Battle cries of examinees reflect reality

How do Chinese schools psych seniors up for gaokao, the all-important national college entrance examination that is held around this time every year? A number of slogans and mottoes doing the rounds in high schools have hit the Internet recently. And they are both amusing and disturbing.

The lighter ones encourage students to aim for top Chinese universities with a sense of humor: "Go to Tsinghua (University) to be young alumni of the president and premier", or "Today Beida (Peking University) is in my dream, tomorrow I'll dream in Beida". In a video that went viral on the Internet, students of a high school in Fujian chanted "May elder sisters be butterflies emerging from cocoons and elder brothers eagles soaring in the sky" in unison to wish seniors good luck in gaokao.

But many others have created controversies because they intend to exert extreme pressure on students to persevere through the ordeal of cramming, including "Why need to sleep so much? You can rest long after you die", "Never raise your head, be soundless (while studying)" and "You must go crazy first to be successful".

Some even play on the public resentment against the widening social divide: "Without gaokao, do you have a chance to compete with the rich second generation?" Or, "Let's score better than the rich and the handsome, and outsmart the children of officials".

I took gaokao decades ago when it was much more competitive with a national college enrolment rate of about 5 percent. For almost all high school graduates then, the options were either to go to college or to take up work in a factory or a farm. School buildings then were adorned with slogans such as "Study hard for China's modernization" and "One red heart, two preparations", which students found a little pompous and funny. Yet no school or teacher would tell students openly that the exam was a make-or-break time for them.

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