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Fan Meizhong defends his behavior during the May 12 earthquake in this undated photo.
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BEIJING -- A high school teacher in China's southwestern Sichuan Province has joined Hollywood star Sharon Stone and real estate tycoon Wang Shi as targets of online anger for his controversial behavior in the May 12 earthquake.
Fan Meizhong, a Chinese language teacher at a private high school in Dujiangyan city, one of the worst-hit areas, got a nickname "running Fan" from Netizens as he left behind all his students and escaped the classroom first during the 8-magnitude quake.
"We learnt from the school that he was dismissed," said Wang Xuming, Education Ministry spokesman said on Monday. "But it was the decision made by the school itself."
He denied media reports that the ministry had sent a circular to the local education authority to disqualify Fan as a teacher and fire him.
Ten days after the quake, Fan wrote a post at www.tianyaclub.com, China's hottest online community, recalling his experience in the quake and claiming that he would not regret doing so.
"At such a life-and-death moment, I would only give up my life for my daughter. I would not do it for other people, even my mother," he wrote.
His comment roused great controversy in the virtual world and then in Chinese society. Those, against his behavior, called him the most "shameless" teacher in China, while some admired his courage to say what he really thought.
"Such a selfish person without any sense of responsibility did not deserve to be a teacher," said Netizen Hnlgg at the forum of Tianya.
"If we agreed with what running Fan did, we would agree on the principle that everyone could just take care of themselves and ignore the lives of other fellows," said Li Yang, another Netizen who wrote a fairly long essay about Fan, "If everyone follows such a principle, it is very much likely that no one can escape from the dangerous buildings. They might die in a stampede."
Singer Murong Xuan and her colleagues produced a song named "The Song of Running Fan." It is popular online and will soon be available for mobile phone downloading.
"Many people are denouncing his behavior. We just want to reflect such a hot event through a song and hope more people do not behave as Fan did," Murong said.
Fan's school remained intact in the earthquake and no student died.
"I think it might be a person's instinct to run for safety in the earthquake but he should not make those statements. They were inappropriate," said Qing Guangya, the school principal.
But Qing also said that Fan, a graduate of elite Peking University, worked hard as a teacher and students liked him for his "independent" thinking.
"Judged from the ethics of a teacher, I don't think he should teach any more. Students will look down upon him," said Guo Xiao, one of Fan's colleagues.
Fan had been suspended from school since the event broke out.
But there are people standing on his side. "I disagree with what Fan did and said. But he was straightforward and just expressed what he really thought," said Luxixi228 in her blog.
Some others also stood out against the criticism, saying that they were too judgmental and did not tolerate differences.
Fan was not the only one in the center of controversy initiated by netizens.
Hollywood actress Sharon Stone triggered rage among Chinese online communities for her remark at the Cannes Film Festival that the May 12 earthquake might have been the result of bad "karma" since Chinese are "not nice" and "bad things" happen to them.
Chinese real estate tycoon Wang Shi was also criticized for his statement that donations should be sustainable instead of a burden to enterprises and his company suggested that each common employee donate ten yuan ($1.5) once.
Both of them made apologies to the public.
