‘Can he teach?’: doubts over Chinese vagrant who claims a master’s degree, offers cheap English lessons but struggles to spell
- Homeless man with ragged appearance sits on the street to teach children English and takes a nap on the pavement when he is tired
- On a notice he boasts two degrees, but many people online question his cut-price lessons because some English words are spelled wrongly
A video of a homeless man in China sitting at the side of a street giving lessons to a student has become hot topic of discussion on mainland social media.
The clip, which has been reposted by several online media outlets, is believed to have been filmed on May 23 in the northern Chinese province of Hebei.
In it, a middle-aged man with long, messy hair wearing tattered red clothes is seen sitting at the side of a road tutoring a secondary school girl.
Another video details how when he gets tired of “working” the man lies down and rests.
Next to him is a notice saying that he has both a bachelor’s and master’s degree from two science and technology universities in the central provinces of Hubei and Henan.
The notice also says: “Tutoring secondary school English. For middle school students, 10 yuan (US$1.4) per hour. For secondary school students, 15 to 25 yuan per hour, or same value of vegetation or fruit. Please bring your own textbook.”
Most of the content of the notice is written in Chinese, but the words “bechalor” and “master” as well as the phrase “same value of ‘vegetation’ and fruit” are written in English, but incorrectly spelled.
This has led many people on social media to question his educational credentials, with many asking: “Can he teach?”
“How can parents let you teach English to their children when you misspell words?” said one person.
However, others praised the man for his beautiful handwriting.
Another person wondered what had happened to the man and why he had become homeless: “Maybe he has looked past his troubles and is no longer bothered by the troubles of ordinary people.”
Several videos related to the incident have together attracted hundreds of thousands of views on Weibo and Douyin.
On Douyin, some observers claimed to know that the vagrant was surnamed Liu and lives in Xingtai, Hebei province.
After the videos about him went viral, some online observers sent him a table and chair so he does not have to sit on the street when he is teaching.
