“The difference between Northern and Southern China is that in the South, we eat rice. In the North, it’s noodles”. Ashley and I are sitting in a little eatery off campus, scarfing down tteokbokki (Korean rice cakes with a spicy sauce) and cold chicken in chili oil. It’s the start of my second week in Beijing and my relationship with my assigned Chinese “buddy” has gone from texting her asking for help at the bank, to sending her WeChat stickers and chatting about dating in our 20s. Our time is spent asking questions back and forth; the conversation beginning in Chinese but then an eventual collapse into English as I animatedly explain suburban white flight in the US or as she breaks down the Chinese education system. She’s committed to ensuring that I eat well in my semester at Renda, as every errand we run together is finished over a plate of shared food. First it was the coveted “Huixian Jioazi” (made-to-order dumplings), or my new favorite, “MaLaTang” (Spicy soup, typical of Sichuan but adopted by Beijingers). I like to think of us as the cutest couple on campus.
Food aside, spending time with Ashley gives me a peek of China through the eyes of one of its children. She’s a full-time student at Renda University, crammed in a dorm room with five other students. She showers in the building next door and eats egg pancakes for breakfast. As I’ve come to learn, an important thing to note about Chinese university students is that they spent ten years of their lives preparing for one exam that will be the definitive factor in deciding where they can attend university. Every class they ever took (including the ones on the weekends) served the sole purpose of preparing them for the Gaokao, (高考, tall test). Taken in their last year of school, it is not uncommon to find parents waiting for their children outside of the examination building with a bouquet of flowers. China is hardly the only country that relies so heavily on one quantitative method to determine education level, but it is worth understanding the weight of this exam and how it shapes the Chinese students of today. I can’t imagine any of my classmates growing up as capable of devoting so much energy towards one endeavor, but as Ashley puts it, “it’s the chance to change your life”.
I would like to interject here. This obsession with the Gaokao does not turn all Chinese students into automatons with no capacity for individual thought. Do not read this post as a way to confirm any stereotype you may have picked up. [In fact, I hear that rich students who fail the Gaoao have an easy out- they’re just shipped to universities abroad. They’ll take ‘em.] Wandering around campus, you can see personalities round every corner. Boys decked out in baseball caps with metal rings on the rim and brilliantly white sneakers scamper to class while girls link arms with their best friends and sip bubble tea in pursuit. They listen to their music out loud in the library and run around campus with plastic containers sloshing vegetable soup. My conversations with Ashley help me put all of that in context, and realize who they are outside of these campus gates. Like when I asked Ashley if she had any siblings, and she revealed to me that while she’s an only child as a result of the one-child policy, many of her college aged friends have little siblings aged one or two. Their parents were given a second chance.
I’ll wrap it up with one last story. Ashley was helping me set up an app that can send money through text. You can send any amount of yuan through little virtual “hongbao” or red packets. To test out the function, Ashley sent me ¥6.66 (roughly 1 USD) because it signifies luck and prosperity. How do I tell her that where I come from, 666 is the sign of the devil?