China Punishes Officials For Allowing ‘Tragically Ugly’ Drawings On Textbooks

While the more studious elementary students in China were racking their brains over mathematical equations, it seems that the artistic ones were distracted by the illustrations in their textbooks, now collectively perceived by millions as “tragically ugly.”

As reported by Newsweek, a mathematics textbook produced by a state-run publisher has been making its rounds on the internet for the wrong reasons, driving the Ministry of Education to take extreme measures. The text has been in use for nearly a decade, but it’s garnered unwanted attention lately because of rather questionable—and sometimes suggestive—drawings that have come to light.

So this is top trending on Weibo today: an elementary schoolbook published by the People's Education Press has attracted the attention of netizens for being "tragically ugly" and overall super weird. Judge for yourself: https://t.co/jcUm8QHtGe pic.twitter.com/40cxUJEp8w

— Manya Koetse (@manyapan) May 26, 2022

The embarrassed ministry is now holding 27 officials accountable for letting the decades-old illustrations go to print, and has meted out punishments for individuals including the president and editor-in-chief of the publishing house, illustrators and designers who created the drawings, and the head of the maths department editing office.

All of the punished officials have been handed out demerits, which could deter them from finding jobs in the future, while some of them were even fired.

Among the artworks that “do not conform to the aesthetic tastes of the public,” as per the words of the ministry, were of “ugly” and bad-behaved children who “do not reflect a positive image of our nation’s children.”

Authorities also frowned upon allegedly sexual content of boys grabbing girls’ chests, an up-skirt drawing revealing a young girl’s underwear, and images of boys with supposed erections. There was also a picture of a child with either an adhesive bandage or a tattoo on the leg.

Children were also portrayed with clothing containing star and stripe patterns, an artistic decision deemed as pro-American and anti-Chinese.

The ministry has since promised to pay more attention to future education materials and ensure they are always in line with “the correct political direction and value orientation.”

There are more. And I'm really unsure of what the illustrators were actually thinking.. pic.twitter.com/AYCVyt6lKn

— Manya Koetse (@manyapan) May 26, 2022

Some of the criticisms being brought up are more reflective of the neuroses of the viewer than the art. A boy's shirt is seen as a sign of malign foreign influence; a girl wearing bunny ears is seen as a Playboy Bunny; an innocuous adhesive bandage is seen as a tattoo.😄 pic.twitter.com/VI4Supnwvu

— 주스 (@juchejuice) May 26, 2022

[via Hyperallergic, Newsweek, What’s On Weibo, images via various sources]