Discussion keeps the worldturning.
This isRoundtable. You're listening to Roundtable withmyself, how young I'm joined by Dinkong and Steve Hatherley in thestudio.
Comingup, when kids go off to college and parents pay tuitionfees, do they have a right to know how their money is being spent on their child'seducation?
Therefore, should parents be notified the grades and transcripts by theuniversity?
Or should the young adults preference take precedence over theparents?
And the reclining seats on planes has sparked heated debatesglobally.
Air raises questions around personal comfort versus respecting otherspace.
Let's settle this debate once and forall.
Our podcast listeners can find us at Roundtable China on ApplePodcast.
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The practice of universities sharingstudents' academic transcripts with parents has sparked a heated debate inChina.
While some view it as a violation of student privacy and an infantilization of youngadults, others argue that parents have a right to know their child'sgrades, especially since they're paying tuitionfees.
Yeah, because an increasing number of universities here in China are beginning to take such apractice.
And among them are really some of the really prestigious universities inChina, like ZhoujiangUniversity, SichuanUniversity, WuhanUniversity, or Shanghai JialtongUniversity.
Maybe they are facing some kind of pressure from parents that maybe some individual students among these universities don't perform wellacademically.
And Imean, inuniversities, if you fail in too many subjects in a semester or consecutivesemesters, you face a risk ofdropout,right?
So maybe after their parents learn about thesedropouts, they will complain to the universityadministrators, why don't you let us know about his academic failureearlier?
Otherwise, we would have intervenedearlier.
Who'she? That's a personalstory.
So this kind of storyhappens.
Yeah. Is this kind of foreign toyou?
What about in universities in theWest?
Is this common to send the transcript to yourparents?
InAmerica, they have something calledFERPA, which is the Family Educational Rights and PrivacyAct.
And that goes back to1974.
And that act was put into place to protect the privacy of student educationrecords.
And it's a federallaw. It's an important law because it affects students in highereducation.
But it also affects students in kindergarten through high school as well and other educationalprograms.
The law is there to make sure that student information stays safe and it gives students rights concerning their universityrecords.
So that's the very formal way of sayingthis.
If a parent wants to contact the university in the United States and ask for their child'stranscripts, they are not allowed access tothat.
Unless the child waves their FERPArights.
And that's up to the student to thechild, whether they want to do that ornot.
This is interesting because those FERPArights, when the child isyoung, up until they're 18 yearsold, those rights legally belong to theparents, which means that a parent can call the elementaryschool, the middleschool, the high school andsay, give me their grades and legally they are allowed to dothat.
But when the kid turns 18 yearsold, that legal right gets transferred to the young person and the parents don't have that legal rightanymore.
That'sfascinating, especially when the parents are still paying fortuition.
Andalso, I can imagine some Chinese parents mightsay, safeguarding me from mybloodline, mychild.
What do youmean? We are the closest in thisuniverse.
And I can't get access to my grown-up child'sgrade.
What I'm paying for thisthing.
Yeah, thislaw,though, this FERPA law was introduced by a senator by the name of JamesBuckley, like I said in1974.
And when he gave hisspeech, talking to the legislative conference of parents and teachers as to why this law was being put intoplace, hesaid,quote, it's against the growing evidence of the abuse of student records across thenation.
Now, I don't know exactly what he's referring tothere.
But it's not simply about protecting children from theirparents.
This is not what FERPA is allabout, but it does include parents in that definition of thelaw.
Right. And here inChina, the norm seems to be for many years that know this transcript is not sent to the household for parentsviewing.
And now here's a change in thisarrangement.
And a lot of students don't really likeit.
I feel like here inChina, there is this particular issue regarding university education increasingly becoming similar to middle schooleducation.
Like during the days when I was astudent, 10 to 20 yearsago, middle school education was to a large extent about how to score higher inexams.
And inuniversities, we were encouraged to pursue comprehensivestudies.
It's not just forexam, butnowadays, I feel like things are somehowchanging.
Middle school education continues to be thesame, but there were more exam oriented elements in university educationnowadays.
Imean, there could be many reasons behind thischange, but the main reason is probably because of the fact that college graduates competition for resources is more intensenow,right?
So they need to compete foreverything.
And in many of thesecompetitions, it's about standardizedexams.
Either in the case of say you applying for a further master's study program or if you want to become a civilservant, you need to take those standardizedexams.
So your capability in terms of squaring in any particular exam still matters in the eyes of Chineseparents.
Well, certainly also this is happening in the back drop in the last 20years.
We've seen a mass rapid expansion of higher education inChina.
So let's say 20 plus yearsago, or let's say myparents' generation who took the Gaukau or the college entrance examination first after it resumed in1979, which by the way I've heard is one of the most difficult tests in theworld.
It's veryhard. But backthen, it wasonly, may Isay, the cream of the crop who managed to go touniversity.
And then especially for those folks who went through the 1960s and70s.
Andfinally, they have this chance to go back intocollege.
They took iton. And it was such a preciousopportunity.
So for those older students backthen, they really cherished everything tostudy.
And then as time moveson, Imean, I guess it's a promising development in the sense that more and more people could go tocollege.
And we're talking about millions more young people who could attend and receive highereducation.
And then you've got some folks who are maybe not working that hard anymore incollege.
And also like Ding Hong mentioned earlieron, when you've got so many more people who have got thisdegree, then competition intensifies in finding ajob, in finding a goodjob,specifically.
So the grades kind ofmatter.
Even incollege. In the nearfuture, the country is trying to beef up its prowess in vocationaleducation.
Because not everyone is good atstudying.
And if you're good at using your hands and use it in a particulartrade, and that profession can bring in a pretty goodlivelihood, whynot?
But inChina, it's long been this some idea that you should go through the academic route and then get a universitydegree.
If you look at thefigures, there are so many college graduates that the bachelor's degree doesn't mean muchanymore.
And it feels like you need a master's degree to really stand out for a lot of these officejobs.
And then more and more people have master'sdegrees.
And suddenly that value is decreased because so many more people havethem.
And then you need a PhD to earn that same amount ofrespect.
You talk about the societalexpectations,right?
And it's the same inCanada.
And I'm an example ofthat.
When I graduated highschool, my best friendsaid,hey, I'm going to go backpacking in Europe for sixmonths.
Come withme. And Isaid, are youcrazy?
We have to go touniversity.
What are you talkingabout?
I can't take six months out of mylife.
Oh mygoodness. If I could go back and change thatdecision, he saw Luciano Pavarotti perform live inItaly.
He was in the backrow, but he said it was a life-changing moment to experiencethat.
That's a little offtopic.
But my point is it's the same inCanada.
Young peoplethink,oh, the next thing is to go on touniversity.
But back to the point here about sharing grades withparents.
I'm thinking that the only students who are bothered by this are the students whose grades aren't verygood.
Andtherefore, sharing those with their parents is going to be quite a stressfulinteraction.
If you're making a plus a minus a plus a minusconsistently,sure,mom,here,Dad.
Yeah, have alook. Look how well I'm doing inschool.
Otherwise, maybe not so willing to pass over thattranscript.
Yeah. And in themeantime, I also feel like there is a issue surrounding the parenting culture in China or in the East ingeneral, because the parenting culture here general attempts to focus more ondiscipline.
So Chinese parents are more likely to teach kids what they should do and what they should notdo.
It is because of this general belief that discipline is an important key to yoursuccesses.
And under this kind ofculture, I think many Chineseparents, they would continue to be deeply involved in the personal lives of theirkids.
With that inmind, it's not surprising that many Chinese parents actually want to get involved in the university academics of their grown-upkids.
I find that to be something difficult tofind.
I was going to say with thatdescription, it's also easy to understand why the kids wouldn't want that level ofinvolvement, especially now that these young people feel that they're anadult.
Youknow, they've moved on to a higher level ofeducation.
They've moved on to a higher level of independence aswell.
It's easy to understand why a parent would want to have such a high degree of interaction or with the school or knowledge of theirkids' grades because they're worried about theirkids'future.
Right? They want the best forthem.
But for the youngperson, it's easy to understand why they want to have at least a little privacy in theirlives, even if it's about their universitytranscripts.
Andalso, I want to remind everybody that the norm has been even in China in thissetting, universities didn't use to dothis.
And now it's not alluniversities.
Some are sending transcripts to their students householdaddress.
That's a stressfulday.
Yeah. When you see the male person coming to deliver themale.
And this does point to some of the difficult realities that universities arefacing.
Thatis, in away, I think the universities shedding some of the responsibility of how well the student is performing to the parents because already gave you thepreview.
You know what your kid how well this person is performing in ouruniversity.
And if anything badhappens, if while you willknow, it will not be a surprise out of theblue.
So what would be the appropriate or recommended way for universities to handle sharing student transcripts and grades withparents?
What do youthink? Should thatbe?
Well, I feel like the bottom line is that you need to have a clear cut or transparent policies regarding the sharing of studentsinformation, including theirtranscripts, with options provided for students andparents, basically making students and parents on the same page regarding whether to have transcripts shared withparents.
It should be consensusbased.
And I feel like moreimportantly, maybe universities should do more to prioritize the issue of say fostering studentsindependence, self-discipline and accountability telling them that you need to cherish yourperiod, your time inuniversities.
They are only four years in university and for everybody who have graduated fromuniversity, they will have this kind ofregretting,oh, how come during those fouryears, I didn't put more effort intostudy.
Mepersonally, that's true and for many of mycolleagues, that's true aswell.
So don'tregret. One of your colleagues is sitting righthere.
I think that this is as yousaid, it's apolicy.
There needs to be a policy put inplace.
Follow thepolicy. There's no policy inplace.
Then go with whatever itis.
Until thattime, then I guess we're going to be talking about thisissue.
Right. I suppose give the young person achoice.
Do you want this to be sent to yourparents?
Do you not wantto? And you candecide.
Butalso, parents paid forthis.
Do youthink? That's tome.
That'sirrelevant. That'sirrelevant.
That's a familyissue. And that's not connected to thestudents.
Right. Allright.Well, when I went to university in theUK,actually, I had to tick aform.
Do you want your transcript to be sent all the way back to Beijing to yourparents?
And what did youcheck? My gut feeling was obviouslyno.
Finally, I wanted adoll.
It doesn't 18 meananything.
But the angel inme, I tickedyes.
I have tosay, there were moments when my dad did not have a smile on his face when he received that transcripts all the way fromLondon.
And you were suddenly so thankful for the geographical distance between the two ofyou.
Comingup, the rival of the busy summer travel season amplifies the significance of travel etiquette quandaries to recline or not to recline on aflight.
That is thequestion. Staytuned.
Looking forpassion? How about fierydebate?
Want to hear about current events in China from differentperspectives?
Then tune in toRoundtable.
Where East meets West and understand it is thegold.
Is the hour ofRoundtable?
Close myself to ayoung, joined by Dingheng and Steve Hatherley in thestudio.
When the summer months bring about a surge intravel, thorny issues of appropriate travel etiquette becomes hotlycontested.
You're settled in for aflight.
Ready to catch up on movies and get somerest?
As you recline yourseat, the person behind you lets out an audiblegroan.
Well, there yougo. The great reclinerconundrum.
Should you apologize and sit up straight or do you have every right to make yourselfcomfortable?
Is that okay torecline?
And this surprisedme. According to HuffingtonPost, the headlinewas, is it ever okay to recline your seat on aplane?
So,Dingheng, what do youthink?
I always sit in first class so it's not really an issueright,Dingheng.
No,no,no.Yeah, I feel like for shortflights, it's generally more polite to keep your seat upright unless you are certain you won't be encroaching on other people or in particular the person sitting behindyou.
Yeah, but in themeantime, there are exceptions when reclining on shorter flights may beacceptable, forexample, if you're really tall and you have your back issues or you need to hold a young child with yourarms.
So, the key is being aware of your specific conditions at that verymoment.
And ofcourse, those passengers sitting aroundyou.
But for longerflights, for internationalflights, especially for flights that will cross a wholenight.
Reclining is more generallyaccepted.
Yeah, I recently returned from a flight fromItaly.
It's really long andtiring.
Withoutreclining. How about a poorthing?
Yeah, like 7 to 7 was a transfer in the MiddleEast.
So, withoutreclining,well.
It would have been anightmare,right?
Yeah,yeah,yeah.Yeah, this is a culturalthing, isn'tit?
Or at least it seems tobe.
I was on a website called The Vacationer and this was a survey conducted inNovember.
I think it was lastyear.
They asked thequestion, is it rude to fully recline yourseat?
Here's how the answers brokedown.
Yes, that is why I do not doit.
45.99%.27.87%said,yes, but I politely ask if it is okay before doingso.
3.46%said,yes, but I do it anyway without anywarning.
Andno,no, it's notrude.
Almost23%.So, you can see the divide rightthere,right?
Some people acknowledge that it'srude, but they do itanyway.
Some people acknowledge that it's rude so they don't doit.
Nearly half saidthat. And being a person fromCanada, I've seen bothcases.
I've seen people notcare.
I've seen peoplecare. But I think this is a really hot button issue in the UnitedStates.
Maybe even more so thanCanada.
That's just my personal interpretation and judging from traveling around the UnitedStates, it's kind of commonknowledge.
At least on domesticflights, it's kind of ano-no.
Don't recline yourseat.
You canadd, it's more polite to askfirst, but people are more likely to consider itrude, Ithink, in America than maybe other parts of theworld.
I think that's a fairstatement.
And that'sshocking. And I'm glad I've learned it on theshow.
Because here inChina, I think the norm isyes, dorecline, and that's not aproblem.
If it's notokay, then why have that button on the side of the armset?
Yeah, you pay forit, and you have every right to use every function of this particularseat,right?
And by theway, a quick search on the internet only show results in Englishlanguage, which probably means here inChina, this issue is probably lesscontentious.
Forexample, I'm not sure about a flysituation, but when you're traveling on high speed railway system inChina, there are radiobroadcasts, awarning, or reminding you that if you want torecline, pay attention to the passengers behindyou.
Inparticular, you need to pay attention to a situation in which there is a cup filled with hotwater.
Yeah. And so the long standing debate over reclining seats while traveling has taken a legal turn in China exactly on a high speed railtrain.
In November2022, court documents revealed that a man's surname Loh was fined more than 3300 yuan or close to 500 US dollars for reclining his seat on a train in March2022, damaging a laptop belonging to a student seated behindhim.
And the student obviously was very mad and sued because his laptop was completelyruined.
The screen wasbroken. So that must be pretty fiercereclining.
So who won thecase? The student won thecase.
Ohinteresting.Yeah. So the ferocious recliner wasfine.
And it's a lot of moneytoo.
Yeah. He was according to thecourts, he was a70%fault,right?
Mm-hmm.Well, the remaining30% belong to the students sitting behindhim.
The student maybe just for not being responsible enough taking care of his laptop orsomething.
Yeah. I think that's thecase.
Yeah. So on onehand, it's my same like an isolatedcase, but in themeantime, it could also be foreshattering more conflicts overtravel, addicats here in China aswell.
Mm-hmm. So how do we do it here inChina?
Do you see anybody checking with you before theyrecline?
I was on a trainrecently.
And I just kind of checkedaround,right?
Because I'm an expat here and I want to follow therules.
Went inRome, so tospeak.
And I saw almost everybody was reclining theirseats.
And I didn't see anyone askingfirst.
I didn't see thateither.
So I don't know if that was thenorm.
If that's the norm or if that's just the way it was on that particular train on that particularday.
So that's what Idid. So I recline aswell.
And I didn't hear from anybody aboutthat.
Yeah. And also on this high speedrail, I think it's a little bit morespacious.
Then anairplane. I think that's a greatpoint.
Yeah. You do have more legrooms.
So it's not as intrusive on the person behindyou.
Exactly. And if we're on theflight, at leastmaybe,yeah, check and then recline because having the front seat recline into your face islike, I can't see that being kind of rude and also it affects the personbehind.
Because if the front row person hasreclined, is this a type of dominoeffect?
A dominoeffect. You gotta recline too just so that you have a little bit more breathing room overthere.
And then the person behind your back has to do thesame.
If I'mhonest, I don'task.
Idon't. Even if I'm on anairplane, I don'task.
But I also don't just grab the button and then force it back as quickly and as forcefully aspossible.
No, I kind of ease into it a little bit nervously to see if there's going to be a reaction and I stop when I'mcomfortable.
But it's such a pet peeve for so manypeople.
A lot of Chinese Gen Z that is talking tostrangers.
No,no,no,no,no. Want to avoidthat.
So maybe if you don't feel you want to muster so much of your energy tooh, talk to thatperson, maybe just like look back a little and see what they'redoing.
And then youknow, just sortof, I don'tknow.
Just like make eye contact and then slowly move your seat backlike.
Yeah. So it's more like a tsunami slicingstrategy.
Butanyway, I feel like if you really cherish your personalprivacy, your personal space to be enjoyed during aflight, then pay some extra money to pay for extra leg roomseats, namely seats on the first row in acabin,right?
Mm-hmm. And if yourecline, you still get extraroom.
Yes,yes,yes.Yeah, you can make up for that space that you'velost, can'tyou?
Well, you've heard what we think about this issue and what do some other expats think about to recline ornot?
Let's hearRichard,Amy, andPaul.
Hi, I'm Richard Kim and I'm fromSeoul, SouthKorea.
And I think it's fine for people to fully recline their seats on anairplane.
Otherwise, why would airplanes have made them thatway?
They could have made it reclineless, so we should be able to do it to themax.
But at the sametime, I also think it's okay to tap the person in front of you and ask them if they could lift it up a littlebit, just a little bit to make things morecomfortable.
Hi, I'mAmy. I'm fromCanada.
And ofcourse, it's okay to recline your seat on the airplane as long as they're not servingdinner.
That's therule. Everybody knowsthat.
Hi, I'mPaul. I'm from PuertoRico,Cabrón.
Yes, it's okay to recline your seat on aplane.
You pay for theseat. The seat was engineered to be able torecline.
So you can doit. But the human thing to do would be to check on the person behind you and make sure they're not eating a meal or doing something that your recline would kind of mess up theirexperience.
That's the human thing todo.
We're just choosing not to doit.
So everybody said it'sokay,right?
But I want to play devil's advocate for amoment.
Dingheng, you mentionedit.
The seat was designed to dothat.
We just heard Paul say that seat was engineered to dothat.
My car is engineered to drive 320 kilometers perhour.
Does that mean that I can dothat?
I've paid for mycar. It's mycar.
Does that mean I can do what Iwant?
Yousee, what it's a very looseargument, but it is an argumentnonetheless.
Just because the seat can do it doesn't mean it's socially acceptable to doso.
Right.Also, we need to look at what kind ofsociety, if you're a society with more plus sizepeople.
The point you're trying to make is just be aware of the person who's sitting directly behindyou.
Yeah,okay. That's toonice.
That's toonice. Beconsiderate,communicate, and makecompromise.
And that'sjust, Iguess, the golden role to walk on thisplanet.
And that brings us to the end of today'sroundtable.
Thankyou,Dingheng, and Steve Hatherley for joining thediscussion.
