By continuing you agree to eChinacities's Privacy Policy .
Sign up with Google
Sign up with Facebook
Q: Do schools teach geography here?
I find most Chinese students to be pretty well educated about many things (compared to me at least), but i'm constantly amazed at how little understanding many of them have of geography. Just tonight I had a class where I asked a bunch of 14 year olds to name some countries in Europe and they were shouting out "Russia / America / New Zealand" and pretty much anywhere that 'wasn't' in Europe. One student even shouted out "Africa." Now, I didn't really go to school, I spent most of my time in the park, but even I knew from an early age these most basic of geographical facts. Is the education system engineered toward an intentional avoidance of certain areas of education? Dumb question I guess, I think that's par for the course in many countries, but then if that's the case, why geography? Is the knowledge of an existing world beyond Chinese borders really such a threat?
They are taught that China is the centre of the world and that is all they need to know. And that is why so many Chinese are self centred
teggsnose:
I have actually seen this type of map on a wall in the local registery office - China bang in the middle ! haha
Almost nil on the geography, and really zero on how to read a map. Went for a Sunday "adventure" drive yesterday with the gf. Our roles are pretty set....I'm the driver and she's the navigator, using her phone's GPS map. As long as we were headed in a northerly direction, she could manage (turn west is turn left, and turn east is turn right....just like on the map!). Anything else, and she was baffled as to what to do. 
also there are only 4 types of people (= 4 countires)
chinese
japanese
blacks
FOREIGNERS
so yea if the teach geographics they do it wrong
sorrel:
i thought it was only 2 types of people in the world: Chinese and foreigners. 
Scandinavian:
“There are two kinds of people in this world: Those who believe there are two kinds of people in this world and those who are smart enough to know better.”
dom87:
first i thought so too but then i met my kinda racistic gf.
she keeps talking about blacks japanese and foreigners
so i assumed there are now 4 races on earth
seems chinese are kinda rasistic
Funny you ask that. Yesterday I was doing a lesson with a group of 10 - 11 year olds and nationalities formed part of the lesson. So I prepared a PP with 8 flags on it of 7 different countries and the Chinese one of course. I did not include the American one. There was palpable excitement when the Chinese flag appeared and they were jumping out of their seats to tell me that was the Chinese one. Not much movement for the other 7 though including the Australian and the British.
After we identified the different flags and countries I then asked them how many countries did they think there was in the world? I have a kid called Kevin in the class. Smart little bugger and he gave me the answer of the day.
"Two!" he said
"Two?? Are you kidding?"
"No," he replied. "China and foreign country. Just two."
Broke me up that one.
In further answer to your question I have found a dismal level of geography knowledge in kids and adults in this country. Then again I also saw a street question news clip of residents of New York asked where certain countries are and the answers were pretty amazing and surprisingly dumb. I guess geography is not for everyone.
mArtiAn:
I teach country names to my young ones. It's always fun hearing a 9 year old shout out "The Democratic Republic of Congo" in class.
As a time filler, I once asked the students to do the A-Z with countries names. They did rather well apart from 'T'. I think we can all imagine what happened when I suggested Taiwan as an answer!
Scandinavian:
T should have some other easy ones. Turkey, Togo, Tanzania.
Scandinavian:
Taiwan is a good suggestion for a country starting with "T"
Scandinavian:
There is also a neighbor names Japan, "J", "T", those crazy western characters are all the same
Show a map of the world and ask them to find G-spot. They will look for months or years.
I'll bet that a lot of us foreign folk have a large share of knowledge on geography not just from school but also from pop-culture. E.g. Indiana Jones has visited several countries, sure it's fiction, but the geography is correct. And when you encounter "Germany" in both Indiana Jones and Inglorious Bastards, then it is forever stuck in you mind as a place that could exists in real life. (and given my two examples also be the foundation for some pretty bad prejudice
dom87:
sometimes they know germany
oh deguo deguo deguo hao hao
goooottddeeeeeeee countrieeeeee
sometimes they feel reliefed if they know i m not american. what did the american do to the chinese?
Scandinavian:
Power comes out of the barrel of a gun. America has the biggest gun, the Chinese desire for everything American is driven by severe gun-envy. (not to be confused by any kind of envy of the male member because we know the Americans compare unfavorably with other regions of the globe)
Vyborg:
Pop culture will play a role for sure, but the fact that we are the ones that went abroad probably implies our geographical knowledge is above average, even in our own countries. The Chinese will get better at it now they've started traveling themselves. Which is not to say that their ignorance isn't stupefying.
We had to learn all countries and capitals in North and South America, Europe and Australia (that one wasn't too hard) when I was in primary school, at the same age the boy in Daqingdevil's anecdote is. Africa and Asia for some reason weren't part of the curriculum.
Scandinavian:
@Vy, you've got a fair point.
Also, if people learn about too many countries, then maybe they will next discover that crazy shit like clean drinking water exists in other countries
Vyborg:
O, wouldn't that be great? And driving skills... law enforcement... no-smoking areas... road maintenance... helpful strangers... free press... the list is too long... so many things left to copy... Will it ever happen?
Scandinavian:
oh, the thread has been suspended, quelle surprise.
It is not in the gubbermints interest that people learn about how good life can be, that would break the illusion that is "the Chinese dream"
Vyborg:
Has it? In that case I'd like to add my suspicion that the same goes for the abominable knowledge of English or any other language. '我学了英语十年‘ ’ 你会说呢？‘ 不会’。 The worse the education, the less motivated the students, the more ignorant the masses, the easier to control them. Cheers to the censor!
