Chinese parents are keen on a more Confucian education

AT FIRST GLANCE, Huaguoshan kindergarten in Zhuzhou, a city in the southern province of Hunan, looks much like any other nursery. Four brightly painted playrooms have buckets of building bricks and soft, coloured mats. But on higher floors, the classrooms are more spartan. Rice-paper lanterns and a row of black roof tiles running along the top of the walls evoke ancient Chinese architecture. Children wear powder-blue fleeces with the mandarin collars and frog fasteners of traditional jackets. Large portraits of Confucius hang on otherwise bare walls.

The kindergarten opened in September but already has a year-long waiting list. It taps into a growing nationwide demand for guoxue, or “national studies”. This usually involves learning classical Chinese thought, texts and morals, especially those associated with Confucius. Children at Huaguoshan are taught how to bow, how to greet each other politely in the street and how to sit attentively, with back straight and hands placed carefully in their laps. In one room they noisily stamp leaves onto muslin bags to learn an ancient dyeing technique. In others they recite poems, practise calligraphy, perform tea ceremonies and play Chinese chess. But, say teachers, mastering skills is secondary to building character. A child learns to “respect her rival and accept defeat” in chess; in the tea room, to “value what is fragile as you would a porcelain cup”.