A private tutor dies at 41 from sudden cardiac arrest after a run — family wanted it simple, no fuss, '丧事从简'.
Yet today in Suzhou, crowds line the streets with red flags for a send-off usually reserved for revolutionary heroes and state leaders.
He told millions the brutal truth: liberal arts = future groveling, chase money and stability or lose the rat race. They loved the honesty when it helped their kids game the gaokao.
Now the internet crowns him a saint with historical pomp.
Is this genuine gratitude from a broken education system… or peak Chinese value distortion — where saying the quiet part loud gets you deified, while the system that created the desperation stays untouched?
Two days and the heat will be dialed down. Some spectacles are too revealing."