
What's the Difference Between Children's Books in China and the U.S.? - shahocean
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2018/01/06/573869099/whats-the-difference-between-children-s-books-in-china-and-the-u-s
======
girzel
I work in publishing, and tangentially with children's books published inside
and outside of China. My main observation is that the Chinese market for
children's books (read: parents) is totally uninterested in books produced in
China. 99% of children's books published in China are imported and translated
from other countries, mostly the US.

In other words, the (politically-influenced) Chinese publishing industry is
producing didactic children's books, but Chinese consumers are not interested
in those books at all.

~~~
Animats
What's published in China is amusing. Current events are touchy politically,
so there's a vast amount of wuxia. See any Chinese drama site. Novels about
business success are popular.

China has explicit political movie censorship. The golden dragon logo at the
beginning is the "passed by censor" label. The Chinese army even produces an
occasional feature film. "Sky Fighters", is a ripoff of "Top Gun", but worse.
The USAF, especially the Strategic Air Command, used to do stuff like that in
the 1950s. See "Strategic Air Command"[1], with Jimmie Stuart (considered
good) or "Bombers B-52" (not so good).

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGjyH2ulsCk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGjyH2ulsCk)

~~~
whooshee
There are always a tons of fans for Wuxia in China for probably hundreds
years. Supply follows demand. And Internet-literature is a big thing in China.
There are also a lot of Wuxia or quasi-wuxia published online. I wonder which
country don't censor movies? China actually has quite a few political-metaphor
movies up. Not to mention recently one filmed by Feng XiaoGang. I am not
saying China bureau of movies production are doing a good job. In fact they
have been complained quite a a lot. China still hasn't implement a good
classification system. Quite a few films got cut because it has to suit
majority(including children) which really annoys people. As your last film
example, many Chinese viewers don't think that film is good.

~~~
astebbin
> I wonder which country don't censor movies?

The USA, for one.

The MPAA does rate movies, and most theater chains choose not to run movies
rated to contain extreme violence or sexuality, but anyone can privately film
and distribute a political (for example) film that might embarrass the US
government.

Many such movies also run in theaters- see Fahrenheit 9/11, Citizenfour, All
the President’s Men, etc.

~~~
miscreanity
What about The Forecaster, a film about Martin Armstrong? It's critical of
banks, government corruption and was effectively denied viewing in the US
short of downloading pirated copies for years despite being successful
globally. Initially, Netflix was set to stream the documentary but suddenly
reversed that decision, yet other movies you list were not blocked.

Censorship in the US may be more subtle than elsewhere, but it is present.
Banks and governments have their methods which have become disturbingly
effective. Also consider SJWs who effectively drown out or ostracize anyone
with a differing viewpoint - you are free to think whatever you want, as long
as you agree with us!

[http://imdb.com/title/tt4103404/](http://imdb.com/title/tt4103404/)
[https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/world-
news/corruption/cen...](https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/world-
news/corruption/censorship-trying-to-cover-up-the-truth/)

~~~
thousandautumns
I find it hard to believe that the reason it was dropped was due to criticism
of banks and allegations of government corruption, given there is copious
amounts of other films with the same subjects available, including on Netflix.

~~~
miscreanity
You're right, it isn't just the criticism.

Armstrong advised Reagan, Thatcher and numerous other administrations over the
past few decades. He has been behind the curtain.

His computer system has been accurately forecasting long-term socio-economic
trends and their apices since the eighties. This is what the banks wanted.

When Armstrong turned the banks down, they sought to forcibly acquire the
software and utilized government to squeeze him. The story continued on with
illegitimate confiscation of billions and civil rights transgressions as
Armstrong was jailed for years over contempt of court because there were no
legitimate charges that could be brought against him.

So yes, there's definitely a history that makes Armstrong a target. The deeper
you dig, the more it makes sense why The Forecaster was effectively blocked in
the US and others have no problem.

------
GuiA
I’m French, but spent a portion of my childhood living in the USA (South
Carolina) due to my father’s work.

The one thing that my extremely French parents couldn’t stop making fun of at
the time, and still can’t stop making fun of now 20 years later, is the
American habit of praising children repeatedly, putting stickers on homework,
giving participation ribbons for every event, etc.

It was actually an interesting dichotomy: I’d get my homework back from the
teacher with it saying “Great job!” with a cute little star sticker, and then
at home my mom would get mad at me because she thought I made dumb mistakes
and would make me do it all over again.

Definitely a strong contrast between French and American values in schooling,
at least in the 90s. I’m left handed, and in the 2nd grade I had a teacher who
would tear apart any piece of paper I gave her that had any ink smudge on it
(fountain pens are mandatory in French grade school - which also confused my
parents when we moved to the US and I was expected to write everything in
pencil) and make me do it all over again. I do have really neat handwriting
now ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

15 years later, as a grad student in the US, teachers I TA’d for repeatedly
told me I was too harsh in my grading and that I shouldn’t take off points for
small mistakes, typos, etc. That’s another big difference between French and
US schooling: in France, you’re graded out of 20; but at the high
school/college level, if you have an average above 15/20, you’re most
certainly in the top of your class. In fact, in some top tier universities the
class average might be 8/20\. In grad school in the US, I had a 90%+ average,
and routinely got 100% on tests - something just completely foreign to me.

~~~
alsetmusic
> 15 years later, as a grad student in the US, teachers I TA’d for repeatedly
> told me I was too harsh in my grading and that I shouldn’t take off points
> for small mistakes, typos, etc.

I am surprised that you got resistance on this in an educational setting, of
all places. When I notice typos and grammatical errors, it almost always
lowers my opinion of the material. It signals sloppy writing or possibly
unclear thinking. It calls into question the meticulousness of the work as a
whole. I expect more from a news outlet or a review journal with a copy
editor. Professional writers and publishers should produce expert writing.

I should note a few things, for the sake of context: I had some years of
private schooling early on; my father would make me write book reports during
summer vacation; he self-published a book later in life and was very proud
that others repeatedly complimented it for being free of typos and grammatical
errors. (None of my peers had this experience growing up, to my knowledge.)

University standards should impose higher standards than what is typically
expected in regular life. This is how writing is taught and reinforced. I
think the internet, as a whole, dumbs-down writing skills by exposing readers
to terrible writing on such a regular basis that they no longer perceive the
difference. I don't know a solution to that problem.

~~~
GuiA
It was a mid ranked state university, and the professors were not that great.

I had a professor who made me regrade an entire batch of homework because, in
her words, my comments explaining the mistakes were unnecessary - the students
just care about their grade. Eye roll.

------
contingencies
As someone with a kid in China, kids TV is _far_ more formative than books.
Why? Books in Chinese are not read by kids, they are read by parents since it
is impossible to learn enough Chinese characters to achieve literacy while
young! In my observation, most Chinese parents are very busy and do not spend
much time reading with their kids.

~~~
baldfat
> In my observation, most Chinese parents are very busy and do not spend much
> time reading with their kids.

Grandparents and Tiger Moms don't read to their kids? Grandparents lived with
their grandchildren in China as a whole. My wife teaches English to Chinese
children through the internet and the sessions cost them about $20 US dollars.
There is always an adult close at hand and seems much more active in their
children's lives.

Now for your daily dose of Chinese Propaganda 88% of parents read 23 minutes
everyday. Also there is no link to said "study."
[http://www.china.org.cn/china/2011-04/21/content_22412555.ht...](http://www.china.org.cn/china/2011-04/21/content_22412555.htm)

One big take away. In the US we push all Kindergarten students to read (age 5
or 6). In this paper 77% read at age 8 grades 2 or grade 3 in the US.

~~~
watwut
What makes you think that Tiger Moms and predominant child raising style in
China?

~~~
baldfat
> What makes you think ...

I follow the money that is spent on education in China by the child's parents.
We don't even come close in the US.

[http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2017-10/30/content_338809...](http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2017-10/30/content_33880964.htm)

Just look at VIP Kids and the other English teaching startups where Chinese
parents spend $20 for a 25 minute session twice a week. VIP Kids now has
30,000 US employees teaching these kids.

[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-23/china-
s-v...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-23/china-s-vipkid-
raises-200-million-from-tencent-sequoia-china)

If they aren't the predominant style they still spend a ton of money on
children's education.

------
wolfgke
I cannot talk about China, but in Germany the classic children's book "Der
Struwwelpeter" is to my knowledge still quite popular and often read to
children:

German original: >
[http://sternchenland.com/downloads/unsortiertes/Der%20Struww...](http://sternchenland.com/downloads/unsortiertes/Der%20Struwwelpeter%20-%20Heinrich%20Hofmann.pdf)

English translation >
[https://archive.org/details/englishstruwwelp00hoffrich](https://archive.org/details/englishstruwwelp00hoffrich)

(note that you should prefer to read this in German if you can, since lots of
subtleties are lost in the English adaption).

Here is a movie adaption of this book (in German) - note that they added an
epilogue at the end where all stories still come to a happy end:

> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpcPz-
> GvHYI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpcPz-GvHYI)

In particular consider the third ("Die gar traurige Geschichte mit dem
Feuerzeug"/"The dreadful story about Harriet and the matches"; 16:54 in the
video) and the sixth ("Die Geschichte vom Daumenlutscher"/"The story of little
thumb-a-suck"; 13:38 in the video) story to see why this might be somewhat
different from what I consider as a typical US-American children's book from
my non-US perspective. :-)

~~~
projectramo
English children's stories were also quite dark before the industrial
revolution. In fact, I have read, that there wasn't much of a distinction
between the appropriate subject matter for children and adults.

After the industrial revolution, with nuclear families moving to cities, and
education suddenly becoming more important and children being moved out of the
labor force, the idea of "childhood" as a uniquely innocent period was
invented.

A lot of the sanitized fairy tales we read have very dark origins.

~~~
wolfgke
> A lot of the sanitized fairy tales we read have very dark origins.

I still consider lots of fairy tales that I was told as a child as very dark
(I don't mean the idyllic world "Disney" versions).

For example in the Grimm version of Cinderella the evil sisters cut cut away
their heels and toes with a knife to fit in the shoe and at the end the
pigeons peck the eyes of the evil sisters (see
[http://gutenberg.spiegel.de/buch/-6248/16](http://gutenberg.spiegel.de/buch/-6248/16)).

Or in "The red shoes" by Hans Christian Andersen the little girl protagonist
prompts the headman to chop her feet (wearing the red shoes) to get rid of the
shoes.

Edit: or Snow White: At the end the evil stepmother has to dance in red-hot
iron shoes at the daughjter's wedding until she dies (see
[http://gutenberg.spiegel.de/buch/-6248/16](http://gutenberg.spiegel.de/buch/-6248/16))

~~~
projectramo
Yes, exactly. Those made it over to the English version in the old days.

It would be interesting to learn why the German version retains the darkness.
Maybe its because Germans get to/are encouraged to read it in the original.

~~~
wolfgke
> It would be interesting to learn why the German version retains the
> darkness.

Because this is the version that the Brothers Grimm wrote down. I am
nevertheless aware that there exist other (sometimes even darker) versions of
the fairy tales than the versions written down by the Brothers Grimm. In this
sense the versions of the Brothers Grimm are not "the original", but some
version of the fairy tales (this is the difference between "Volksmärchen"
(folk tales) and Kunstmärchen (literary fairy stories) - only for the letter
one there exist some concept of "the original").

So I would say that Grimm brothers versions of the fairy tales conserved the
zeitgeist of the beginning of the 19th century and there exists to my
knowledge no other popular collection of German original language folk fairy
tales. But of course today there exist translations of collections of folk
fairy tales from different language areas.

------
tobbe2064
My experience being a father is that children aquire and consume vast amounts
of books. They reread them until they understand them and then they either
discard them and never touch them again or they like them and keep reading
them. I haven't been able to see a simple thematic pattern for my daughter but
what I did notice us that she really hates it when you try to read books she
but in the discard pile. I am quite sure that she would loose her intrest in
books if I kept taking books she didn't like.

Instead I let her dicide what she wants and hope that this will let her
develop and refine her taste.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that i suspect top down government of
children's books will backfire in diminished interest and cruder taste for
culture.

~~~
sifar
As a father of a 6 year old voracious reader, I agree. He is devouring books
faster than I can find them. You expose them to lot of different books and
then sit back and observe which one they pick up again and again to read. Talk
to them about what they liked about the book, to discover what actually
interests them.

Initially I tried to influence the books he would read, but after a while he
refused to read them (he would read them in his own time). So now I just let
him be and just track what interests him and periodically introduce him to new
stuff.

~~~
misev
Take him to the library and let him roam around and pick whatever he likes. I
used to do this at the age of 9-10-11: I would go to the library once a week,
pick about 5-6 books and read them all by the next week. Wish I had discovered
the library when I was 6 :)

------
booleandilemma
_Cheung notes that children in China consistently score higher on academic
tests compared to children in the U.S. and Mexico._

If we’re going to play this game, which culture’s children’s books teach kids
more about honesty, I wonder?

[https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/13/world/asia/china-
science-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/13/world/asia/china-science-
fraud-scandals.html)

[https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/03/how-
so...](https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/03/how-
sophisticated-test-scams-from-china-are-making-their-way-into-the-us/474474/)

~~~
whooshee
Both of them are teaching children to be honest people. Chinese children
scored higher just because they were trained earlier. That's it. And there are
several minor reasons mentioned in book <Outliers: The Story of Success>.
China has a lot of people, and there are cheaters to blame, it's not only
about those cheaters' honesty, there are economic problems too. Try to
generalize or portray all Chinese students as dishonest people are just not
objective. If you wanted to play that game, who got more prisoner to citizen
ratio? Given they read those cutie books taught them to be law-bide people.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
> Chinese children scored higher just because they were trained earlier.

No, Chinese children scored higher because only a sample was taken from urban
Shanghai and compared to the entire USA. Imagine comparing San Francisco to
the whole of China, including its much poorer and less educated hinterlands.

There are false generalizations all around.

~~~
whooshee
Are you talking about PISA? Alright, that test has sample problems due to
Hukou system[0] and limited city participation, it may expand to more cities.
In fact the U.S. didn't participate as a whole but 3 states.

I will put my argument more widely, East-Asian countries tend to train their
children at a very young age, and their pronunciation of numbers helped them
to learn arithmetic(stated in the book <Outliers>).

China has a basically working K-12 program, and there were a series of
documentaries shoot in UK, not long later, UK imported elementary math books
from Shanghai. But China still need to improve it's higher-ed system.
Preferably learn from Russia, France and Germany.

[0][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programme_for_International_St...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programme_for_International_Student_Assessment#China)

~~~
seanmcdirmid
China has a K-9 program, education isn’t compulsory after the 9th grade is
completed, high school is optional. Whether you get a good education or not
depends on your hukou, it is far from universally good, first tier cities
having the best, rural villages having much much worse.

------
mkagenius
> The Foolish Old Man Who Removed The Mountain

This is a real story in India -
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dashrath_Manjhi](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dashrath_Manjhi)

There is also a good movie made on him -
[http://m.imdb.com/title/tt3449292/](http://m.imdb.com/title/tt3449292/)

------
analog31
_...generally viewing intelligence as a trait that can be acquired through
hard work rather than a quality that you 're born with._

The first thing that came to mind when I read this was Lysenko-ism.

~~~
yorwba
Why? Lysenkoism was an instance of a mistaken biological theory being elevated
to political truth.

That quote just seems to be garden-variety "growth mindset" vs. "fixed
mindset" self-motivation.

~~~
wwweston
You could argue that the trait we call intelligence is about how quickly
efforts to learn something new result in new capabilities, rather than
_whether_ effort to learn something results in new capabilities at all. And
from my (admittedly shallow) familiarity with the field, that argument seems
to be substantiated.

Problem is, even if that's true, it's not a particularly useful truth to most
individuals. A growth mindset _is_ useful -- unless you're particularly
_unintelligent_ , it's probably true that your efforts to learn will have
results that make you more capable, and effort can compound on effort. You
should probably act as if you can become more capable than you are, even if
there are degrees of inborn intelligence.

------
userbinator
_Ostensibly it 's about a cat that has an appetite for sloppy letters —
"written too large or too small, or if the letter is missing a stroke,"_

 _But the underlying point is clear: "This is really instilling the idea of
effort — that children have to learn to consistently practice in order to
achieve a certain level,"_

My take on the underlying point of that story is quite different: conform or
be exterminated.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _conform or be exterminated_

You didn’t persevere to the end:

“And lest you've been worrying about the fate of that cat — Cheung has
reassuring news. Once the kids improve their handwriting, ‘the cat feels very
hungry,’ says Cheung. But then the kids take pity on him — and write a few
sloppy letters for him to eat.”

~~~
musage
It's about the fate of the letters, not the cat. At the end, non-conforming
letters get made just so they can get exterminated. Great.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _At the end, non-conforming letters get made just so they can get
> exterminated_

You’re overprojecting. They’re inanimate letters. The children are learning
penmanship. In the end, out of compassion for the cat that was previously
plaguing them, they bend the rules to be nice. It’s certainly cuter than the
German fairy tales I was raised on.

~~~
musage
> They’re inanimate letters.

Cats don't actually starve when they don't get to eat those.

And why only say that now? What does the "compassion for the cat" have to do
with it it either way?

What German fairy tales about non-conformist things being destroyed were you
raised on? And did your learning of penmanship involve any of that?

And they don't even bend the (part of the) rules (under discussion here), non-
conforming letters still get eaten.

~~~
s_trumpet
>What German fairy tales about non-conformist things being destroyed were you
raised on?

Not fairy tales but media for children in general: Pinocchio and Thomas the
Tank Engine.

------
wolfram74
This article annoyed me the last time I ran into it because when they go into
possible effects they point to test scores to try and quantify the effect of
dedication oriented children's stories but go to no effort to try and quantify
the effect of happiness oriented children's stories despite it would be quite
easy to note suicide is almost twice as common in china vs the united states.

~~~
whatshisface
There are so many differences between the US and China that statements like
these ("children's books are raising test scores," "happiness-focused culture
is lowering suicide rates") are completely silly. There are innumerable
variables at play, and they're all adding to and canceling each other out in
wild and unpredictable ways.

------
sevenfive
And the hunt for the "magic sauce" in education trundles on...

------
thriftwy
> Cheung notes that children in China consistently score higher on academic
> tests compared to children in the U.S. and Mexico

But I doubt this is because of books. After all, children of chinese descent
consistently score higher on academic tests everywhere in the world, including
the U.S.

The elephant in the room is that ethnic chinese children have got more of what
it takes, _conditio sine qua non_ , to score high on academic tests.

------
diyseguy
I would like to read the paper but it is paywalled

~~~
quantum_magpie
sci-hub.bz

~~~
vixen99
Doesn't work for me. Can you please suggest any others?

