An Artistic Recreation of an Old Classroom

The culture around education is markedly different in China than it is in the west. Parents exert a lot of pressure to study hard. But it's not just parental. It's societal. You can even see this in public art like sculpture. In public parks, you can run across displays extolling the value of education. The three pictures below were taken in Changzhou in a place called Chungui Park. It's filled with statues dedicated to scholars who called this city home. However, there is one complex installation that is trying to represent a poem about a child prodigy. It's by Wang Zhu, and it's not readily translated into English like Li Bai's or Du Fu's verses are. So, this is speaking to a cultural reference that is limited towards the Middle Kingdom in an internal sense. 

It's a representation of a classroom during the Ming Dynasty. (I think?) A student is standing and is either reciting or addressing his teacher. It's a common thing in China -- even to this day. At my day job, I quite often tell my students to stay seated and be comfortable when I call on them. There are a few sly things in this set of sculptures. Let me point them out. 

A student sleeping behind an open book. This is a practice that is alive and well -- at least at Chinese vocational colleges. I have had direct experience with this. The other thing in this set of sculpture is a little more telling. 

Look at the first photo, and look directly at the wall. You well see a boy trying to peer into the classroom. 

You have another boy standing on his friend's back. He is trying to peer into the classroom. He wants to have an education, but in ancient China, education is not a compulsory commodity. You have to pay. And if you can't, then you are without a teacher, and your ability to climb out of poverty is severely limited. 

I find stuff like this interesting, because, well, China seems to invest more into public art than America does. Sure, there may be reasons, and of course some of it is public propaganda. The message here is ”Study Hard." And sure, art can be a vehicle of propaganda. But, sometimes I wonder which culture takes art more seriously, China or America?