Gaokao, a life-changing event

Author-- I would like to dedicate this story to the people who took part in the 1977, 1978, 1979 Gaokao. Their perseverance, courage, and spirit have always been an inspiration for us.

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Gaokao, the National Higher Education Entrance Examination, never fails to attract attention from both home and abroad. Some say it is rigid and absurd while others say it’s the most efficient way for universities to choose talents.

Obviously, it has become a hot topic in China, and it is estimated that in 2017 alone there were 9.4 million people who took the exam and the acceptance rate will hit 75 percent. However, when gaokao was resumed in 1977, there were 5.7 million test takers competing for just 270 thousand spots, an acceptance rate of only five percent.

This year, 2017, marks the 40th year since gaokao resumed after a decade-long suspension due to the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976). Deng Xiaoping, the then vice-premier in charge of culture and education, held a meeting with the Ministry of Education and made the decision to resume the test that year. That national-level decision changed millions of people’s destiny.

In the summer of 1977, a young man named Yang Xincheng was laboring in the mountains when he heard that the gaokao was going to be resumed. He spent a sleepless night and decided to take the chance, but it was no easy task. He was one of the 17 million students (mostly from junior or senior middle school) around the country who volunteered or were forced to go to the rural areas of China to do manual work, and most of them had stayed away from textbooks for too long a time to have a distinct memory of the knowledge they had learned. The rural community he worked in was far from any major cities, so the only reading materials he could get were some old papers from outdated textbooks. But he wasn’t frustrated and spent most of his spare time preparing for the exam.

On December 6, 1977, he set off for an examination spot in a county that was more than 10 kilometers away. With the help of a kind-hearted truck driver, the young man, along with his friend, crowded in the cab with the driver and arrived at the testing place. They shared a small dormitory with 20 other young men, relaxing for the whole night. However, according to his recollection, everybody was so enthusiastic and excited at that time that they could hardly get any sleep.

The exam went smoothly and he was confident that he would pass with flying colors. However, due to the organizers’ inexperience, 20 percent of the test results were invalid, and he wasn’t even informed of his test results.

Though disappointed, he took the exam next year (1978) at the age of 24 and became the only person who passed the exam in the whole rural community and was allowed to choose any school in the province. Rather than go to the medial college he chose to study zoological science at Shihezi Agricultural College, which later became Shihezi University. There were 39 people in his class, ranging from 16 to 32 years old.

Yang Xincheng's 40-year-old examination certificate

There was little time to waste and everybody studied hard to try to make up for lost time. Some of his classmates even hid in the bathroom to study at night. After graduation, they were assigned different jobs in different places (Chinese government was then responsible for the assignment of jobs of college graduates). They took up different social responsibilities, such as being a teacher or working for the government or science institutions, and some even continued their study overseas.

After being a high school biology teacher for several years, Yang Xincheng took on the role of senior engineer at the local animal husbandry bureau.

Yang Xincheng is my father.

Forty years later, my father is retired from the bureau and I’m a senior high school teacher who accompanies his students to their gaokao test rooms. It is said that the high school years is the most grueling ordeal for Chinese students, because they have to study from early morning till late at night and most public holidays are either shortened or canceled. Some students may cry and some may even want to give up, however, as a teacher, I know their journey has just started and it’s too early to say the words “give up.” They will embark on a journey they have never taken before and a whole new world is waiting for them. They will be like my father, who dauntlessly took that same journey 40 years ago and changed his life. 

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