't
[66:59] have as much confidence before. Whether
[67:02] it was family rules or social norms, we
[67:04] used to listen to those, but that
[67:06] doesn't work anymore. Now, kids just
[67:08] say, "I have this feeling, and I
[67:10] believe in my feelings." The third
[67:12] point is the worst. They explain why
[67:15] kids group together to express their
[67:17] views, sometimes even through violence:
[67:19] they are taught that life is a battle
[67:22] between good and bad people. It tells
[67:24] you there are only two camps in this
[67:26] world; you either stand on one side or
[67:29] the other. It’s a reinforcing effect:
[67:31] first, avoid things I don't know;
[67:34] second, trust myself; third, life is a
[67:36] struggle—these people are bad, so I
[67:39] must oppose them.
[67:40] No, they say in many countries that
[67:42] kids are being held back by these ideas
[67:45] , but I think this is just one factor
[67:47] among many. However, you can see
[67:49] everyone analyzing why this generation
[67:52] is less willing to accept different
[67:54] opinions, less willing to endure
[67:56] hardship, and particularly eager to
[67:58] oppose anything that differs from their
[68:01] own views. You see, sometimes the voice
[68:03] of a society is shaped by a minority;
[68:05] it’s usually a minority that dictates
[68:08] things for the majority. That’s why I
[68:10] think the situation in education and
[68:12] other fields is different. For example,
[68:14] in our study of the rule of law, the
[68:16] West posits that human nature is evil,
[68:18] while we argue that it is good.
[68:20] Mm.
[68:21] You might find that managing based on
[68:23] the assumption of evil is effective.
[68:25] Why do they focus on the rule of law
[68:26] while we focus on enlightenment? If you
[68:28] rely on enlightenment, you'll find...
[68:30] How many are truly enlightened?
[68:32] Right, so that leads to a question: why
[68:35] do we claim human nature is good?
[68:37] Because the original founder of our
[68:39] theory, Confucius, was a teacher.
[68:41] Through a teacher's eyes, everyone is
[68:43] lovable and everyone is teachable—
[68:45] truly, "he is teachable."
[68:46] Mm.
[68:47] But if you shift your perspective and
[68:49] are tasked with managing a group, you
[68:50] cannot possibly understand every
[68:52] specific individual. So, one might feel
[68:54] that human nature must be evil. I have
[68:56] to set the bottom line right here. So,
[68:58] I believe education is the same. Many
[69:01] educators are just thinking about how
[69:03] to teach you well. They don't study
[69:06] human nature. But those who do study
[69:08] human nature realize it can be quite
[69:10] bad. That’s why I feel—even though
[69:12] I'm not a family education expert—
[69:14] when I’m online...Some people say, "
[69:16] You study criminal psychology, what
[69:18] right do you have to talk about
[69:20] education?"
[69:20] Right? I say you're wrong. It is
[69:23] precisely because I have seen the
[69:25] darkest side of humanity that I know
[69:27] how to prevent people from becoming bad
[69:29] . If you have no idea what "bad" looks
[69:31] like in people, then the people you
[69:33] lead are bound to turn out poorly. This
[69:36] is why I sometimes agree with Ma's
[69:38] opinion—don't assume that certain
[69:40] things are bad. In fact, there are two
[69:43] kinds of love. One is superficial:
[69:45] encouraging you, saying how great you
[69:48] are, telling you that you'll surely
[69:50] succeed—just doing whatever makes you
[69:52] feel comfortable. But life simply
[69:55] cannot be entirely comfortable for you.
[69:57] And some people say, "Don't talk to me
[69:59] about suffering." Right, you don't have
[70:02] to suffer. The problem is, if you don't
[70:03] endure hardships—like eating whatever
[70:05] you want or sleeping whenever you want
[70:07] —you might not be able to live a long
[70:08] life. Why? Because your health might
[70:11] suffer. So, when I talk about education
[70:15] , I mean it must have both yin and yang
[70:19] . There must be both love and authority
[70:21] .
[70:21] You can't just talk about authority;
[70:23] some people say, "That's
[70:24] authoritarianism." I ask them to
[70:26] explain what authoritarianism actually
[70:28] is. Right, they can't.
[70:29] Authority is a very simple and
[70:31] practical method.
[70:32] Mm.
[70:33] It is all about balance.
[70:35] This applies not only to raising
[70:36] children, but also to managing
[70:37] companies, running a country, and
[70:39] everything else. But it's very hard to
[70:41] grasp. Personally, I feel that
[70:43] discussing education is extremely
[70:45] difficult because the best education,
[70:47] in my opinion, is tailor-made; finding
[70:49] a good teacher is just so hard. Look at
[70:51] that Spring Breeze [metaphor].
[70:53] It's not like that. I think education
[70:56] is actually about grasping the simplest
[70:58] things when things get complex; for
[71:01] example, what is truly important during
[71:03] a child's growth. And these important
[71:06] things should be told as early as
[71:07] possible, rather than thinking my child
[71:09] is fine and won't have problems; by the
[71:11] time something happens, it's too late.
[71:13] So, much of our current education is
[71:16] missing this. If I were to enter a
[71:18] school, there are slogans that every
[71:20] child must know, like what I said.
[71:22] Bullying others doesn't mean you're
[71:24] capable. Right?
[71:26] Write this sentence on the gate of
[71:27] every school.
[71:28] Yes.
[71:29] So, in this situation, we talk about
[71:31] propaganda; for example, even in P.E.
[71:32] class, if you two are wrestling and you
[71:34] pin the other down, whoever can't
[71:35] resist loses. As soon as they stop
[71:37] moving for a few minutes, you must step
[71:39] away. You can't keep bullying them.
[71:41] Mhm, you mean to draw a clear red line.
[71:44] Right, do you think our middle and
[71:45] elementary students have any rules now?
[71:47] There are student codes of conduct.
[71:49] Sometimes, the dogs I raise at home are
[71:51] really interesting. I think animals are
[71:54] all very interesting. My dog is a real
[71:56] fighter, even against ones bigger than
[71:58] him. He can stand his ground, with his
[71:59] fur matted and blood everywhere. But as
[72:01] soon as the other dog falls on its back
[72:03] with its belly up, he just pins it down
[72:04] . He stands there for a while without
[72:05] moving, then he starts taking one foot
[72:07] off, then the other.
[72:08] He knows exactly when to stop.
[72:09] As long as the dog stops barking, he
[72:11] starts backing away. Later, watching
[72:13] them fight, I thought that having
[72:15] someone experienced is key. One guy
[72:16] broke up a fight between my dog and
[72:18] another. As they were fighting, the man
[72:20] said, "Don't move, don't move, let's
[72:21] both walk away." I thought that man
[72:23] really knew what he was doing. Sure
[72:24] enough, as soon as we walked away, they
[72:26] stopped fighting and ran back. So,
[72:27] sometimes it's the same with kids. Two
[72:29] kids fight, and their dads start
[72:31] arguing. While you're still arguing,
[72:33] the kids are already playing together.
[72:35] Exactly.
[72:36] So don't blow these mutual squabbles
[72:38] between children out of proportion.
[72:40] However, when it comes to major
[72:41] principles, you must tell the child
[72:43] early on what they cannot do. Right now
[72:45] , I feel like we are what? Even trivial
[72:47] matters are tightly controlled.
[72:49] Right. But they can't stop the major
[72:51] issues, which ultimately leads to crime
[72:52] .
[72:53] Actually, at the very root of human
[72:55] civilization, there is a fundamental
[72:57] concept called the "legislator."
[72:58] Whether you look at Western or Eastern
[73:01] cultures, at the very beginning, they
[73:03] always needed...
[73:04] Starting with Moses. From that era to
[73:08] Confucius, you realize that without
[73:10] sages to establish some basic rules for
[73:12] us, humanity would still be living like
[73:14] primitive people in the forests after
[73:16] thousands of years, right? The reason
[73:18] we can organize into a society like
[73:20] this today is that there must be...
[73:22] some rules.
[73:24] Laws—and I don't mean the Juvenile
[73:26] Protection Act; that's just the surface
[73:29] . I actually feel that things today are
[73:32] a bit unprincipled and lawless, deep
[73:34] down. To quote Kant, right? Something
[73:38] about the starry sky above and the
[73:40] moral law within. I believe our
[73:43] greatest, perpetual task is how to make
[73:46] that starry sky above and the moral law
[73:48] within take root in people's hearts
[73:51] like an instinct. That mission is still
[73:54] very heavy to this day, isn't it? But I
[73:57] think we did a pretty good job today.
[74:00] Thanks to you three for clearing it all
[74:02] up. Alright, thank you, thank you,
[74:04] thank you.
[74:05] The question is for you, Fang; I’ve
[74:07] heard this from your generation, but I
[74:09] also have experience with it.
[74:11] Hey, why do some Chinese parents love
[74:13] to tell their children when they are
[74:15] young, "You weren't born to me"? "You
[74:17] were picked up from a trash heap."
[74:19] It makes the child anxious and restless
[74:21] , and then the parents laugh, "Look at
[74:23] him, look at how he reacts," and they
[74:24] just play around. Why do they do that?
[74:26] I think that's just parents teasing
[74:28] their kids. I've actually dealt with
[74:30] this too; it wasn't just teasing. I was
[74:32] so serious back then, asking which
[74:34] trash bin exactly—I was looking at
[74:35] the bins downstairs wondering, is it
[74:37] this one or that one?
[74:38] I think some children have a very
[74:40] negative interpretation of it. They say
[74:43] , "My parents told me that when I was
[74:45] little, they didn't know I actually
[74:46] believed it back then." I really
[74:48] thought, "Oh no, who gave birth to me?"
[74:51] and those adults would just laugh. He
[74:54] says this is essentially a form of
[74:55] manipulation. Hmm.
[74:57] It's like they want to see, "Look, this
[74:59] is my child; I can make you cry if I
[75:00] want, I can make you scared if I want,
[75:01] I can make you laugh if I want."
[75:03] It’s not just that. I think that in
[75:05] traditional Chinese culture, there’s
[75:08] an avoidance of the topic of sex, so
[75:10] they can’t explain it. There is a
[75:12] classic joke about this: a child who
[75:14] had just started primary school
[75:16] suddenly asked his father, "Dad, where
[75:18] did I come from?" The dad said, "You
[75:20] were picked up on my bed." Hmm.
[75:23] The child asked, "Then where did you
[75:24] come from?" Meaning, where did Dad come
[75:26] from? He said, "Dad was picked up by
[75:28] Grandpa from a straw pile in the
[75:29] countryside." Then he asked, "Where did
[75:30] Grandpa come from?" He said, "Grandpa
[75:32] was picked up too." And that was the
[75:34] end of it.
[75:35] Then the child called home from school
[75:36] and said, "Our family is terrifying;
[75:38] everyone was just picked up."
[75:39] What does this show? It shows that
[75:42] children know early on.
[75:43] Today's education for children is
[75:44] completely different from our time.
[75:46] Back then, we knew nothing about sex.
[75:48] So, they just avoid the topic. I think
[75:50] there’s another point, which is that
[75:52] I feel Chinese parents—at least my
[75:53] parents when I was little—really
[75:54] liked to say, "I don't want you anymore
[75:56] ." That is actually part of the same
[75:58] system as "you were picked up." Since "
[76:00] you were picked up," I can send you
[76:02] back to the trash heap anytime I found
[76:04] you, so I think children are often in a
[76:07] state of panic. Right, let me ask you
[76:09] another question. Some children say, "
[76:11] Why do my mom and dad always belittle
[76:13] me since I was small, especially in
[76:15] front of others?""Look how fat he is,
[76:18] look how dark he is like a charcoal
[76:20] ball, you're as fat as a pig." Yes, I
[76:22] have indeed heard that some Chinese
[76:24] parents like to tease their children
[76:26] when they are young.
[76:27] You could say the parents love their
[76:29] children, but what does this kind of
[76:31] talk actually express?
[76:32] I think this might be a generational
[76:34] issue. When I was young, this happened
[76:37] a lot, but I didn’t think it was bad.
[76:39] It’s just our generation; for example
[76:42] , when we started working, many bosses
[76:44] were very harsh and spoke very severely
[76:47] .
[76:47] And then, for the third generation—
[76:49] well, I shouldn’t call it my
[76:50] father’s third generation, but my own
[76:52] child—my father speaks to him very
[76:54] harshly as well. Once, while at home,
[76:56] he suddenly shouted. I said, "He’s so
[76:59] young, you’re scaring him." My father
[77:01] , of course, said, "If he goes through
[77:03] this with me, then when he enters
[77:05] society later, no one will be able to
[77:07] scare him."
[77:08] That’s the logic behind this kind of
[77:10] upbringing.
[77:10] It’s an education of toughness.
[77:12] Right, so when they put you down, you
[77:14] know it’s just a joke; that’s also
[77:16] a sign of maturity. If you can’t
[77:18] handle a little criticism, how will you
[77:20] ever face the real world later on?
[77:21] Anything can happen out there.
[77:23] If you can’t even take a few words,
[77:25] well, insults come in two types. The
[77:27] kind of belittling I couldn’t stand
[77:28] as a kid was when my parents did it in
[77:30] front of others. I felt like whatever
[77:32] we said at home was fine, but a
[77:34] childhood trauma for me was when I
[77:36] started hitting puberty around age 12;
[77:38] whenever we had guests over, my mom
[77:40] would show me off and say, "Look, he's
[77:43] growing up," and things like that. To
[77:45] me, that was incredibly humiliating,
[77:47] but my mom would just casually bring it
[77:50] up. I feel that being humiliated in
[77:52] front of outsiders is a whole different
[77:54] level of psychological impact.
[77:56] What kind of trauma did that cause you?
[77:59] I was just afraid to talk about my own
[78:00] development.
[78:01] These are two separate issues. First,
[78:03] it’s a violation of your privacy.
[78:05] Second, there’s a traditional Chinese
[78:06] cultural belief that you should
[78:08] discipline your children in public.
[78:09] Hmm. "
[78:10] Discipline children in public, instruct
[78:12] wives in private," that’s the logic.
[78:14] But...
[78:15] That’s just the tradition; they think
[78:16] it only works if they scold the child
[78:18] in front of others, believing it's
[78:19] useless if you do it behind closed
[78:20] doors at home.
[78:21] So, how should parents actually
[78:23] criticize their children while still
[78:25] respecting their self-esteem?
[78:27] I think the big problem is that these
[78:29] kids are too sensitive; they really
[78:30] need to develop a thicker skin. We all
[78:33] have this issue now—we can't handle
[78:35] what others say about us. I feel like
[78:37] I’m becoming more thick-skinned
[78:39] myself. Back then, if someone slandered
[78:41] me online, I’d be furious. Now, if
[78:43] someone smears me, I just laugh it off.
[78:46] You see, you have to practice this kind
[78:48] of resilience.
[78:49] Do you, do you know about that incident
[78:51] ? A high school sophomore, a girl...
[78:53] Mm-hmm.
[78:54] Her homeroom teacher caught her doing
[78:56] something, maybe morning exercises...
[78:57] And the teacher said some harsh words.
[79:00] Of course, whether those words were
[79:01] actually said is still a matter of
[79:03] debate. But the girl ended up...well,
[79:06] she jumped. So, when you say that we
[79:08] can just tell these young lives
[79:10] they’re "too fragile" and "can’t
[79:12] handle a setback," isn't that being a
[79:14] bit heartless?
[79:15] Actually, regarding the issues you just
[79:18] raised, from my perspective—from a
[79:20] professional standpoint—I believe
[79:22] human psychological development is a
[79:24] process. This process, it’s actually
[79:26] that during this period, in order to
[79:28] prevent something from happening later,
[79:30] you must do certain things beforehand.
[79:32] So here, for example, we have a concept
[79:35] called desensitization.
[79:36] What is desensitization? It’s
[79:39] gradually adapting to certain negative
[79:41] things instead of facing them all at
[79:43] once; generally, desensitization refers
[79:45] to the negative stuff. Therefore, smart
[79:47] parents will actually tease their
[79:49] children a bit when they are young,
[79:51] joke around at home, or even snap at
[79:54] them directly; once they’re used to
[79:56] it, they’ll be fine later on. The key
[79:59] issue now is what? When the child is
[80:01] small, you spoil them, doing whatever
[80:03] they want, catering to their every whim
[80:05] . Then, when do they finally get
[80:07] serious? When the academic pressure
[80:09] builds up in middle school; if you
[80:11] don’t study, they feel you won't get
[80:12] into college or find a good job, and
[80:14] that’s when they get anxious with you
[80:16] . You see, you never got anxious before
[80:17] , but you're anxious now. The timing is
[80:20] wrong.
[80:20] And there was no desensitization.
[80:22] The good opportunities were all missed.
[80:24] The best time for education has passed;
[80:26] I once saw an example, that was many
[80:28] years ago. A parent was arguing with
[80:30] their daughter. The girl was about
[80:32] thirteen, right in the rebellious stage
[80:34] , because most parents are at a loss
[80:36] during this phase; they argued and got
[80:38] so worked up that the girl opened a
[80:40] window on the tenth floor and just
[80:41] jumped.
[80:42] This actually happened.
[80:44] Well, back when we were kids, we got
[80:47] hit, but who would jump? I certainly
[80:49] wouldn’t.
[80:50] Back then, everyone loved hitting their
[80:53] kids; I remember we even shared tips on
[80:55] how to handle getting a spanking. So, I
[80:58] taught them a trick: if your parents
[81:00] are hitting you, they usually follow
[81:02] the "rules" and start by spanking your
[81:04] bottom. When you're getting spanked,
[81:06] you must lift your bottom up, and as
[81:07] the hand comes down, move it back in
[81:09] rhythm. This way the hit is lighter,
[81:11] and it doesn't hurt as much.
[81:12] Right?
[81:13] It’s like Tai Chi.
[81:14] Exactly, and then you’ll call out.
[81:16] Drawing them in and letting them fall
[81:18] through.
[81:18] In our building, you could hear it
[81:20] every day; there were 18 households,
[81:21] three on each of the six floors.
[81:23] It was very common.
[81:24] Then you'd hear cries for help, the
[81:26] child shouting. When parents are like
[81:28] that, someone would knock on the door,
[81:30] and once they did, the parent would
[81:31] stop hitting the child; the neighbor
[81:33] would come and speak up.
[81:34] But he was implying that only when a
[81:36] neighbor comes to help can the incident
[81:39] stop, otherwise the parents wouldn't
[81:40] stop, since it hurts so much. But I
[81:42] think that imposing a perspective of
[81:44] how children "should" be from an
[81:46] adult's point of view is actually a bit
[81:48] problematic, because I've gradually
[81:50] come to realize that the scale of the
[81:52] adult world is different from the scale
[81:54] of a child's world. What does that mean
[81:56] ? For instance, when I was in
[81:58] elementary school, I held a position; I
[82:00] was a student leader. My job was to
[82:02] stand at the school gate and check if
[82:03] students were wearing their red scarves
[82:05] . It was such a trivial matter—if you
[82:06] weren't wearing one, you'd just get two
[82:08] points deducted. It was a minor thing.
[82:10] You'd see a kid from afar who wasn't
[82:12] wearing one start to make a scene,
[82:14] saying things like, "I'll buy one,
[82:15] please don't..." Adults would think, "
[82:17] What's the big deal?" But you could see
[82:19] the child crying their eyes out,
[82:21] because for them, losing two points was
[82:23] a massive crisis, even though in the
[82:25] grand scheme of the adult world, it was
[82:27] tiny. So I think there’s a cognitive
[82:29] dissonance there. Adults think, "You're
[82:31] making a fuss over this?" but for the
[82:33] child, this is their whole world. If
[82:35] this goes wrong, their world ends.
[82:37] Isn't that also very real?
[82:38] So, I think it’s very real.
[82:41] What I mean is, you can't just call
[82:42] children spoiled or unable to handle
[82:44] setbacks, because sometimes, what
[82:46] drives an adult to jump off a building
[82:48] is owing millions in stocks that they
[82:50] can't repay.
[82:51] But for a child, in their world, this
[82:53] is equivalent to that event. Because
[82:55] they don't have bigger things like
[82:57] stocks.
[82:58] So losing those two points is
[82:59] equivalent, or perhaps being humiliated
[83:00] in front of classmates—like if I were
[83:02] caught dating and the teacher yelled, "
[83:03] What are you two doing?"—they would
[83:05] feel like that is bigger than the sky.
[83:07] Yes, I think there's another aspect,
[83:08] because I also had an experience as a
[83:09] child where I was nearly driven to jump
[83:11] off a building by my parents. But a big
[83:13] reason why I didn't jump back then was
[83:15] that I felt my mom was on my side; in
[83:16] that environment, I wasn't completely
[83:18] desperate. But if you're in a car, for
[83:20] example, in a confined space, and
[83:22] you're living with someone who is
[83:23] constantly blaming you, with no hope
[83:25] and no support, I think it would be
[83:27] hard for me to just snap out of it. You
[83:29] just can't get past that hurdle. You
[83:31] mentioned before that you used to tell
[83:33] us about "crimes of passion," where
[83:35] people just snap—isn't it even easier
[83:37] for a child to reach that point? This
[83:39] is indeed the primary time it happens;
[83:41] you see, so many of these conflicts
[83:44] occur during puberty.
[83:45] What is puberty? It is the period of
[83:48] human sexual development, generally at
[83:50] 12 for girls and 14 for boys. Once they
[83:52] start developing, their internal
[83:53] endocrine system suddenly gets chaotic,
[83:55] as there was no such sexual secretion
[83:57] before. After this secretion starts,
[83:58] what happens to them? They become
[84:00] emotionally unstable. They can be very
[84:02] happy when they are happy, but overall,
[84:04] the changes are very rapid. For
[84:05] instance, if they are unhappy, they
[84:06] become unhappy immediately, and if they
[84:08] are happy, they switch right away. It
[84:09] is not like us adults, where that
[84:11] process is much slower. Adults often
[84:13] have this.
[84:14] Let me tell you, I've recently
[84:16] discovered—though my observation is
[84:18] superficial—that life really is a
[84:20] circle.
[84:21] I feel like menopause and puberty have
[84:23] many similar symptoms. Especially, they
[84:25] say for women, sometimes their faces
[84:27] suddenly flush red, then they suddenly
[84:29] get agitated, and their eyes suddenly
[84:31] feel very tired—yes, that is it.
[84:33] It is a physiological issue that
[84:35] triggers emotional problems. And then,
[84:37] where is the most critical part for us?
[84:40] It coincides with puberty, right before
[84:41] the high-stakes college entrance exam,
[84:43] the period of greatest pressure that
[84:45] determines your destiny. So, at this
[84:47] stage—as I’ve said—Chinese
[84:48] families are like this: in your early
[84:50] years, you are very happy. Because so
[84:52] many elders spoil you, adults spoil you
[84:54] , and you are extremely happy, all the
[84:55] way up to elementary school at age 12.
[84:57] Mm.
[84:58] But once you reach middle school, the
[84:59] entrance exams begin.
[85:00] The happiness is gone.
[85:01] From the middle school exam to the
[85:03] college entrance exam, that is the six
[85:04] years of one's life. It means these six
[85:06] years determine the rest of your life.
[85:08] So for many children, if their studies
[85:09] go smoothly, there is no problem, but
[85:11] when studies don't go well, they have
[85:12] no second path. There is no second path
[85:14] , and parents pressure them, saying, "
[85:15] You must work hard; look at these
[85:16] scores you're getting now." That is
[85:18] when conflicts arise. Of course, in
[85:20] this case, I see it's not just a matter
[85:21] of studies; he also had conflicts with
[85:23] his classmates.
[85:23] Mm.
[85:24] And it seems the mother's attitude was,
[85:26] I suspect, not siding with him.
[85:28] Mm.
[85:29] That is also an issue; sometimes I feel
[85:30] that, perhaps in this, she...But if he
[85:32] gets into a fight with a classmate
[85:33] outside, should a parent still blindly
[85:35] take their own child's side?
[85:36] Actually, how should one put it? For
[85:38] example, I remember when I was learning
[85:40] to drive, every time I got on the road,
[85:42] I would get frustrated, feeling like
[85:44] the cars in front weren't driving fast
[85:45] enough, and I’d just go on and on
[85:47] complaining. My daughter would say to
[85:48] me back then, "I'll get you a
[85:50] microphone so you can broadcast it
[85:51] outside.""It's so annoying listening to
[85:53] you every day.""
[85:54] You've become a police siren." Then,
[85:56] every time I got really angry, she
[85:58] would lecture me, saying, "Look at you,
[86:00] complaining again. Why are you so
[86:02] impatient?" I would say, "You never
[86:04] take my side, you always take theirs."
[86:06] She’s just being normal, because from
[86:08] her perspective, it’s really not
[86:09] worth getting that upset.
[86:10] But you, in that moment, are genuinely
[86:12] feeling very angry. So, I think this is
[86:14] what we call an issue of social roles
[86:16] —everyone is in a different position.
[86:18] For parents now, there is a real
[86:20] problem; for instance, when they see
[86:22] these news reports, they get scared.
[86:24] Should I discipline my child? Because
[86:26] they are so unpredictable, what should
[86:29] I actually do? You can't just not
[86:31] criticize them or ignore them, but
[86:33] teachers now, are they afraid to step
[86:35] in? That's the problem we’re facing
[86:38] now, isn't it? All of our social
[86:39] education has turned into a form of
[86:41] permissive education, and in this
[86:43] situation, everyone just backs away.
[86:45] Actually, what Professor Mei said at
[86:47] the beginning was very accurate: we
[86:49] should cultivate a habit from a young
[86:52] age—to put it simply, a thicker skin,
[86:54] and a bit of "critique tolerance."
[86:57] We don't really practice physical
[87:00] resilience training in our lives; look
[87:02] at Japanese kids running in the snow in
[87:04] shorts—none of our parents would ever
[87:07] do that.
[87:07] Parents would just go make a scene at
[87:09] school, complaining, "My kid caught a
[87:10] cold, what are you going to do about it
[87:12] ?"
[87:12] Yes, I think that is understandable.
[87:14] But I think there is a problem with
[87:16] Chinese parents, or many of them—they
[87:18] hit their children in a temperamental,
[87:20] moody way. My parents hit me too when I
[87:23] was a kid, but they would set ground
[87:25] rules first—if you do such and such,
[87:27] I might hit you—so you were very
[87:29] clear about where the boundary was. It
[87:31] shouldn't be that you just...right...
[87:33] you have to govern by law, don't you?
[87:35] It's about the rule of law; how can
[87:36] parents just hit their children
[87:37] whenever they want? There definitely
[87:38] has to be a reason. Right, I don't
[87:40] think "asking" is the point; the real
[87:42] issue isn't really about the hitting
[87:43] itself.
[87:44] Thinking about myself, my dad would
[87:45] beat me when I was little, and my mom
[87:47] would hit me too. Her hitting me left a
[87:50] deeper impression than my dad's,
[87:52] although my dad's beatings were...He
[87:54] wouldn't just use his hands, he'd take
[87:56] a feather duster and lash you, so your
[87:59] butt would be too sore to sit on a
[88:01] chair for a whole week.
[88:02] Oh my.
[88:04] But I don't resent my parents at all,
[88:06] not one bit.
[88:07] Why is that?
[88:08] It’s just the culture; no one ever
[88:09] felt resentment.
[88:10] Because back then, parents never left
[88:12] their children's side, even following
[88:13] us to and from school. Secondly, once I
[88:15] grew up, my parents gave me a lot of
[88:18] freedom. They just didn't interfere.
[88:20] That’s what I understood about my
[88:22] parents.
[88:23] My mom and dad never controlled me, not
[88:24] with my dating, my marriage, or
[88:26] anything—they never intervened in
[88:27] anything. And later, like when you’re
[88:29] getting married, you tell your parents,
[88:31] and they’d think it’s all fine.
[88:33] Everything was fine, no interference.
[88:35] They never interfered, did they? So, I
[88:37] feel that if you hadn't mentioned it, I
[88:40] wouldn't have thought about it, but
[88:42] thinking back to when I was little, one
[88:44] thing stands out—my mom slapped me. I
[88:47] don't even know why, I can't recall the
[88:50] reason, but she just slapped me right
[88:52] in front of an auntie. That auntie
[88:55] hugged me and cried, which is why it
[88:57] stuck with me. My mom...
[89:00] Even the auntie was moved to tears.
[89:02] Right, that auntie had three daughters,
[89:03] and she was very close to me. She had
[89:05] three daughters but no son, so she
[89:07] really liked boys. So, my mom slapped
[89:10] me for no particular reason, and then
[89:12] she hugged me and started crying. If
[89:14] she hadn't hugged me and cried, I
[89:15] wouldn't remember this at all.
[89:17] Because she cried while hugging me,
[89:18] that's why when I think of my mom
[89:20] hitting me, I...
[89:21] I just recall that one incident. Do you
[89:23] see that as trauma? Is it trauma? I
[89:25] still remember it now.
[89:27] But I don't have any complaints or
[89:28] anything; I just figure I must have
[89:29] been in the wrong. Why else...
[89:31] Because she wouldn't hit me for no
[89:33] reason, since both my parents were
[89:34] well-educated.
[89:35] My father, he had a "horizontal line"
[89:37] on his palm, so I called it a "heavy
[89:39] hand" or whatever. My mom had a rule
[89:40] that she wouldn't let my dad lay a
[89:42] finger on me.
[89:43] But as soon as I did something wrong,
[89:45] my mom definitely would. I remember
[89:46] once in our bungalow, I took off
[89:48] running and my mom chased me for half
[89:49] the neighborhood. Then many neighbors
[89:51] rushed out, thinking something major
[89:53] had happened, but once he got home, he
[89:55] didn't hit the child at all, then
[89:57] Is this related to some kind of social
[89:59] consensus or tradition?
[90:01] Yes, exactly.
[90:03] For example, the way you all talk,
[90:05] especially your generation—but look,
[90:07] for instance, in the US, people would
[90:09] call the police if you hit your child.
[90:11] And then, countless people as adults
[90:14] talk about how their shadows stem from
[90:16] being abused or even beaten by their
[90:18] parents when they were young, leading
[90:20] to how abnormal they are today. In that
[90:22] society, this is a huge, simply
[90:24] intolerable issue; the state doesn't
[90:26] allow anyone to lay a hand on a child.
[90:29] So that’s why they say culture is the
[90:31] final, most powerful wall. Because of
[90:34] our cultural reasons, we arrive at the
[90:36] point where hitting children isn't
[90:38] necessarily all bad results. Many years
[90:41] ago, about 15 or 20 years ago, I did a
[90:43] show on CCTV called Communication.
[90:46] Parents were on one side, children on
[90:48] the other, and I asked a question: "Who
[90:50] has been hit?" A whole crowd raised
[90:51] their hands; kids still got hit back
[90:53] then, twenty years ago. Then I asked, "
[90:55] How many people hate their parents?"
[90:57] Almost no one raised their hand. No one
[90:59] , because there is family affection.
[91:01] Actually, I mean that during the
[91:02] process of human growth, certain things
[91:03] must be formed. One of them, besides
[91:05] love, is "jing"(respect) and "wei"(awe/
[91:07] fear).
[91:08] Oh.
[91:08] This is very important.
[91:10] Do you know? Where does this "jing"(
[91:11] respect) come from?
[91:12] Where does it come from?
[91:13] I think it must first come from "wei"(
[91:15] awe/fear); right, you have to fear
[91:16] first before you can respect. If you
[91:18] don't fear them, you won't respect them
[91:19] .
[91:19] Yes, these two words combined are
[91:21] called "jingwei"(reverence/awe).
[91:22] Right, only when reaching adulthood—
[91:24] for example, I really admire scholars
[91:26] or cultural figures like Master Ma, and
[91:27] I truly respect him—but in fact, when
[91:29] we were young, this "jing"(respect)
[91:30] toward elders often had a bit of fear
[91:32] in it. y
