Items in schoolbag of "Youyou" and "Youyou" on the road to school. /Weibo Photo
Back-to-school for China. September 1 marks the first day of a new semester. Many Chinese parents like to post pictures of their children heading off to their first day on China's social networks.
A series of photos of kindergarten boy "Youyou" has become the most talked about topic on Weibo – China's social platform similar to Twitter – because he went to kindergarten with green onions and other unique items not related to studying. Several netizens started questioning why this boy is carrying such weird items to the kindergarten?
According to the "Youyou's" mother from Changshu, east China's Jiangsu Province, this was a local tradition. Each year, "YouYou's" uncle would give a schoolbag to his nephew for his first day of school. This schoolbag would be filled with green onions, apples, pancakes, water chestnuts and instant noodles.
These items are all homophone for lucky words in Mandarin related to kid's studying and health. The green onions' (Cong) is a homophone for smart (Cong Ming) in Chinese Pinyin, while apple (Ping Guo) is a homophone for safe (Ping An) and the funniest item is instant noodles because its brand name "Unify 100" means students can get 100 points in all exams.
"Youyou's" mother continues, "we also prepared 88 baked apples. Youyou was happy to carry these items and wanted to share with others in kindergarten."
