A video of a crying girl was posted on the Chinese social media site Weibo recently by the girl’s own father. In it, she can be seen in some water, under the sun. Her father, a Mr Ye, who lives in Hubei province in China, said that he brought her to the lotus field where her grandfather works and had her dig lotus roots for four hours in the heat.
“My daughter was going through a period of rebellion, and her teacher told me that she did not want to go to school anymore,” Mr Ye is quoted saying in the South China Morning Post as reported in the Chinese news outlet Yidian Zixun. In the Weibo video, which went viral, Mr Ye can be heard telling his daughter, “Take off your shoes quickly and get into the water. If you do not want to go to school, you must surrender to the reality of life.”
As a result, the girl suffered from sunburn and peeling skin, which is one possible reason why she can be seen wiping her tears away with her shirt.
Though a few netizens reacting to the video seemed to disagree with the father’s actions, other netizens, by and large, praised Mr Ye for how he disciplined his daughter.
These were the majority of commenters, who applauded his method of teaching his daughter a lesson.
One netizen simply wrote that how Mr Ye acted is part of the traditional culture.
Others wrote that understanding why the daughter was having a negative attitude toward school is important.
/TISG