From NetEase:
“Child prodigy”? Wuhan 12-year-old auto repair master becomes driving “expert”
October 14th, someone unexpectedly found a 12-year-old automobile mechanic in Wuhan.
Don’t be fooled by his young age, this is already his second year in the business.
He’s not only experienced, he can fix a car all by himself, even adults often consult him on problems that they don’t know about.
What’s more, not only can he fix cars, he can also drive them. His practiced driving turns the owners’ initial worries into admiration!
《王浩峰聚焦》 [a Chinese blog and the OP of this thread] has investigated in the surrounding area day and night. This little mechanic spends his entire day busy in the oil and dust, and has to work overtime at night. Every time he is paid for fixing the cars, he turns the entire sum over to the boss. He seems to be the boss’s money making tree. But the owner reportedly only gives him meals, and does not pay him.
Ai! Even if it is amazing, this is still saddening: a child turned into a mechanical guru, but will growing up to be illiterate do him any good? A child’s small fragile hands, can they fasten automobile parts?
Comments from NetEase:
2008.junyi.c:
Illegally using child labor, should be investigated and stopped.
密码不对:
Poor child. You should be happily going to school.
玛咯:
Just making a living, don’t investigate me.
火柴&女孩:
The kid should be happy, he can make money in the future! But I’m angry, how can they use child labor?
?╰AlinО?:
Forced to make a living…
ytzy-1979:
Are your pictures real? Did you find actors?
花不缺:
If you want to be a boss, you have to start young.
244092380abc:
Nowadays graduation means unemployment, it’s better to learn a skill when you’re young, but 12? A bit too young!!!
7514664:
When you have a skill you won’t starve to death in the future, so what if you graduate from university? Most likely won’t be able to find a job, but like this kid, when he grows up many auto repair businesses will want to hire him with a high salary.
zbyrjx:
Must a child study in school? I think this is good, master a skill that you can depend to survive on early, the you won’t have to worry about food a clothing for life, it’s much better than not being able to find a job after school.
乌龟≠王八:
Don’t know what to say.
tigercatwong:
This child, should be sent to study [mechanics] further, China’s auto industry, might need this star.
sz-linli:
If he can be a mechanic at this young age, then he will be a wonder going to school. The boss should send him to school, it will make more money than your auto repair shop.
iawqvel:
Might be the boss’s son!
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If he is really a ‘child prodigy’ they should let him study engineering, maybe put him to use designing aircraft. (Why? Putting into place the some of pieces for the coming apocalypse.)
Maybe, you should let him become a master car mechanic… why must one become engineer.
Disappointing, shouldn’t be allowed. Child’s skill would give him an edge in mechanical related fields. He’d make a nice auto salesman actually, if he could receive the right education, and had a nice appearance. Familiarity with the product is always a great boon to your ability to sell it.
In less happy news: I bet if the kid was black, you’d get a billion posts about auto theft. Nice double standard, China.
What a waste…make this kid a shitty autosalesman? To be an autosalesman you don’t need education or technical skills. You just need to be a liar and a thief. This kid should be educationally nurtured so that he may one day serve as the next leading military engineer in craft vehicles.
I don’t know what third world place you live in, but that’s not how it works in developed countries with auto sales.
To be an engineer you need skills that he most likely doesn’t currently have, fixing an automobile doesn’t make you an engineer. I doubt this child understands the science behind how the things he’s fixing work. His knowledge is probably limited to just the physical vehicle itself, instead of how to create it, and engineer new ones. Stop insulting engineers by assuming the job is so easily trained for. The familiarity he has with machines would aid him once he gains actual engineering skills, but that doesn’t make him an engineer instantly. There’s a scientific reason your car doesn’t just go boom everytime you start the ignition.
With this lack of requirements you seem to have for engineers, I’m not really surprised China isn’t doing so well when it comes to creating or designing their own stuff…
I can see China’s auto industry got some future!!!
Cost ya.
And not before next Saturday.
I cant think of anything I want to do more, spending all day tinkering with cars.
Since these pictures could be taken on a Sunday when schools out why does anyone really care. The kids got a skill that he can make money from at any point in his future.
If this kid lost everything today including his family he could look after himself and earn a living. I’ve met 30 year old Chinese “men” who still need their mother to boil an egg for them.
Probably an apprenticeship of some sort. An investigation is necessary, but a 12 year-old learning a valuable skill is nothing compared to the child labor violations that continue to happen in factories. Last I heard, Shenzhen police were still informing offending factories before making “surprise” inspections.
Why are we so quick to try and make him into a ‘white-collar’ worker? I agree that he should have the opportunity to read and write…but with the expansion of the auto industry, China needs repairmen with genuine skill.
If the boy has a gift, send him to learn the trade properly, or better yet, to a reputable auto modification shop, or racing team. By 18 years he will be a VERY valuable commodity of national repute.
It seems from the Chinese comments that most of the netizens do not or have not shared this boy’s life experience. Most kids in this country start working at 14. The cut is at senior middle school. If you get in, and can pay for it, you go on studying, like our dear netizens who commented. If you don’t, or can’t, then you go to work, and you’re often asked to pitch in to support another family member’s education.
This boy started working early. That’s not surprising to me. What is surprising is the alacrity with which he has apparently mastered automotive mechanics at such a young age. Talk about a waste. A kid with that much natural intelligence, given proper opportunities, could have gone far in engineering, assuming the Chinese educational system didn’t ruin his natural diagnostic and problem solving skills.
Now that I think about it, maybe he’s better off without ‘higher’ education in China. He just needs someone to watch out for him, and eventually join up with a good business partner instead of some exploitative asshole.
Stop whining, education is overrated. I started working (non skilled labor) when I was 10, and I turned out ok…i have 3 beachfront houses and a yatch. As long as it’s not forced labor, it should be ok…reading/writing is overrated…sombody has to get their hands dirty to work on my cars
Big deal! I’ve got 8 FLOATING houses and a submarine. I also know how to spell ‘yacht’. I guess education is not so overated. You are full of shit.
good for you, maybe you and the prodigy boy can work on my car now
zing! nice one, Juan!
Whatever! Forget you both!
I have delorian which can go back in time and a bat mobile. I also rent the white house to Obama…
Seriously, this is a sad story… Prodigy or not, I can’t praise someone that is making a child work like this. I find it funny how people talk about how much of genius he is and not about how he is getting the hell abused out of him. Great life…
I find that China has a lot of talent, but why do so many of them fall to the wayside?
can i borrow your delorean for the weekend? i’ve always wanted a handshake with mao
it is sad if there are proven facts showing the whole picture…
BTW… many kids in rural North America know how to drive. We have had dirtbikes since we are kids (I was 9 when I got my first) and snowmobiles (I was 11 and we had an old clunker), lawntractors, REAL tractors (again (11) and field cars. I fail to see the amazing part of this driving story…
He is a kid with mechanical talent and provided he can read, maybe he will become very good as a technician of some sort.
Good point! people might be forgetting that he might even be enjoying the experience and the fame just like music prodigies (or not). Plus, he might be just doing this only during weekends as ‘extracurricular activity’ when he doesn’t have homework from school… plus his mechanical talents are only as good as Homer Simpson’s, who knows, you draw your own conclusions…
You can’t really make any money as a mechanic here in China. That kid is possibly better off in school. His dad/boss probably doesn’t know any better though. Can you blame someone for just wanting to make a quick buck? Afterall, people gotta eat. Chinese pragmatism will always trump any ideology. It’s what truly built this country. This is why Chinese people should be so proud.
“Chinese pragmatism will always trump any ideology.”
Whatever you think is ‘Chinese pragmatism’ it is unlikely pragmatic. And in the CCP’s China ideology has ALWAYS been in 1st place, second to none, even if it is only lip service.
“It’s what truly built this country.”
What built this country is underpaid Chinese labour that is not allowed to form independent trade unions.
“This is why Chinese people should be so proud.”
Proud of what precisely?
The kid mechanic….
Probably he doesn’t have much of a chance at school (can his parents even afford it?) and he wouldn’t even make it into a third tier college. He might as well develop his skills at a trade early on.
C. Bratton,
You must live in a different China than I do.
Technicians in a small town fixing Changan Pick-ups don’t make money. Head mechanics of tuning garages and racing teams that can program computers, analyze data, and chassis setup make money.
At this age, he needs to be sent to a professional garage so that he can have all the ‘quick-fixes and good-enoughs’ worked out of his system.
Then he will be worth good money.
What the kid is assembling is not a car engine, but loneliness…
HOLY SMOKE, GOOD SENSE OF POPULAR CHINESE SENTENCE
I once saw a big slogan the government brushed on the wall in a village:
“磨刀不误砍柴功, 念完初中再打工!”
ARE YOU CHINESE OR ?
and my favorite
中国移动手机卡，一边耕田一边打！
no wonder China Mobile got half a billion subscribers.
when the hell will people stop using that
‘its not ___blank___, is loneliness’ thingy from the chinetizens?!
come on!
just stop already.
and the kid…?
eh…
what do kids know about child labor abuse?! :D
jia you, little mechanic monkey!
and stop making it sound like he’s gonna be able to make money off it, in the future.
auto mechanics ALREADY are not making money like they did, and in china?!…
get with the times,
he will not get education,
he will be an auto mechanic and he will have a less then comfortable life.
he isnt the first or last. in china or anywhere else in the world.
how is this news worthy?
and fucking wuhan again?!
fuck that city.
i think it is the perfect place for ‘boredom’ to go and die in, and
ridiculously corrupted, less then human, mutated scum to live their miserable lives in.
Come on, loneliness quotes are the new “first.”
Stupid. I find it amusing they think a 12 year old who can fix simple mechanical issues is a “child prodigy”..and wow he can drive a little trike, AMAZING.
Erm, um, we have shop class in Canada at 12 yrs old and learn mechanics. If we had it when we were 10, would everyone who can take apart and put together an engine block be a child prodigy? ridiculous.
kids love playing sports, others like computers, games & shopping & what not. he just happens to fix cars & drive his own. what’s everyone making a big deal over? its a hobbie. get the fark over it & debating over stupid sh1t u idiots.
1) There’s no proof that all of those pictures are of the same kid.
2) There’s no proof that the kid works full time as a mechanic.
3) There’s no proof that he’s a prodigy of any kind.
It’s probably some kid hanging around his family’s auto shop helping out when he can. The OP’s description is the usual melodramatic tripe that seems so prevalent on Chinese message boards.
Some one is teaching the kid well. Like sitting under the raised box of the truck and screwing around on something he has no idea about what it is for.
Poor kid just doing some work then some one tries to make a story out of it and it makes his life more of a hassle. Let him be.
Education isn’t everything and many who have education still have zero skills. He isn’t sitting at some office desk stealing someone’s tomatoes.
The kid needs to get paid and then given a path to do some courses at a technical college.
Going by some of the logic above the threat, if one reads popular mechanics, does that means they know the ins and outs of cars?