China’s Super Gaokao Factory, nothing but study. Hengshui high school | Gaokao

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Recently, a video of a speech given on a TV program in China has been circulating on the Internet. The speech was given by Zhang Xifeng, a senior student of Hengshui High School in Hebei province. In his speech, the teenager expressed his wish to change his fate through the college entrance examination but was also filled with resentment and discontent towards coming from a lower-class family in the countryside. In particular, he said: “I’m just a pig from the countryside, but I’m still determined to go dig for cabbages in the big city.”

In Chinese everyday language, if a very ugly and poor man marries a beautiful girl, it is referred to as "a pig digging a cabbage". In the case of this teenager, it means that he wants to go to the big city, work his way up, and change his humble destiny.

A few key points are brought up from the strong reaction of the netizens, which was caused by this speech. First is the huge difference between urban and rural areas due to the unbalanced distribution of various resources. Second is the education environment and system in China, which turn students into machines to prepare for college entrance exams. This leads people to question the exam-based education system.

In this video, we’re going to borrow Zhang Xifeng’s speech to talk about the current state of education in China.
In March, First High School Education, a private secondary school operator in China, was listed on the New York Stock Exchange.
Nowadays, China is all about money. Schools are no longer a place to teach and educate but has become a factory to produce college exam machines. Children are taught from an early age that only by studying well and getting into a good university can they get a good job, make a lot of money, and live a good life.

Especially the children living in rural areas, who are at the bottom of society. As Zhang said, he was carrying the hopes and dreams of multiple generations of his family. If children from poor families want to change their fate, the only way is through the college entrance examination or gaokao, and to get into a good university.

In the speech that Zhang Xifeng gave at the beginning of the video, the contradiction between despising the more fortunate yet wanting to become that, along with his hatred and desire to change his fate, makes people shudder. Yet the root cause of his way of thinking is exactly China's utilitarian social environment and education model.

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