So…here’s a short list of what I’d like to see in the Middle Kingdom in 2009, and after. It is NOT a prediction; I am not honestly sure if or when any of these will happen. This is also in no particular order:

Stop following the US

For years, China has looked up to foreign countries as a model, the way younger children look up to their older siblings. But most of all, they’ve looked up to the US. We’ve been one of their “model siblings” for years. So it isn’t surprising that, after goading and coaxing from above, China has embraced capitalism (with Chinese characteristics, of course) and moved towards privatizing EVERYTHING. Privatization was supposed to mean better transparency and better pricing (because of competition) for all, so big brother US told China.

Well, that was until we all found out this year that big brother US was peddling some rather dangerous stuff, and hanging out with the wrong crowd.

I know some might call me unpatriotic for saying this, but I’m going to say it anyway: Big brother US is no longer a model for China, and quite frankly needs to go into rehab. (I should have seen this coming, even when I was at Global Sources — somewhere in 2005 I started noticing that, for China exporters, they had to meet higher standards for the EU, but not the USA. Hmmmmm….)

If China is looking for a new model, I’d say, why not instead aim to emulate countries that embrace socialism (ie taking care of your own), yet also achieve a good balance of transparency and keep the economy running. I’m not 100 percent sure who would be best, but Canada, the UK, and France all come to mind

Residency Reform

Ask anyone in China, and they’ll tell you that one of the biggest problems in society is residency — or hukou. That ID that decides which city you officially are a resident of, and what benefits you get. Currently, if you live in a big city such as Beijing or Shanghai, you get better benefits. If you live out in the countryside, you get less. So, naturally, everyone in the countryside hopes to go to the city, just to live a better life, and they have to jump through extraordinary hoops just to get there. My friend Peter, for example, spent years studying for the postgraduate exam just to get into university in Beijing, all for the purpose of getting a Beijing hukou, so he could have the right to settle there

Instead of making people twist and turn just to live where they want to live, I’d love to see the hukou system reformed, so that people can decide for themselves.

Share Colleges with more Small Towns

If you’ve ever spent any amount of time in China, you’ve probably noticed that all colleges and universities (we’re talking higher education, here, not vocational/training) tend to be in the larger cities. In fact, arguably the larger cities hoard all of these great institutions. It’s a shame on many levels. Smaller cities miss out on the benefits of having a college or university within the town, which can be a much needed source of talent, culture, and even innovation that spurs economic development.

Cities such as Hangzhou have been moving colleges out to “College Cities” in their suburbs (which are still within the city limits). What I want to know is, why can’t they share their colleges with smaller towns in the region? For example, neither Fuyang nor Tonglu (two towns in Hangzhou’s jurisdiction) have colleges or universities. Wouldn’t it have been nice to move these schools out there instead, and share the benefits that they bring to the areas?

This model is very common in the US and other countries. Jun and I currently live in Pocatello, Idaho, a town that thrives because of the presence of Idaho State University.

I hope that the next time China considers moving around colleges, it will think of cities in the countryside as possible recipients.

Conquer Noise Pollution in the Countryside

This is a personal, but sobering, one — and a side of the environmental debate we don’t hear enough about. My in-laws live out in the countryside, but ironically suffer damaging noise pollution almost 24 hours a day from factories that were haphazardly built near residential homes.

I’d like to see China pay more attention to planning in the countryside, so that these honest, hardworking people do not need to suffer from the side effects of noise pollution. As it is, my mother-in-law has battled high blood pressure that is likely the result of the noise.

Love Little Girls More

This is social wish. We all know how much the 宝孙子 (treasured grandson) is favored above all in China — so much so that residents of the countryside can have a second child if their firstborn is a girl.

Abortion or abandonment are all too common for girl babies. The result is that the sex ratio will be so skewed by 2020 that many young men will be unable, as my Chinese friends say, to solve their “personal problem” (getting married). Think serious social unrest.

Traditions don’t change easy, and it’s not just peasants. I once heard my boss — a modern young woman from Taiwan — say that she wanted to sell desks in one of the rows in our office, just because every girl (or boy) who sat there ended up with a baby boy.

Let’s hope that women will no longer be seen as “water thrown away” from the family, but instead as treasured members of the family who do more than just give birth. If not, soon there won’t even be enough of them for the men who will grow up in a few decades. (Maybe I should consider starting up a business to connect more foreign women with Chinese men?….just kidding!)

Happy New Year, everyone! 新年快乐！

Why do some Chinese students, after years of grueling study, toss away their higher education when it comes to their career choices?

There’s clearly something amiss in China when it comes to getting higher education, as mentioned in this article “Record students seeking to enter postgraduate courses, but job market expert says employers prefer experience“:

Some candidates who registered this year [to participate in the postgraduate entrance exams] fear their undergraduate education is insufficient. Others say they want to study abroad but cannot adapt to foreign education systems or pay overseas tuition. Yet others want to delay joining the estimated 600,000 to one million graduates who will enter the job market next June and gain an edge over future competition.

“I know a lot of people on the [job search] path, but I’m not mature enough, my undergraduate studies are not enough,” said Wu Yiyu, an accounting student at the Beijing University of International Business and Economics. She will take the postgraduate entrance exam at a People’s Bank of China research institute. Three of her roommates are also studying for the exam. One is applying for jobs as she prepares for the exam and will decide which works out better by June. Another accounting student, Han Yuxuan, hopes to enter her university’s graduate programme because she feels she lacks skills. She also has a chance at free schooling and sees advantages in delaying work. “There are so many Chinese students and competition is so intense, so there are people doing this to escape,” Ms Han said. “But it isn’t my major reason.”

People are, in part, products of their culture. And in China, the culture says, higher education is how you change your life.

In feudal times, young scholars studied fiercely with the hopes of passing the national exams to become an official — a ticket for their families to wealth, prosperity and higher status. It’s no different today, where officials enjoy cars, apartments, travel and dining privileges, with the tab generally picked up by the state. To become an official, you still have to participate in competitive exams.

Even recently, in the 1980′s, college assured lifetime stability. People who gained admission into college in that era were guaranteed a job — the whole “iron rice bowl”. It may not have been the best job, but it was essentially a job for life.

There is the problem of residency, too. Many people are barred from seeking their fortunes in the big cities because they are not allowed to become residents. It’s not like the place I live in the US. When I moved into my city, all I had to do to prove residency was bring in a couple of bills or bank statements or anything else addressed to me at my new address in the city. In China, however, merely having a Shanghai apartment doesn’t make you a Shanghai resident. Getting that residency for non-Shanghai residents is almost as bureaucratic and frustrating as getting a visa in the US. Yet, if you become a STUDENT in a Shanghai university, you can become a resident — provided that you get a job by the time you graduate.

As a result, this whole residency mess has further elevated the status of higher education into something truly transformational. I have a number of nameless friends who intentionally sought to pursue majors with little competition just so they could go to Beijing or Shanghai with the intention of becoming a Beijing or Shanghai resident. Most ended up getting jobs, sometimes not their ideal, sometimes better than expected. But they were able to become big-city residents — their primary goal.

Arguably, this model could be applied to study abroad, where students might also apply for certain majors or to certain schools, with the intention of becoming a permanent resident. My friend Douglas initially wanted to get a PhD in the US, ultimately as a means to gain residency there.

The saddest thing, however, is that Chinese people weren’t provided real guidance on how to succeed. People are taught to go through the educational system, but aren’t taught about how to discover what they really want to do. There isn’t much in the way of career counseling or vocational guidance to help students clarify their life goals, and then discover how to achieve them. So, people blindly follow the time-tested model of higher education as success.

Chinese society also didn’t provide enough alternative models of success. People such as my husband’s cousin, Jianfei. Jianfei failed the high school entrance exams in China, and decided to join the army. Once out of the army, after a few years of doing mindless work, he discovered the business of being a local courier. He eventually became the boss of one of Shanghai’s districts, and makes enough to drive a luxurious Volkswagon. Is he successful? Sure. But you’re definitely not going to see a lot of articles lauding guys like him as the next new model entrepreneur.

Abandoning a PhD is a lot more complicated than just poor planning. Sometimes education is simply a means to an end (residency) or seemingly the only option available, because you just didn’t know better.

In the meantime, I wish my aforementioned Chinese friends success in their new endeavors. Because, after all, there’s only one thing worse than getting a PhD you don’t want — never following your true dreams.

College entrance exams in China usually end in June and a new term starts at the beginning of September. But the anxiety among students and parents from college entrance exams is still lingering.

Students and parents not only care about whether they can enter college, but also whether they can enter a prestigious school. Anxiety, therefore, accompanies their expectations. For many students, once they get their scores on college entrance exams, they decide to enroll themselves at a school that focuses on preparing for the next exam.

In Shanghai, the Municipal Institution for Educational Testing reveals that more than 100 students who are not matriculated by the key universities refuse to go to other colleges that are considered common four-year schools, and that over 5,000 qualified students give up their opportunity to go to a three-year college. Most of these students will end up enrolling at schools that prepare them for next year’s college entrance exam, so that they can compete with other examiners for a spot in prestigious universities such as Beijing University and Qinghua University.

The market for remediation schools is prosperous. A small town called Shangdundu in Jiangxi province in southern China attracted nearly 10 thousand students from all over the country to attend the two schools there for exam preparation. The attraction is because of the two schools’ mystical success — 50 of their students, or 1/3 of their entire student body, entered Beijing and Qinghua University this year. The 20 students admitted by Qinghua University weren’t first-time test-takers. An influx of examiners into the town increased demand for housing, elevating rent and apartment prices there. Restaurants and internet cafes mushroomed within few years. The pedicabs and peddlers in the peasant markets are getting better business. Even selling boiled water around the schools becomes a thriving business.

A researcher at the Central Educational Science Research Institution analyzes that about 30% of the examiners every year are doing it at least the second time. In 2007, there are 3 million second-time examiners. Spending 3,000 yuan (~$400) each for enrollment fees in preparation school, these students feed a 1.2 billion-dollar exam preparation economy, not including the cost of living and learning materials.

Why would so many young students spend a whole year reviewing the same old exam materials, when they could be learning new things in college or doing something more worthwhile? One culturally related reason is the conformity among Chinese. People tend to blindly follow the main stream. The whole society identifies with the idea that going to key universities and choosing so-called hot majors is the sole bridge to becoming a valued talent. On job market, the primary criterion for selecting an employee is whether s/he graduated from a prestigious school. The concept of hierarchy is deeply rooted. Even in graduate school recruitment, the candidate’s undergraduate school is an important factor.

This unhealthy and unproductive aspect of Chinese culture is not left unnoticed. Just like an accomplished Chinese scholar puts it: when half of the students in China do not want to go to Beijing or Qinghua University, it will indicate a breakthrough in our educational reform and concept of talent.

References (Chinese news sources):

http://www.news365.com.cn/jj/200708/t20070816_1536794_1.htm

http://society.people.com.cn/GB/1063/6168738.html

Why does entering Harvard make a girl so astoundingly famous in China?

Being admitted into an elite American school is definitely a piece of good news for Meijie. The vast press coverage of her can show how Chinese value education and how well-known Harvard is in China. Since few students in China can go to Harvard, she is really exceptional as the only one student in China admitted by Harvard during “early action”.

To Chinese, being in an elite school means far more than a degree. It means unlimited possibility for fame, power, wealth, respect and beyond. China has more than one thousand years’ history of such an elite scholarship, particularly in choosing officials through exams. Being an official in China always equals to being privileged in a society where people do not have equal rights. Officials enjoy free housing, travel, transportation, health care, and the right to make rules that serve their own interests. But only a few top examiners can be chosen to be officials, and only a few can go to Harvard. So, people are pressed to be the best–otherwise, you are worthless.

For too long, more than 2,000 years, most Chinese have lived an oppressed and exploited life. People always do not feel safe and are hence in dire need of safety. The long term suppressive rule seems to have demoralized the majority of Chinese people. They learn to cherish the only channel — the exam — to achieve a desirable life.

The individual is not valued just because they are alive. Under suppressive rule, people’s sense of equality has been destroyed. Everyone wants to be the few privileged, and to be superior to others.

Another serious problem that can be seen from this “Harvard girl carnival” is the lack of independent critical thinking among Chinese. Why are so many people so interested in becoming the only one who can be admitted. Most of them are playing a definite losing game. Why not change the rules for the game? Why not let most of our kids get a high quality education? If most of our kids pursue what they are interested in and good at, our society can be a very productive and happy one. We should stop superficially judging people by their educational brand.

At a society level, providing enough and, more importantly, equal opportunities for people to succeed is more pressing. It is a huge waste of human resources when more than 99% of students cannot get into prestigious schools abroad and are judged as failures. Everyone has his or her own talents and the society should provide opportunities for them to find their own place. A society in which the majority is not being taken care of is a failed society.

When the major Chinese media are finally in a frenzy about how to provide equal opportunity and diversified channels for many types of success — instead of the next “Harvard girl” — that will be a signal of a real big change in Chinese society.