Video of Chinese boy crying in snow sparks uproar

Beijing: A home video showing a four-year-old Chinese boy being forced by his parents to run almost naked through the snow in bitterly cold New York has sparked an online uproar in China.

He Liesheng told AFP he was only trying to train his son to be strong and manly, but the footage has ignited debate about the tough parenting style for which China became known after Amy Chua’s book Tiger Mother.

In the video, the little boy runs towards his father, who is filming him, in thick snow with only his shoes and underpants on, at times crying and pleading with his dad to take him in his arms.

On several occasions, both parents tell their son to lie down in the snow, which he does eventually when his mother presses him.

“He agreed to go out to run in the snow naked or else it wouldn’t be possible for me to take his clothes off,” He, who runs a bed linen company in the eastern city of Nanjing, said. “He wasn’t very happy when he felt the cold.”

It is not clear who posted the video online. He’s personal assistant, a woman called Xin Lijuan, told AFP that He had sent the video to “a few friends” but didn’t post it online himself.

The footage has been viewed by tens of thousands of people on video-sharing websites.

Reactions on the web

“I don’t agree with this... We should give children a happy childhood, those terrible parents say they do this for their child’s own good, but I think their purpose is just to be able to brag in the future,” one said.

The father has been given the nickname ‘Eagle Dad’ in reference to Chua, who sparked controversy when she wrote a book extolling the benefits of tough parenting. He, who also claims to teach his son Kung Fu, dancing, cycling and mountain climbing, said he was trying to help his child develop a “masculine temperament”.

“I also give him cold ice cream on cold winter days to train his stomach to get used to the cold,” He told AFP by phone. “He rarely has a cold or fever.”

Xin said He was on holiday with his family in New York during the Lunar New Year holiday last month and decided to see in the Year of the Dragon with this unusual method.

“The child agreed and before the run, he did half an hour of slow running to warm up,” she said by phone.