Recently, at the Teacher’s Day commendation ceremony of Xiangya Medical College of Central South University in Hunan Province, a document claiming that a teacher had not returned home to see his parents for “23 years” and only slept “0 to 2 hours a day” has sparked widespread skepticism online. The school quickly took down the related content and stated that an investigation would be conducted. Public opinion has criticized the practice of creating a sense of tragedy and promoting sacrifice, which deviates from common sense and ethics.
According to reports from media outlets such as “The Paper” and “Jiemu News,” on September 14th, netizens raised concerns about the commendation material of a certain teacher at the Teacher’s Day ceremony of Xiangya Medical College, Central South University. The material depicted a specially-appointed professor who claimed to only sleep 0 to 2 hours a day, worked every day without a break, lived alone at the age of 44, and had not visited his parents for 23 years.
After the information was exposed, public opinion erupted in criticism. Some netizens pointed out, based on medical knowledge, that long-term severe sleep deprivation cannot support normal teaching and research activities. The human record for consecutive days without sleep is only about 11 days, with hallucinations and mental confusion occurring midway. If one truly sleeps only one or two hours a day, the sympathetic nervous system would be under extreme stress, increasing the risk of sudden death.
Public reports have also shown that the Chinese Communist Party police often use sleep deprivation as a means of extracting confessions during interrogations and torturing dissidents and believers.
Xiangya Medical College, where the aforementioned illogical commendation material appeared, is one of China’s top medical colleges. Many doctors at its affiliated hospitals have openly discussed the dangers of insufficient sleep.
The mention of “not seeing parents for 23 years” in the commendation material has also drawn criticism. An article in “Beijing Daily” stated that filial piety is a simple virtue of the Chinese people, and taking care of parents is everyone’s basic responsibility. Packaging this as a workplace achievement and merit distorts the true meaning of “dedication to work”.
Under pressure from public scrutiny, on September 15th, staff from Xiangya Medical College of Central South University responded by stating that the official account had removed the related articles from the commendation ceremony. They claimed that the content was the teacher’s own account of his experiences and did not contain any obvious violations or inappropriate comments. The teacher had also personally solved students’ problems with his own funds. The school has assigned personnel to investigate whether the circulated content was exaggerated or not.
Some media critiques have remarked that even if the details are true, glorifying extreme behavior that alienates family bonds and jeopardizes health as exemplary, reflects a distorted logic within some units of the system that considers “the more hardship, the more honor; the more sacrifice, the nobler”.
In recent years, the Xiangya system has been embroiled in public controversies multiple times. In March of this year, a female graduate student surnamed Sun at Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, died by jumping into the river from Juzizhou Bridge, and her suicide note circulated online. The note stated that she was driven to mental collapse by her advisor, leading her to seek escape by jumping off a building. After being rescued, she was forcibly admitted to a psychiatric unit, where her advisor threatened her with “no discharge if you cause trouble again”.
Prior to this incident, in May 2024, Luo Shuaiyu, an intern at Xiangya Second Hospital, died from falling off a building under suspicious circumstances, which sparked wide public attention. After Luo Shuaiyu’s parents found over a thousand reports on his computer, accusing the hospital of illegal organ trafficking and requesting him to find child donors, they demanded an independent third-party investigation. Although the official report by Hunan authorities in June 2025 concluded that Luo Shuaiyu’s death was a suicide and ruled out homicide, his family insisted on an independent re-examination. Many unresolved questions, including signs of a struggle at the scene, a 7-meter distance from the wall at the fall point, carrying a large sum of cash, and a suspected warning text message, left the family unsatisfied with the explanations provided.