When my school was once an army.

      It was 6:40 in the morning. I got up, tucked myself into my uniform, sat on my bed for a while and slowly went to the bathroom, with my eyes still closed. There was no difference to me whether it was a Monday or Friday. I quickly washed my mouth and face. Having checked that my eyes were open and I could see my face clearly in the mirror, I then had a quick breakfast, normally simply a cup of milk. I would take my energy of the morning, a little bag of Nestle Milk, to the classroom if I woke up five minutes late. Fortunately, I lived in an apartment near my school so that it was only five minutes’ walk to the classroom. That meant during the twenty-four hours in the day I could have more sleep and what’s more important, more time to focus on my study. My parents rented an apartment near school while everyone else went to school by bus or by car. It was my graduating year of my high school.

      The morning reading session started at 7 o’clock. Everybody was required to read something loud in this class. We would read English on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and Tuesday and Thursday were Chinese Literature time. This seemed to be a perfect arrangement because we would not read something on the same subject every morning and we would not be bored. I sat in my usual seat, wondering would anybody feel happy for this. After the morning reading, there were other five classes in the morning and three classes in the afternoon. Every day was the same schedule unless that day was the doomsday. After all classes were over, students would have a quick supper and hopefully, do some sports as refreshment for the day. Then it was 7 o’clock again. Students would study and do their homework until 11 pm and went back home. I felt like every day was as long as a year. On the top of blackboard, there was always a simple slogan: National College Entrance Exam is only XXX days away. XXX varied from day to day. We folks, students and teachers and all the people in this society with concern to National College Entrance Exam, were really counting days. It’s not insane. It’s true in China’s graduating year of high school.

      Those days were like army life. In the third year when we were faced with entering a higher school, I felt we were suddenly thrown into the hell. Taking the National College Entrance Exam is the dominant way, if not the only way, to get accepted into colleges. This exam is held only once every year on June 7^th and 8^th. We were being trained for the whole junior year, which was the graduating year of China’s high school, to fight our life for National College Entrance Exam. This was all about a game of survival. Every year, ten million senior high school students would take this exam and only half of them would be accepted into college. It was a lot like thousands of people crossing the bridge and people unqualified would fall.

      The National College Entrance Exam is the only factor that determines whether or not higher education is a possibility. My high school, Xiamen Foreign Language School, is a key high school in the province, which means students have more chances to get enrolled in better universities. We did ton of practice tests in order to be trained to become better test takers. The reason why we did this was that the College Entrance Exam was so hard. This exam was designed to eliminate students who were not excellent enough to get into colleges, because so many students were competing to get into colleges while the capacity of colleges was still not big enough, although China’s number of college students was larger than any other country in the world. After every practice test, our scores were summed up and ranked, based on the score. This is also the way that almost all universities use when enrolling freshmen, summing up scores and ranking the scores. The rule is simple: everyone tries to score as high as possible in order not to fall off the bridge to college.

      Some friends of mine always ranked top ten among all junior students in my school. They were not only perfect test takers but also brilliant and smart. People would never know what the secret was that they could always keep their ranking above all the average students. And their answers to this question were pretty simple as if nothing was answered: Practice makes perfect. I don’t know how they could apply this saying into every day’s army life easily. I don’t even know what enormous persistence and discipline is required for us to just do well in the National College Entrance Exam in order to get enrolled into a college. I remember many nights after I came back to my little apartment from a long day I could do nothing but sleep. I remember another popular slogan: eat for College Entrance Exam, sleep for College Entrance Exam, and breathe for College Entrance Exam. I remember the whole class would sit in front of the desks with piles of books and bottles of water on the desk for the whole day and most of the days just passed slowly in this way. I remember several nights I suffered from insomnia simply because my ranking fell in the recent practice test and the pressure of the whole thing just would not let me sleep.

      You would probably ask why Chinese students are so crazy about going to colleges and they will sacrifice a year’s life preparing for the National College Entrance Exam. I would let my desk-mate, the buddy who sat next to me during the tough year, answer this question. He would lay down the mathematics paper he was working on and stare at me for seconds through his thick eyeglasses and say to me: “What is wrong with you today? Will you please stop wasting time thinking about this kind of stupid question? Because you are now in the army! Soldiers would not think about why they have to fight for a war. Do you copy?” My desk-mate was smart and a real man. He failed in last year’s College Entrance Exam and decided to spend another year in the “army” for a second College Entrance Exam. This decision would call for ton of courage, will power, perseverance and any other words that I could think of. The reason why he persists in pursuing college education is that in this society, with such a large population, higher education is the only way to make one economically stable or successful. China’s large population creates a situation of extremely fierce competition and fewer opportunities for people to succeed without a college education.

      The toughest time in my life ended on June 8^th, 2006. The exam took two days including tests on Chinese Literature, Mathematics, English and Science. For the two days, we prepared for one whole year. The headline of the local newspaper on that day was “Relief Day of Millions of Students.” We went back home just like soldiers went back home from war. We felt the stress of life was suddenly gone just like the armor in the air was gone after a war. A month later, the result of the exam was announced. Some people cried. Some people smiled. People cried because they did not do well enough to compete with others and because there was a ranking which determined that still half of the students would be rejected into higher education by this exam, or this society. Those who failed would have to suffer another year for a second National College Entrance Exam, which is only held once a year, or would give up college and just go to a low-pay job.

      Everything in that year became a shock when I came to America. Having found that college entrance exam in America—SAT—can be taken several times in a year, and that the college admission is not only based on the single SAT score, and that there are still other opportunities in society if one does not attend college, I was surprised at first. But later I found that life was still fair. I would not regret the graduating year that I spent with the support of my parents, teachers, and classmates to fight for the college entrance exam. That year was indeed tough. However, students who ended up with an admission to colleges, or not, still grew a lot through that year. I no longer made decisions simply based on whether I like it or not. I became stronger and more disciplined. My ability to overcome the troubles that the life has in store was developed. People who have served the army are physically stronger, and I believe I’m mentally stronger.

注：这是我在WRIT 103上WORKSHOP的文章。所谓WORKSHOP，就是把文章拿到课堂上让大家阅读和讨论。美国的一些学生也写了关于他们的教育的文章，他们写他们SAT考试如何困难，这种标准化的考试如何有弊端，大学招生应该废除标准化考试之类。我读他们写的东西有点苦笑的感觉。因为相比我的高三，中国的高考，他们的大学入学简直是小巫见大巫。但也有点理解，毕竟环境是不同的。除非跳出我们自身所处的环境看问题，否则我们看到的大多是自身环境的弊端。

我最初想表达的是，中国的高三就像在军队里一样痛苦，但不说高考带来的种种弊端，高三一年带来的好处就是中国学生知识基础会更加扎实，通过一年的训练，心智也会成长很多。而我也想让班里的美国学生体会一下中国的高三。在这两种动机作用之下，催生了我那篇workshop文章的诞生。遂在此发表。