A Chinese kindergarten principal has been fired after she welcomed
students back to school at the beginning of term with a pole dancing
display.To get more
chinese english news, you can visit shine news official website.
Hundreds
of children and parents at the Xinshahui kindergarten in Shenzhen, in
the southern province of Guangdong, watched as a female pole dancer
performed on a flag pole in a large courtyard.
Videos posted by
parents on Monday show the skimpily-dressed dancer spinning and leaning
seductively on the flagpole, from which a Chinese flag was flying.
Speaking
to state media, the principal Lai Rong said there had been 500 children
aged three to six and 100 parents in attendance. The first Monday in
September is the start of a new school year in China and schools often
hold ceremonies to mark the occasion, usually involving motivating
speeches by the principal or alumni.
Shenzhen-based journalist
Michael Standaert said on social media he had planned to take his
children out of the school following the performance.
"Before our
kids got out of kindergarten for the summer, there was 10 days of
military 'activities' and displays of machine guns and mortars at the
door; now the principal has welcomed them back with a strip pole dance,"
Standaert wrote on his Twitter account.
Standaert said there were
advertisements around the courtyard for a pole dancing school. The
writer said when his wife called the principal to complain, the official
hung up after saying it was "good exercise."
Speaking to CNN,
Standaert said some students were "uncomfortable" with the performance,
but added things were now moving back to normal under a new principal.
In a statement posted to Weibo on Monday afternoon, the local education
bureau said an investigation had found a pole dancing business had been
invited into the kindergarten to perform.
"The district education
bureau believes performing pole dancing for kindergarten children is not
appropriate," the statement said, adding the school had been asked to
apologize to students and parents.
Principal Lai told state
tabloid Global Times that while "a few parents" had requested a refund,
others wanted to "learn a new type of dance."
The Wall