A 2-year-old boy received 22 bruises during a 9-day period at an exclusive kindergarten in Beijing, after upsetting a teacher who then spanked him, according to the Beijing Evening News.
The incident took place at Aidi International Kindergarten in Zhaoyang District at the end of August, where the annual tuition fees are 150,000 yuan ($24,490). The report called the boy by the alias Lele.
When the toddler’s mother, Ms. Feng, saw the marks on his body, she went to the kindergarten to talk to the headteacher, who refused to show her the surveillance video, saying Lele had fallen over.
The mother went back the next day and demanded to see the video, but was only allowed to see the one from the previous day, which showed that Lele was not given lunch, and had to share a bed at nap time.
According to the Beijing News, the kindergarten doctor told Ms. Feng that Lele was allergic to mosquito bites. She was told by another doctor, however, that this was not the case. Lele said that someone had pinched him while changing his clothes, and that the teacher threatened to hit him on the head after he knocked over the trash can by mistake.
Ms. Feng called the police, who demanded that the kindergarten provide the correct video tape. The footage showed Lele playing with another child. The teacher then grabbed him, and he bit her arm while struggling, so she spanked him twice before dragging him across the classroom floor. She took him to another room, where she screamed at him and spanked him really hard on a table.
The teacher who hit Lele, the headteacher, and the security guards were all taken to the police station for questioning. The vice president of Beijing International School apologized to Ms. Feng, but refused to talk to reporters.
Netizens commented about the issue via an article on People’s Daily. One said: “What has happened to teachers these days?”
Another remarked: “Some people in this society are hostile towards rich people. Those who work in expensive kindergartens like to take it out on your children so that they feel better.”
A third said: “Don’t go to kindergartens for rich people, your kid is bound to be abused. The teachers’ wages are too low and they are unhappy.”
With research by Hsin-Yi Lin.
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