Communist Party School Locks Basketball Hoops Against Public

From Southern Metropolis Daily:

Communist Party School Basketball Get Locks

Yesterday [July 3rd], a photo of a basketball hoop at the Ningbo Municipal Committee Communist Party School covered and then locked attracted a lot of attention, The poster claimed that the school did this in order to prevent city residents from playing basketball, and this post immediately attracted a lot of netizen discussion. In response, several school representatives confirmed to this Southern Metropolis Daily reporter that the photos are real and explained that the school locked the basketball hoops primarily because city residents playing basketball during working hours “affected classes and work at the CPC school”.

Ningbo’s local forum “cnool” reported the news earlier. At 8:29 am July 3rd, netizen “nb 大萝卜” posted an article titled “The Spectacle of the Local Party School’s Basketball Hoop” with photos depicting that a square wooden board was firmly placed onto the basketball hoop, and firmly held in place with two large locks. The post was soon reposted to the microblogs of several web portals, attracting discussion from netizens. “Utterly baffling, even if you don’t want people to use it, you don’t have go so far as to add a lid and locks!” netizen “汉子” commented. There were even netizens who “offered suggestions” such as “just take a welder and weld it closed!”

In response to netizens’ questioning, “冷视天下” posted on his microblog that this was done for two reasons: one is to protect the working environment of the school, and the other is to ensure safety. “冷视天下” later sent a private message to the reporter indicating that he was vice president [of the school] Feng Jianbo.

According to Feng Jianbo, “Two reasons made us lock the party school’s basketball hoops. Firstly, the basketball backboards are very close to the teaching buildings, so if we open the basketball court to the public, it might affect our classes and office work. Secondly, residents of the neighborhood do physical exercises in the party school in the early morning or in the evening. Basketball players in intense competition might accidentally hurt the other people who are exercising.” Feng Jianbo also says that the basketball hoops weren’t locked and free for residents to use, but three years ago “two groups of teenagers got into a fight because they both wanted to use the court”, and so the school locked the hoops for “safety reasons”. Feng Jianbo also thinks that it shows us there is a problem with lack of exercising sites for the residents, “but as long as safety can be guaranteed, we will be always open to the local residents”.

Comments from Sina Weibo:

高中开始叫老陈:

Expert in invention!

分期付款包二奶:

We just learnt that the cement spikes under overpasses were for homeless people, and now basketball hoops are being locked to ensure the safety of city residents. Truly TMD humane.

蟋蟀ch:

I’m speechless. No wonder Party schools these days aren’t able to train good cadres that serve the people.

笑也三得:

Haha, this creation…was it inspired by the ancient Roman chastity belt?

切格瓦拉上尉:

Looks exactly like a toilet seat, I strongly request that the leaders of the school take a shit on it.

Love琳小妞:

Then why don’t you guys lock your mouths as well. It’d save you from bullshitting all the time, affecting the normal lives of us city residents.

Mr-G冰:

Completely expected. When we were in high school, we played basketball at all of the local Party and government office basketball courts and got just about all of them locked down as a result. Now when we think about it, it was indeed us being inconsiderate. They were working, and there were were making all sorts of noise playing basketball, it was definitely a disturbance.

东王曰:

I looked at the hoops carefully and it’s still possible to play basketball there if we just change the rules a bit: Get the ball to stop on the wooden board covering the hoop and that counts as a goal.

晋焱:

It is pretty much the same thing as the Guangzhou spikes under overpasses.

宽点那个女的:

No wonder Chinese basketball sucks. It’s because it’s so dangerous [that we don’t get to practice it]!

喜欢改名:

The basketball hoops in our school are also locked.

l撒哈拉大鲨鱼l:

If playing basketball could cause physical injury [is that dangerous/unsafe], then how many NBA players must’ve died from bumping into each other…

映诺Dee:

Reminds me of a chastity belt…only with a hole in it.

猪头四:

Why even install a basketball hoop if you’re just going to lock it? Just for decoration?

Claude蔡成雨:

Stick the main point. I don’t even understand what there is to really criticize here. They say they are worried for residents’ safety just as a pretext, and everyone jumps on that one point, but what they’re really saying is that you guys playing basketball there is fine, but if you affect our work and classes, then that’s your fault. In this case, those who are most deserving of being criticized are those inconsiderate people who are playing basketball [during class and working hours]. I guess those who have time to play basketball during work hours are mostly bums. Notice I said “mostly”.