Volunteer Teacher Forced to Leave China

Eckart Loewe, or better known as his Chinese name, 卢安克, is a German volunteer teacher in remote South China country village. Having been teaching in China for almost 10 years, he was interviewed by the Chinese state-owned CCTV and became known to the public. The people in China admired his contributions to the education of kids in villages and described him as a hero of the nation. He can speak fluent Mandarin, which is described ‘like poem’ by some people. He operated a blog in Chinese focusing the Education in China and problems of ‘left behind children’, rural kids whose parents migrate to city to make money.


However Mr Loewe is forced to leave China due to his visa expiry soon. China has very strict immigration laws. It issues visa with short stay length and renew times limitation. Mr Loewe obtained his visa four years ago. Now he is not able to renew or obtain a new visa onshore, which means he has to arrange his visa offshore, perhaps in Germany. He also tried to apply for a Chinese citizenship but failed. China only allows naturalization when a person makes ‘special contribution’ to China or has close relatives as Chinese citizens. Apparently the government was not convinced that what Mr Loewe did was a ‘special contribution’ to the whole nation. Mr Loewe was forced to remove all the entries from his blog and leave a message stating that he is neither a credentialed teacher nor a volunteer.

The Chinese Internet community has a very strong reaction toward this news. The story was interpreted as; Mr Loewe’s blog touched a sensitive issue in China (left behind children) and annoyed the authority so he was forced to leave. People blame the government for this decision and wrote hundreds of articles online to criticise the government. Then these articles were shared on SNS websites so more people believed it was the government which to blame. (Click here)

I admire what Mr Loewe did to the Chinese kids and his contribution to local community. However I believe this time it is not the government which should be blamed. The immigration law is very clear about visas and citizenships. The government has no position to change or break the law just to appeal some interest of some people. (However I believe the law should be modified under proper procedures.) Moreover, the government should regulate the education system by issuing credentials to qualified teachers. Kids in primary school should not be taught by teachers without credentials. In this case, Mr Loewe is not holding any form of credential which allows him to teach in China. His teaching activities have breached the law and regulations.

Can you image a Chinese citizen coming to Australia, volunteer for the community for four years without any kind of certificates, and then asked for a citizenship? Go home. Out of question. Then why should people blame Chinese government for doing same things?

It should be pointed out, that Chinese government should put more money into education system. Moreover, the whole exam-directed system should be changed. I think they are why people are so angry in Mr Loewe’s case. Only by achieving those, kids in rural communities can enjoy the same rights with kids in the city.

Do they NEED a job?

Today a guest speaker gave out a speech over the issues related to how government would deal with unemployment. He made comments about how the current policies and programs work and what improvements there would be. As usual, he started with why government needs to take unemployment seriously. He said unemployed people are more likely to suffer from un-well-being.

This is true perhaps. And for me, who have experienced a phase of jobless and desperately job hunting, I understand the feeling of being abandoned.

But as the speech went on, when he talked about the economical benefits and costs of government by implementing such programs, like when they were talking about health insurance, obesity, smoking and other policies, I suddenly wondered, why are you pushing people to have a job?

I read a book yesterday which has a very interesting statement. It said in modern society, working class are people who have boring jobs in order to pay their debts, and middle class are people who have boring jobs in order to pay their bigger debts. This is so true.

He said the basic concept of capitalism is to induce materialism, to encourage people consume the goods they do no really need. So people work hard just to buy the products being most advertised and overpriced. The sad thing is THINGS are born imperfect. This imperfect attracts people to consume more.

So if we wouldn’t have such desires toward THINGS, we could live happier and work less.

While I have to confess I am already becoming a victim of the massive capitalism brainwashing. I have to give up my favourite courses because they are ‘less profitable’ and have less possibility to afford my bills of my ‘dreamed life’. I am doing a job to get money to buy things which I don’t really need or which have cheaper substitutions.

And I am not likely to go back.

But some people can stay where they are and we should respect them.

I remembered a scene from Trainspotting in which the angry young lad was so annoyed of intensive mandatory job interviews that he ended up with attacking the interviewer. I would never do this. But I can feel his anger, in some way.

I know it seems childish to publish a blog like this but this is really what I think. Help people but respect their choices.