Lunch and the Process Behind It Become a Subject in China
YINCHUAN (ANTARA) - The task was to prepare a cold dish, but the temptation to taste it first was hard to resist. As fifth-grader Nan Haoyi tried to arrange a plate of salad, a pair of chopsticks kept darting in from the side. “Stop eating,” he protested, swatting away a classmate’s chopsticks. “There won’t be any left.”
The lively, slightly chaotic scene unfolded not in a school canteen, but in a labour education classroom at No. 23 Primary School in Xingqing District, Yinchuan, capital of the Hui Autonomous Region of Ningxia in northwest China. There, pupils learn to wash vegetables, use knives, mix seasonings, and clean their work areas — and, more broadly, understand just how much effort goes into preparing everyday meals.
On a recent day, pupils arrived at the classroom carrying ingredients from home, donned aprons and chef hats, and quickly divided up tasks. Soon, the room was transformed into several small workstations. At one table, pupils prepared vegetables; at another, they blanched them. At the next, seasonings were mixed in bowls while plates waited to be arranged.
Their teacher, Yu Haiyan, who also teaches Mandarin, offered only a few reminders: be careful when handling ingredients and always stay alert when using knives. After that, the pupils got on with their assignments.
One group failed to make shredded potatoes as planned. Rather than discarding the dish, the pupils quickly turned it into mashed potatoes. Later, when Yu asked what they had learned from the class, one pupil said the experience showed the importance of adapting when things do not go as expected. For the teachers at this school, such small improvisations are part of what labour education is meant to teach.
Across China, labour education has regained official attention in recent years, with schools encouraged to help children develop basic life skills and respect for work. Yet in many urban schools, the idea has been difficult to realise. Limited space, heavy safety responsibilities, and teachers whose backgrounds are usually in other subjects pose challenges. As a result, labour classes are often marginalised, and in some places delivered only through videos or other forms of “online experience.”
The school started with a plot of farmland in 2021, added a cooking classroom two years later, and opened a seed museum in 2025 — a gradual effort to provide space, both literal and figurative, for a subject that is easy to assign but harder to teach. At this school in Yinchuan, administrators have tried to turn a subject that can easily become symbolic into something pupils can actually touch, cook, and clean up after themselves.
Over the past five years, the school has built three facilities that allow children to learn through direct practice: a small farm plot, a cooking classroom, and a seed museum. Together, they form what the school calls a “field-to-table” labour education system. Pupils study seeds and plants, take part in growing and caring for vegetables, practise cooking, and clean up after themselves once the work is done.
“With these real spaces, labour education is no longer just a timetable entry,” said Shen Hao, director of the school’s academic affairs office. “It is no longer a one-off activity.”
Learning begins with simple daily tasks. In the early grades, children practise folding clothes, tidying school bags, and peeling garlic. As they move up, they learn to identify different types of crops, try cooking simple dishes, care for the school farm, and prepare home-style meals. By graduation, the school hopes to hold a “graduation banquet” for parents and teachers.
Yet the cheerful kitchen atmosphere depends on a system of rules, supervision, and careful preparation by adults. “We are not trying to train chefs or farmers,” said Wang Yongli, a senior administrator at the school. “We want children to understand daily life and appreciate work.”
Before each cooking class, pupils must fill in a food safety form and check for any allergies or special dietary needs within their group. Ingredients must be bought from regular supermarkets, and receipts must be kept. Finished dishes are stored as samples for 48 hours in case any problems need to be traced. The classroom is also equipped with induction cooktops, which the school considers much safer for children.
Another challenge was the availability of teaching staff. Initially, labour education classes were often taught by Mandarin or maths teachers, making it easy for the lessons to revert to ordinary academic instruction. To keep the classes on track, the school developed its own labour education handbook. The guide details the skills pupils should master at each grade level while also strengthening the classroom supervision system.
Yu said her own cooking skills were only average at first, so she practised beforehand before teaching the pupils.