Hot social media topic: Improper student/teacher relationships and abuse of position

[Wippen (inactive)]

Two stories that became a trending topic on Chinese social media earlier this year, revolved around the improper relationships between university lecturers and students. One story was a male doctoral student that had been made into a “domestic slave” by the female lecturer. The student ended up committing suicide. The other story was about a famous professor from a renowned university in Beijing who had had sexually assaulted several female students. One of these students had plucked up the courage to speak up (after having lived in the US for more than a decade.).

 

I studied this text with a tutor. We discussed the topic in detail. It fitted well with the "me too" campaign. I really enjoyed this lesson and really like the fact the teacher had picked something like that on her own.

 

The text is suitable for intermediate level.

 

Vocabulary

 

跑偏 misguided/troubled (most appropriate translation here)

纠正 put right

撤销 stripped off (title)

骚扰 sexually harrass

奴役 be kept like a slave/be at someone’s beck and call (not Idiom in Chinese though)

溺亡 drown

滥用 abuse

青睐 Look good (in someone’s eyes) lit. favour

折射(出) reflect. The literal translation is “refract” but this term from physics is used a lot more frequently in Chinese than in English, hence the word “reflect” is better.

 

The text can be found here:

http://opinion.people.com.cn/n1/2018/0122/c1003-29777355.html

[Wippen (inactive)]

Interestingly, today CNN posted an article about how China was struggling to find its MeToo movement. A biased article that generalises and which did not research enough (see article above).  Western media can be biased too :-)

 

https://edition.cnn.com/2018/03/23/asia/china-sexual-assault-metoo-intl/index.html