I am Zheng Yuanjie

Author: Zheng Yuanjie / Country: Mainland China
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-05-01
Features: I asked my son for the white paper. Every time the teacher charges a fee, they give the parents a legitimate-looking letter printed on white paper, which my family jokingly calls the "white paper." My son stopped eating and took the white paper out of his backpack to show me. The white paper said that students would be injected with "Hepatitis A vaccine." My son judged from my expression that I might refuse to pay the fee and said, "I have to pay tomorrow. If I don’t have money, the teacher will ask me to go home for it." I said, "You pay the fee as usual, but on the day of the injection, I’ll give you a sick leave. We absolutely cannot get this shot. If anyone injects something into my son for financial reasons, I will fight them." My son later said he had never seen my expression so angry. Actually, the principle is simple: raising a child is not easy.
The next day, I called the Beijing Municipal Education Bureau to ask if they had recently administered Hepatitis A vaccines to students in all primary schools in the city. The answer was negative. For safety, I called the Beijing Municipal Health Bureau, and the reply was still negative. To prevent false accusations, I called the education bureau of the district where my son’s school was located, and the reply was still that they didn’t know about this.
After hanging up the phone, I trembled all over. I couldn’t help but think of the Japanese 731 Unit. Parents send their lively and energetic children to school, but once they step inside the gates, are they turned into livestock for anyone to abuse? That night, I told my son that on the day of the injection, he didn’t have to go to school. I informed him of the results of my investigation.
Usually, whenever I couldn’t bear to see my son suffer under the pressures of exam-oriented education and had to fabricate a note to give him a break, he was happy. But that day, he asked me, "What about the other students?" I didn’t understand and asked, "What other students?" My son said, "Since you know that our school is giving vaccinations to students to make money and the injections might be substandard, why don’t you save all the students? They are also children painstakingly raised by their parents."
I stared at my son for two full minutes without saying a word. I knew that if I didn’t stop the school from administering Hepatitis A vaccines to students this time, I would never be able to hold my head up in front of him for the rest of my life. My son added, "If it’s about making money by giving injections to all officials at the district level and above, it doesn’t matter to me whether you intervene or not."
The next day, I called the district education bureau anonymously as a parent to report the issue. After hanging up, I worried that the district education bureau might overlook my report due to their focus on exam scores. I called a friend of mine who was a journalist at a local TV station’s news department and asked him to intervene directly to stop the school from administering injections.
My friend immediately called the school on behalf of the TV station. The school was naturally nervous when they heard it was the TV station, and their reply was that the injections were being carried out by the regional health and disease prevention station through the school doctor. My friend then called the health and disease prevention station to verify, and they replied that it was purely the personal action of their staff and that no official document had been received.
The next day, the school refunded the parents. I repeatedly warned my son not to reveal that I had exposed the vaccination issue, otherwise his situation at school would be precarious. My son said he would keep it confidential. I had to admire the journalist’s intuition. I thought the matter was resolved, but unexpectedly, a few days later, my friend called and said he had continued investigating. He revealed that the cost of a single dose of Hepatitis A vaccine was only 10 yuan, but the school was charging students 18 yuan! He also said that the health and disease prevention station might have purchased the vaccine from the school for 13 yuan, and the school was making a profit of 5 yuan per dose! He mentioned that the Ministry of Health had approved only certain manufacturers to produce Hepatitis A vaccines, and the rest were substandard. He also said that the manufacturer of the Hepatitis A vaccine the school was planning to give to students was unknown and had no reputation. He added that if such a despicable act was not exposed, it would lead to endless consequences.
I was furious and said, "You dare! You can expose any school, but you can’t expose my son’s school. Everyone in the news department knows that I provided you with the news tip. When you go to the school to film, how can you guarantee that your driver won’t chat with the school’s driver? If the school finds out that I was behind this and caused such a huge financial loss, how will my son be able to stay in school?" I threatened him, saying, "If you expose it, I will cut you off." After weighing the situation, he chose to back down.
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