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PAKISTAN KYRGYZSTAN Watch a video on the ook Larmer KAZAKHSTAN INDIA NEPAL CHINA (Yangtze R.) Chang Jiang BANGLADESH

SICHUAN Upfront• BHUTAN MYANMAR (BURMA) gaokao THAILAND (Yellow R.) GUANGDONG Huang He upfrontmagazine.com MONGOLIA LAOS RUSSIA VIETNAM HUBEI Maotanchang ANHUI Beijing Sea China South Hong Kong Wuxi Yuejin PHILIPPINES TAIWAN Shanghai Sea China East KOREA NORTH KOREA SOUTH (East Sea) Japan of Sea 0 0

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Jim McMahon (Map); CEN/Newscom (Class); Reuters/Landov (Test) Crunch time: Students in Guangdong Province taking the gaokao

t exactly 11:45 on a Sunday or ACT, but it’s more than twice as long With the gaokao just 69 days away, Yang morning last spring, thou- and the stakes are much higher. The had entered the final, hectic stretch. st) sands of teenagers swarmed test is given every June over several “If you connected all of the prac- out of the front gate of days. It’s the only thing that counts for tice tests I’ve taken over the past three Maotanchang High School. admission to Chinese universities. years,” he said, “they would wrap all Many A of them wore identical black- Most of the students at Maotanchang the way around the world.” and-white jackets with the slogan, in come from rural areas. The gaokao Even with all the nonstop practice, English, “I believe it, I can do it.” offers them the promise of a life beyond Yang’s scores were slipping. That wor- andov ( Te L andov R e ut er s/ C lass); Maotanchang High School is one of the fields and the factories. ried his mother, who moved near the wscom ( wscom China’s “cram schools.” These schools Yang Wei, then a 12th-grader at school to be with Yang. The rent on their

C E N / Ne are memorization factories, where Maotanchang, had spent the previous tiny room was high, rivaling rates in 20,000 students train around the clock three years, weekends included, stum- downtown Beijing. But that represented for China’s national college-entrance bling to his first class at 6:20 in the morn- only part of the sacrifice Yang’s parents examination, known as the gaokao. In ing and returning to his room only after made to help him become the first in his M c ahon ( M ap);

Jim some ways, the gaokao is like the SAT the end of his last class at 10:50 at night. family to attend college. Yang’s father is

march 30, 2015 13 a peach farmer in a village 45 minutes away; his mother quit her garment-fac- tory job to support Yang in his final year of cramming. Yang attended Maotanchang with Cao Yingsheng, his closest friend from his home village. Cao’s mother came to live with her son as well. “It’s a lot of pressure,” said Cao. “My mother constantly reminds me that I have to study hard, because my father is out working construction far from home to pay my school fees.” (Even public schools in China charge fees, but Maotanchang’s are higher.) The boys knew that manual labor ‘Like training for the Olympics’: Students in Shichuan Province study for the gaokao. would be their fate too, if they failed to do well on the gaokao. Yang and Cao coming under fire in China. Its critics say would have to join the ranks of China’s China & the U.S. it limits creativity and puts too much pres- 260 million migrant workers. These sure on students. Teenage suicide rates workers leave their homes in rural China Population tend to rise as the gaokao nears. Two years in search of construction or factory jobs 1.4 billion ago, a student posted a shocking photo- in the nation’s booming coastal cities. graph online that showed a classroom full of students all hooked up to intravenous China’s Economic Boom drips to give them the strength to keep China has come a long way since 1949. 319 million studying (see photo, p. 12). That year, Mao Zedong’s Communist The government is pushing reforms forces won a civil war over U.S.-backed GDP to reduce student workloads and allow Chiang Kai-shek and founded the $16.7 trillion universities to consider factors other People’s Republic of China. Over the next $13.4 trillion than gaokao scores. But these efforts three decades, the country endured great have met resistance from many parents, suffering. Mao died in 1976. By that year, who fear that easing the pressure could China’s economy was in ruins. His suc- hurt their children’s exam results and cessor, Deng Xiaoping, introduced free- Size of Workforce threaten their futures. Many wealthy market reforms in 1978. Those reforms families are simply opting out of the 797.6 million allowed private business and foreign system, placing their children in private investment—and led to three decades of 155.4 million international schools in China or send- explosive growth. ing them abroad for an education. The results have been stunning. But for those of limited means, like

Number of Students Taking o r k er s) China is now the second-largest econ- College Entrance Tests Annually Yang, there is no alternative to the gao- W omy in the world, behind the U.S. The kao; a few points either way could deter- uction uction ranks of China’s middle class have also 3.5 million mine whether he qualifies for a degree r onst 9 million students taking C

swelled. But despite growing prosper- that could change his life—or nothing. s ( students taking SAT and/or ACT ity, large parts of the country remain the gaokao Rural students have a huge disadvan- e I mag rural and very poor. Now the question tage. Villages like Yuejin, where Yang is AP is whether those people will be able to from, have poor schools and few well- grab a piece of China’s new wealth. Projected Share of World’s trained teachers. Wealthy urban families H oshiko/ With so much at stake, it’s easy to College Graduates in 2020 can hire private tutors, pay for test-prep

see why the gaokao is such a big deal to courses, or bribe their way into the best We i); Eug e n ang young people like Yang and Cao. More city schools. And there are far fewer col- L andov /R e ut er s/ IV S than 9 million students take the test 29% 11% lege-admissions spots set aside for rural T E

sources: the World Factbook 2014 (C.I.A.), Y in/ VII ( Y R CO each year. The New York Times, and The Center for American students than for students from cities. O C hi Progress/Center for the Next Generation

Despite its importance, the exam is Maotanchang stepped in to fill this CLA R S im

14 Upfront • upfrontmagazine.com need. It’s located in Anhui province, two This system gets results. Xu’s test scores were at the hours from the nearest city. And the school In 2013, more than 9,000 ‘There’s top of his grade. prides itself on eliminating the distractions Maotanchang students nothing to do “My parents thought I of modern life. Cellphones and laptops scored high enough to but study’ at was a maniac,” he says. are forbidden. The dorms, where about enter a university. That’s Maotanchang. “But memorizing this half the students live, have no electrical about 80 percent of the material is like training for outlets. Dating is banned. In town, where school’s students who the Olympics. You have to the rest of the students live, mostly with took the exam. keep up the momentum. their mothers in tiny sectioned-off rooms, Maotanchang’s most Skip a day or two, and you the local government has shut down all famous graduate is 19-year- can get off form.” forms of entertainment. This may be the old Xu Peng. He grew up The extra push might only town in China with no video arcade, as one of China’s 60 mil- have helped. Xu scored billiards hall, or Internet cafe. lion “left behind” children, 643 out of a possible (but “There’s nothing to do but study,” raised by his grandparents never achieved) 750. That Yang says. while his parents worked enabled him to get into as migrant fruit sellers in Tsinghua University in Frequent Punishments the distant city of Wuxi. Beijing, one of China’s Maotanchang has harsher rules and Xu spun out of control in Yang Wei, a former student most prestigious schools. longer hours than typical Chinese high middle school. He skipped at Maotanchang High School Its minimum admissions schools. But its curriculum is essentially classes, snuck out with his score for students from the same. All 10th- and 11th-graders in friends, and became obsessed with video Anhui province taking the gaokao was China study Chinese language, math, games. After he blew his chance at getting 641. Xu made it by just two points, and is foreign language (usually English), into one of the region’s best high schools, now an engineering major at Tsinghua. and either social studies and literature Xu turned to Maotanchang as a last resort. Maotanchang students like Yang idol- or sciences—subjects on the gaokao “I only knew that the school was very ize Xu, who has inspired them to devote exam. In 12th grade, students typically strict, to the point that some students their young lives to the test. Yang’s hard just review and memorize what they’ve had supposedly committed suicide,” he work has paid off. A few weeks after he already learned. says. “That convinced me.” took the gaokao last June, he learned Maotanchang’s teachers give out les- After arriving at Maotanchang, Xu his score and was thrilled. It wasn’t sons, and frequently punishments, with decided that his teachers weren’t strict high enough to qualify for a first-tier military rigor; their job security and enough. Xu filled every spare moment university in Shanghai, but it would bonuses depend on raising their stu- with study, testing himself between win him a spot at one of Anhui’s best dents’ test scores. Security guards roam classes, on the toilet, and in the cafete- second-tier universities. the 165-acre campus in golf carts and on ria. After the lights went out at 11:30, There’s no guarantee he’ll find a job motorcycles, while surveillance cameras he sometimes used a battery-powered when he graduates, but he does know track students’ movements. lamp to keep going. By his third year, that his life will be different from his parents’ lives. Not all of the news was happy. Yang’s childhood friend, Cao, tanked on the o r k er s) W exam. Cao’s family was heartbroken. His father had worked 12-hour days, 50 uction uction weeks a year, building high-rises in east- r onst C

s ( ern China to pay the Maotanchang fees. His family couldn’t afford a repeat year. e I mag

AP Cao’s only option was manual labor. Days after learning he failed the gaokao, H oshiko/ Cao left their home village to search for migrant work in China’s glittering

We i); Eug e n coastal cities. He would end up on a ang L andov /R e ut er s/ construction site, just like his father. IV • S T E Y in/ VII ( Y R CO

O Brook Larmer is a freelance writer based C hi

CLA R S im What they’re avoiding: Failing the gaokao likely means ending up in a factory or construction job. in Shanghai, China.

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