And I thought Japanese kids had it worst!

According to a survey released last March 24, 2009 by the China Youth and Children Research Center (CYCRC), Chinese students had the longest study hours as compared to fellow high school students in Japan, the United States, and Korea.

After reading “The Myths of Japanese Quality” by Ray and Cindelyn Eberts, it was to my knowledge that cram schools are the most hell-like in the Land of the Rising Sun. Well, this survey definitely proved me wrong.

And especially with June as GaoKao (高考) month, the survey results could not have come out at a more opportune time.

Here are three facts about the China’s National College Entrance Examinations:

• GaoKao is equivalent to 2 days of silence (if you live near middle schools). The police will try their very best to control traffic so that the students will get to school on time and that car honks are minimized if not eradicated (at least for these 2 precious days).

Credit: Liuzhou Laowai

• Cheating is an annual occurence even if the penalty is the stiffest there is:

…a student convicted of peeking at a neighbor’s paper is never allowed to take the gaokao again, and his name is entered in a public database for prospective employers’ perusal.

• Because of the high number of students taking the exam and its mortality rate, the test has been poetically described as “A thousand soldiers and ten thousand horses across a single log bridge.”

The GaoKao reminds me of the imperial examinations of China long ago. I first learned about it in (believe it or not) Raymond Wong’s “开心鬼 (Happy Ghost)” series where he played the un-reincarnated ghost of a Ching scholar who committed suicide because of numerous failed attempts at the examinations!

Back to the survey results, I think Chinese parents are becoming more and more “kiasu” or competitive. They enroll their children in various tuition classes and other extracurricular activities even when they are just starting school and still far off from taking the GaoKao!

The mentality these parents have is that “if we don’t enroll them in additional courses, they’ll get left behind by their peers.” But then kids should be kids. Forcing them to attend extra courses somehow distorts the natural learning curve.

The survey further said, “Moderate study pressure can better drive students to develop, however, too much will squeeze their development space, and can even cause harm to their physical and psychological health.”

Amen to that.

That said, sometimes I wonder if the oversensationalizing of the GaoKao is to blame.