Preschool Teacher In China Forces Student To Smell His Feet, Posts Photos On WeChat

Police in southeastern China have detained a kindergarten teacher after he forced one of his students to smell his foot and then publicly shared photos of the incident on social media, local authorities said Tuesday.

The teacher, identified by his surname Liu, was fired from his post at a branch of RYB Education in Ruijin city in China's Jiangxi province for posting to WeChat three photos of a boy holding his sock-covered foot with both hands as he pressed the child's nose against the sole, South China Morning Post reported.

Liu's comments under his post reportedly said it was a form of "training" and that he was "cultivating [masochism] from childhood." Merriam-Webster defines masochism as "the derivation of sexual gratification from being subjected to physical pain or humiliation by oneself or another person."

Two separate comments from Liu read "do smell, smell carefully" and "have blocked parents and teachers," with the latter referring to him making the post inaccessible to parents and teachers.

The incident was reported to police by a WeChat contact of Liu who took screenshots of the post and publicly denounced it on Weibo, another Chinese social media platform akin to Twitter.

Following an investigation into the incident, the education department found that the incident occurred after Liu took off his shoes while accompanying children to a play area Monday. When the child in the pictures commented that his feet were smelly, Liu smelled them himself before making the child do the same and taking the photos.

Liu was detained by police for seven days. He remains in police custody.

The Ruijin government reportedly issued a warning to the kindergarten after the incident and ordered that Liu be removed from his post, a statement from the school said Tuesday.

RYB Education is listed on the New York Stock Exchange. The education group's shares dropped by almost 40% in 2017 when a similar incident happened in one of its branches in Beijing.

A former kindergarten teacher at Beijing RYB Education New World Kindergarten, Liu Ya'nan, was sentenced to 18 months in prison and banned from employment in the childcare field for five years after authorities discovered she punished four children with sewing needles in November 2017, the Global Times reported.