A Piece of Advice for Parents

Who send their girls to Chinese primary schools
Watch out for Scoliosis, unnecessary fate of crooked spine fallen on your kids!

Written by Mrs. Money


I am neither a doctor nor a counselor, but way before I got married I was an “acting Catholic father” for many playboys to confess and my profession also placed me as a “safe deposit box” for many youngsters to reveal their secrets to me.

In our Chinese society we only like to broadcast something that is good but hidden something that is bad; there are many reasons for such victims to act such a quiet way to protect themselves and also their families.

When I was able to keep somebody’s secret I would listen and kept quiet but in some cases I would rather bring such victims for shopping or having an afternoon tea, in certain cases I would ask those girls to talk to their moms of their top secrets. My reason was: That’s the price you paid for maturity after you did something wrong or when unfortunate things fallen on you that you wonder should blame your own ignorant, your mom or your God! To show that you are a mature person; so safe keep your own secrets, as there are many irresponsible persons and friends (actually your secret enemies or rivals) who might treat your top secrets as rubbish to dispose as they wished the minute you left them. Sometimes your tragic has actually become a stumbling stone that jeopardized you in searching a future partner or a good career, or it simply ended up as a laughing stock for your rivals to exaggerate.

This morning on the way down from my son’s third storey staircase, I saw a young 7 years old skinny girl carried a heavy school bag alone without any of her parent’s help, as she was almost reaching the top I wouldn’t be able to give her a hand, “Hey, you shouldn’t carry this heavy bag, it simply easily topple over you! Tomorrow ask your mom to come helping you to carry your heavy school bag up to this third floor! Do you know if you have weak bones, this is not good for your back bone?” She looked at me in doubt why this aunty got so angry and so concerned of she carried her heavy school bag.

Chinese primary schools got the heaviest school bags in the whole world versus to size of their owners. I heard there is a very famous oil town Chinese primary school near a river, the school got the strictest discipline and one of the best academic results in our state, yet beginning of last year there was such an excerpt of news got released statewide that the school students would get locked outside the gate if they didn’t come on time under such early morning was under the heavy rain. Another thing needed to mention of such Chinese primary school was their primary 1 classes would be placed on the top floor, and parents were not allowed to help their children to carry their heavy school bags up to their respective 3rd floor classrooms.

Children with good healthy strong bones might not be a victim to scoliosis, a crooked spine but if you slightly got brain, you can tell what had happened to those skinny weak and fragile bones young students, years after years, now imagine those young girls' favorite pose, if they carried their cheap school bags (school bag with roller wheels can cost a fortune) limped to a particular right side while waiting near the road side for their parents (imagine just 20 minutes waiting and accumulated for each school days); most of the time they only found out the crooked spine problem when they reached secondary school. The western educated doctors would never directly make a remark by saying and blaming such patient’s problem was caused by prolonged carrying school bags on an inappropriate position to cause such handicapped back if without solid evident from researches.

The bravest act was a past year Malaysian beauty queen who revealed her problem and gave up her title due to her scoliosis problem, of course I don’t know how she got such problem from initially, but most of the time victims’ and their parents kept such secret at bay, they are afraid people looking at them with “colored” eyes. Imagine put my foot on the same shoe, if my daughter is a victim, I would have so many considerations if I should reveal to even a good friend or even own relatives, how about if I tell my good friend, my good friend also got her good friend, so at the end it unfortunately would become an open secret, yet those well protect unrevealed secrets would always be well-kept secrets! Many Chinese well to do family choose their in-laws like choosing a goat, if it got a good set of teeth even would be a consideration for them to ensure their good genes being inherited instead of saturated with defected chromosomes!

If you are not brave enough to reveal your secrets to help others, then better be a brave mommy to be dared enough to fight for your rights for your daughter’s well-beings, if your daughter school principal didn’t allow you help her carrying school bag to her 3rd floor classroom, you got to bride some newspapers reporters to do some researches to reveal some untold sad stories. If you are waiting for medical researchers to proof something, then only after many victims dared enough to reveal what had happened to them, may be by then the research can be done successfully and being proven!