‘I love my homeland’: Canadian school under fire after screening trailers for patriotic Chinese film ‘My People, My Country’ to Mandarin pupils
- Students of Steveston-London Secondary School in Richmond, the world’s most Chinese city outside Asia, were asked how the film made them feel good
- Critics of the assignment accused the public school of ‘brainwashing’ pupils with Chinese ‘propaganda’
A Canadian public high school is under fire after showing Mandarin students trailers for the patriotic Chinese film My People, My Country, decried by some critics as propaganda, then asking them how it made them feel good in an assignment headed “I love my homeland”.
Steveston-London Secondary School in Richmond – the Vancouver satellite that is the most ethnically Chinese city in the world outside Asia – was accused of “brainwashing” students by complainants on social media, who posted a list of “reflection questions” that the teacher asked students to answer in a film review.
Question one was: “How did this movie make you feel? What words or phrases in the movie made you feel good?”
The questionnaire said reviews were due “next Thursday, October 24”, suggesting the assignment was given last week.
But David Sadler, director of communications at the Richmond School District, said Thursday that the assignment had now been cancelled, and that “the students were not assigned or encouraged to watch the movie.”