British teacher instructs her students to make ‘slant eyes’ to ‘look Chinese’ for class photo

The photo was apparently meant to celebrate a successful Chinese day a the primary school

After working on a project about China last month, a group of primary-schoolers in the UK were told to pull up the sides of their eyes for a special class photo.

That photograph was then pinned to a window of the New Bradwell School, in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, horrifying the parents of the six and seven year-olds.

“It was meant to show us what a success Chinese day had been. All the children were using their fingers to pull up the sides of their eyes in what I assume was an effort to ‘look Chinese.’ Even worse was that the teacher and the teaching assistant were doing it too,” one mother told the local MK Citizen.

“These children will now think it’s OK to do this, when it is clearly not. At best it’s insensitive and at worst it’s racism,” she added.

The school’s head teacher has apologized and said that he removed the photo as soon as he became aware of the matter, adding that an investigation has been launched “to see if any changes need to be made with the school’s procedures and policies.”

Last month, following an intense online backlash, Amazon UK removed a pair of Chinese costumes for boys that were sold by two different third-party retailers and modeled by white children pulling their eyelids back for a more “slant eyed” look.

Over the years, stars from pop singer Miley Cyrus to Argentine footballer Ezequiel Lavezzi to Victoria’s Secret model Gigi Hadid have incited similar outrage after striking “slant-eyed” poses for photos.

Oh, and here’s how one Bangkok mall celebrated the Chinese New Year in 2014: