A senior education official in Zhejiang province is recommending that teachers start playing League of Legends and researching pop idols like Wang Yibo in order to bridge the generational gap between themselves and their students.
“Their games like PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, League of Legends, King of Glory, have you played them? Their beloved idols like Li Xian, Xiao Zhan, and Wang Yibo, do you know who they are?”
“If you don’t know, then you can’t lead them,” pronounced Chen Genfang, director of Zhejiang’s education ministry, to a room full of mostly middle-aged educators at a conference on Saturday in Hangzhou.
While Chen’s message may be well-intentioned, it seems unlikely that Chinese educators will suddenly start hopping on PUBG or binge-watching the latest teen rom-com. Netizens have pointed out that such efforts would likely be fruitless anyway.
“They don’t need to do this. Nowadays, idols come and go so quickly,” writes one commenter.
