The Renmin University Graduates

(Lucky-txj blog via Southern Metropolis Daily)  By "Little Fish" (小鱼儿).  October 24, 2006.

[in translation]

A group of Renmin University pretty women took crazy photos of themselves at their graduation ceremony and they are being bitterly criticized by netizens.  Foul language such as "whores," "prostitutes," "strumpets" have been used against these women.

In actual terms, these photographs are imaginative.  They are the most daring and most avant-garde graduation photographs that I have ever seen.  Some of them were obviously playing off the bottom half of the body.  So maybe some dirty-minded person may get heated.  But it is an exaggeration to say that this is morally degenerate.

This is only an expression of individuality.  These are all female students.  Renmin University female students are female students too.  So why can't they "be different" and "set their own standards"?  If these were students from the Academy of Cinema or the Communications University, will the netizens be criticising them?

I have been in a university for too long, and I find that our people (especially those in graduate school) are too insipid, too lacking in indviduality and too conforming.  Our thinking is ossified.  There are many people with individuality who are afraid to express and exhibit themselves out of fear of losing face in this social environment.

Actually, our universities ought to encourage these types of individualistic liberation.  They ought to encourage people to experss whatever they want to express.  University students are at an age of ebullience.  They should not be pented up.  Someone asked: "Did Renmin University train a bunch of whores?"  Actually, it is this group of "whores" who are showing us that the educational concept at Renmin University has progressed with the times to a certain degree.  By marching to the forefront of the times, Renmin University has provided its students with the free space to set free their individuality.

In this age of "spoofs," the system that we really need to "spoof" is the educational system.  Every single university student ought to be "spoofing."  They should not let the system inhibit their development.  They should bravely challenge and change the system.  Otherwise most of us can only quietly waste away in the system until we are ruined as the victims of the system.

If you want to take photographs, you take photographs.  You show us your true self.  By being brave in setting yourself free, you can ignite passion and be fully creative.  Nobody should talk trash about these photographs.  Nobody should criticize these female students who are brave enough to set themselves free.