Weiqiang, my roommate, is a pretty amazing success story. He worked really hard all through school—literally from elementary school to get to where he is today. He came from a family who couldn’t afford much of anything when he was growing up. He didn’t have any toys, and could only look on as other boys played with theirs. They even had to borrow money to buy vinegar towards the end of the growing season, because they had invested so much of their livelihood in the planting of the crops.
But he worked hard to get to the top of his class and stay there, and the kids respected him. He didn’t get teased or picked on any more. His family also gradually became better off. They worked every odd job possible, from hair cutting to hot pepper sales, from opening a karaoke parlor that developed into a game and billiards place to making bricks, and have become a middle-class family now in their small rural town.
He got a full scholarship to go to Guizhou University in Guiyang, one of 100 universities in the top tier of higher education in China, where he continued to work hard and do incredibly well. He was the best student in his major, industrial parts engineering (rough translation…).
He was so good, in fact, that he didn’t even have to take the test to get into graduate school, he was simply referred by his dean, had an interview, and now has a full scholarship to Harbin Industrial University, probably the best industrial, aeronautical (the air force contracts a lot of projects out to HIT), and rocket-science (yes, rocket science. About half of the people working on the Shenzhou rockets that China sends up into space are graduates of HIT) university in the nation.
He’s a hard worker, but he also realizes that there’s more to life than studying. But that wasn’t his choice to make before college. During high school, his teachers strictly regimented every minute of every day, much like many other middle and high school students in China. Coming from the countryside, like over half of China’s population, he lived in the school’s dormitory because of the long commute. They would study for three weeks straight, with no breaks, and then get a three day weekend to go home.
His teacher or class president would wake him and his classmates up at 5:30 a.m. to clean up, get ready for class, and review a bit before classes started at 8 a.m. All the students had classes together until dinner, around 5:00 p.m. and then after dinner it was time to study. Unlike America, however, they were still supervised by their teachers. That’s great for students how have problems managing their own time, and need external motivation to study, but not for Weiqiang. They were told what to study and for how long, and weren’t allowed to review for other subjects. So even though he was already pretty good at physics, and he was struggling with biology, he wasn’t allowed to spend extra time on biology. It just wasn’t in his schedule. The lights were turned off at 10 p.m. and you had to be in bed, lying down. No extra studying. An even playing field.
And that’s the way it is across China. (Note: this is how Weiqiang explained it to me) The National College Entrance Examinations, or Gaokao, is taken at the same time over three days across the entire country for up to nine hours straight at a time and there are only two versions—the humanities or the sciences version, which you decide on when you’re in 10th grade, the first year of high school here. And that’s it.
That one test, and the 24 colleges that you apply to according to their classification, determine where you will go to college, or if you go to college (only about three fifths of high school students make it to college, and many don’t even make it to high school, because compulsory education is only through 9th grade). That’s the only way to be fair with so many seniors vying for a spot in college or vocational schools. At least it’s the best the government’s been able to come up with. The modern day version of the Imperial Examination.
However, (bear with me, this is a grammatical mess) because there are essentially four different classifications of higher education, and someone who lists a university as their first choice in that classification will always be accepted as long as their score is high enough, even if someone else has a higher score but listed it as their second choice for that classification, there are essentially only four that matter. That means there is a LOT of strategizing going on out there, based on you score on practice tests, the scores in your area (because universities have geographically-based quotas for admittance, to try and even the playing field, again), past cut-off lines for universities, reputation, and what they offer.
The cut-off lines aren’t standard. They vary by your region, based on population, whether you’re in a city or not, and other factors. Ethnicity is also a factor. If you belong to one of China’s 55 officially recognized ethnic minorities, then you get an automatic 20-point boost. Which is pretty significant, considering most scores seem to be in the 400s. That’s China’s version of affirmative action I suppose.
Talk about different from “my” America. We’ve had a couple of conversations about this since I got here. And it’s interesting to see what he thinks, because he is generally a well-motivated guy who knows when he needs to study and when he doesn’t. At first he thought the American system was one with a lot of potential for corruption. I explained how it is rare for people to try and cheat on their applications, and with multiple sources of information in every application, problems like that are almost always mitigated and discovered.
Part of his skepticism, however, I’m sure arises from his success within the system and how he’s been able to use it to its fullest. But, of course, that’s not true of everyone. Many students struggle in the system for any number of reasons. Some do fine in high school, but without the rigid daily framework and freedom of college, they crumble. Or they become 六十分万岁！ students, or “long live 60 points!” students, 60 being the bare minimum score for passing, and not getting kicked out of university.
It’s a system that has received a lot of criticism, both from Chinese and foreigners, who say that it doesn’t encourage personal development, a balanced education, creativity and innovation, personal responsibility, and a host of other problems. But any Chinese will tell you that there’s just no other way.
Great post with great insights.
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