Onion was an object of satire. He is a little troublemaker, with no hope of getting improved. His mind is under an obsession of blind disobedience.

He hates to exercise only because he is required to and when his really excluded, he gets sour. Kind of antisocial, he spoils things for no good. His adolescent psychology is defiant and his philosophy nihilistic. Such a person is a nuisance, forever on the move from one school to another.

The competition, Ms. Wu and Potato are objects of satire, too.

Esprit de corps is all very well, but sometimes it is distorted into formalism. Morning exercises are intended for better health. In the competition, however, the rigid orderliness of the movements of several dozen students gets the top priority. Children are more or less impatient. I wonder how much esprit de corps can be brought out of excessive boredom. The teachers should have been more considerate and practical.

Ms. Wu, in the name of collective honor, merely wants to get herself some profit and publicity. She even plays foul. Her real intention and enthusiasm are impure. What��s the point of winning a little match at the cost of so many children��s freedom and time of play?

As for Potato, he is a yesman to the teachers. Therefore he is a model student, with almost no mind of his own, but probably a skull of potato mash. When he finally has his own idea, he hits Onion really hard in a frenzied wrath. Well, violence is in no sense advisable. But he��s got his good reasons and he is the teachers�� apple of the eye. So the whole thing winds up in a low-profile denouement. It��s indeed unfair to the wounded Onion. But there is very little he can do. Sometimes those with little brains get the best result and maybe c��est la vie.

Onion might be the Chinese counterpart of Beavis and Butthead but the surroundings are different. However, both work as a kind of irony upon themselves and the respective social unreasonableness.

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