The Core Knowledge Blog

You think parents of American high-achievers put pressure on their kids? Try this:

“At the age of four, Zhou Jiaying was enrolled in two classes—Spoken American English and English Conversation—and given the English name Bella. Her parents hoped she might go abroad for college. The next year they signed her up for acting class. When she turned eight, she started on the piano, which taught discipline and developed the cerebrum. In the summers she went to the pool for lessons; swimming, her parents said, would make her taller. Bella wanted to be a lawyer, and to be a lawyer you had to be tall. By the time she was ten, Bella lived a life that was rich with possibility and as regimented as a drill sergeant’s. After school she did homework unsupervised until her parents got home. Then came dinner, bath, piano practice. Sometimes she was permitted television, but only the news. On Saturdays she took a private essay class followed by Math Olympics, and on Sundays a piano lesson and a prep class for her entrance exam to a Shanghai middle school. The best moment of the week was Friday afternoon, when school let out early. Bella might take a deep breath and look around, like a man who discovers a glimpse of blue sky from the confines of the prison yard.”

So begins a fascinating article in the current National Geographic, “Gilded Age, Gilded Cage,” by Leslie T. Chang, which examines the opportunities and anxieties facing China’s emerging middle class. A study has shown that nearly half of Chinese urban residents are at health risk due to stress, with the highest rates among high school students. While the story’s larger point is to paint a picture of a society in turmoil, the pressure to succeed placed on Chinese youth is front and center:

“You were only as good as your worst subject. If you didn’t get into one of Shanghai’s top middle schools, your fate would be mediocre classmates and teachers who taught only what was in the textbook. Your chances of getting into a good high school, not to mention a good college, would diminish. You had to keep moving, because staying in place meant falling behind. That was how the world worked even if you were only ten years old.”