Travel Notes
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Have you ever wondered how the destiny of an entire nation could be shaped by a single exam?

Every morning at six o’clock, in a modest apartment on the outskirts of Beijing, twelve-year-old Li Ming is already sitting at his desk. Outside, the sky is still dark. The circle of light from his desk lamp falls on an open English workbook. His backpack contains three reference books, two sets of mock exam papers, and a crumpled schedule detailing a weekend already packed with tutoring classes. This is not an exception in China — it is the norm.

Li Ming’s story is a microcosm of more than two hundred million Chinese students. To understand China today, you must understand the educational engine that drives countless families to sacrifice everything.

It all begins at age six. Under China’s nine-year compulsory education system, every child must complete six years of primary school and three years of middle school. Tuition is free, but free does not mean easy. Classrooms typically hold forty to fifty children. The blackboard fills with formulas, chalk dust drifting through shafts of sunlight. The teacher stands at the podium, voice loud, pace relentless. There is little time for discussion — the curriculum must be covered within its allotted hours.

When the dismissal bell rings at four-thirty, most children do not go home. They walk to the “buxiban” — tutoring centers — that sprout like bamboo shoots along every street in China. Math, English, Olympiad training, essay writing. Children rush from one classroom to another, not returning home until eight or nine in the evening, exhausted but still expected to complete homework.

You may have witnessed this scene while traveling: an evening view of an office building where one floor blazes with light, its corridors filled with parents waiting for their children. They scroll through their phones, exchanging tips about which tutor produces the fastest score improvements. This is not unique to any single city — it is a panorama that stretches from first-tier metropolises to the smallest county towns.

The nine-year journey reaches its first watershed at the end of ninth grade: the zhongkao, or senior high school entrance examination. This exam determines whether a child enters an academic high school or is diverted to a vocational track. In the Chinese context, an academic high school means the possibility of university. Vocational school often means entering the workforce earlier. For many families, the zhongkao carries more anxiety than the gaokao itself, because it is the first cut — and it eliminates nearly half of all students.

Li Ming passed into a “key” high school in the city. These four characters carry special weight in China’s education system. They mean better teachers, fiercer competition, and an almost guaranteed university acceptance rate. Walk through the campus of a key high school and the very air feels different. The corridors are lined with photographs and scores of past gaokao champions. Every wall silently proclaims: this is the fast lane to university.

Three years of high school are the most concentrated three years of a Chinese student’s life. School starts at seven in the morning and ends at ten-thirty at night, six and a half days a week. Schedules are precise to the minute. Physical education classes are frequently “borrowed” for math or physics. Mock exams begin in the first year. On the back wall of every classroom hangs a countdown board, its numbers shrinking day by day like sand in an hourglass — silent but impossible to ignore.

And then June arrives. The gaokao.

The gaokao, officially the National College Entrance Examination, takes place every year on June 7th and 8th, with some provinces extending to the 9th or 10th. More than ten million candidates enter examination halls simultaneously. This is not hyperbole — in 2024, the number of registrants reached a record 13.42 million.

If you visit China in June, you cannot escape the impact of this exam on the entire society. The scene outside examination centers is unforgettable: by six in the morning, police tape is already in place, roads are closed, and patrol cars stand by. Mothers in qipao dresses wait outside the gates — the word “qipao” sounds like the phrase “victory at the start.” Fathers hold sunflowers, symbolizing “seizing first place in one stroke.” Construction sites within three kilometers are ordered to halt. Square-dancing aunties voluntarily suspend their routines. Even delivery riders silence their horns.

Inside the examination halls, a different kind of silence prevails. You can only hear the rustle of pen tips across paper. Two and a half hours for Chinese language, two and a half for mathematics, plus foreign language and comprehensive subjects. Every question has the potential to alter a person’s destiny.

After gaokao scores are released, filling out university preferences becomes the real skill test. China’s universities have a unique hierarchical system. At the top are the “985” and “211” universities. “985” refers to a project launched in May 1998 to build world-class universities — there are 39 in total. “211” represents universities prioritized for development in the 21st century — 116 in total, including all 985 institutions. Although these programs have been officially replaced by the “Double First-Class” initiative, the labels “985” and “211” remain deeply ingrained in the Chinese psyche. They sit at the top of the academic pecking order.

Li Ming’s gaokao score earned him a place at a 211 university. The day the acceptance letter arrived, his entire family hosted a banquet of three tables. This form of celebration is common across China — an acceptance letter is the crystallization of several generations’ effort.

What does a university campus look like? If you walk into a Chinese university as a tourist, you will be struck by a peculiar sight: even at university level, studying remains a collective activity. At six-thirty in the morning, by lakesides, under trees, in the corridors of academic buildings, students are everywhere reciting from textbooks. Postgraduate exams, civil service exams, professional certifications — Chinese university students never stop testing.

Another iconic campus scene is the library. Before it opens in the morning, long queues have already formed. Students place their backpacks on the ground to reserve seats — a phenomenon with its own term, “zhanzuo culture,” or seat-holding culture. When the library’s closing music plays, crowds of students pour out the main doors, returning to dormitories to study until the early hours. This scene is visible at virtually every university during exam season, especially in late December.

Because the gaokao is not the finish line. A growing number of Chinese students choose to take the “kaoyan” — the national postgraduate entrance examination. In 2024, 4.38 million candidates registered. Why? Because a bachelor’s degree is increasingly insufficient in the job market. Good companies and desirable positions have quietly raised the threshold to a master’s degree.

This brings us to the word young Chinese people discuss most frequently in recent years: “neijuan,” or involution. Literally meaning “curling inward,” it describes a situation where everyone works harder and harder, yet the overall reward does not increase — in fact, everyone’s situation becomes more difficult. Imagine a theater where the front row stands up to see the stage better. The row behind must also stand. Eventually, everyone is standing through the entire performance. No one sees any better, but everyone is more exhausted.

The tutoring industry is the most visible manifestation of involution. Although the government introduced the “Double Reduction” policy in 2021 — aiming to reduce students’ homework burden and课外 tutoring pressure by banning academic tutoring institutions from operating on weekends and holidays — the demand did not disappear. Tutoring went underground: private tutors, small-group classes, even online one-on-one sessions. As long as the gaokao remains the baton that directs everything, and as long as quality educational resources remain unevenly distributed, parental anxiety will not cease.

You might ask: what does this system actually produce? The answer is far more complicated. It has created one of the hardest-working young populations in the world. The achievements of Chinese students in international mathematics and science olympiads speak for themselves. China produces more engineers annually than any other country. But critics are equally vocal: this exam-centric model suppresses creativity, generates enormous psychological pressure, and leaves many young adults still grappling with anxiety and burnout long after they leave school.

So why should you, as a tourist, care about any of this?

First, understanding education means understanding the everyday conversations of Chinese families. When traveling in China, you will frequently overhear people discussing children’s grades, schools, and升学 prospects. This is not because Chinese people lack other topics — education genuinely forms the deepest shared experience in Chinese society. At any dinner table, two out of three Chinese people will naturally gravitate toward the subject of children’s education. Understanding this gives you a key to entering the daily life of ordinary Chinese people.

Second, Chinese university campuses are outstanding tourist destinations in their own right. The campuses of Peking University and Tsinghua University are as beautiful as any park. The Boya Pagoda by Weiming Lake and Tsinghua’s moonlit lotus pond are must-visit landmarks. Wuhan University’s cherry blossom season in March draws hundreds of thousands of visitors. Xiamen University, nestled between mountains and sea, is widely considered one of China’s most beautiful campuses. When you visit these campuses, you are seeing not just architecture and scenery, but the physical embodiment of China’s educational ideals.

Additionally, China offers several unique education-themed attractions worth visiting. The Jiangnan Examination Hall in Nanjing is the site of ancient China’s largest imperial examination compound. You can step into the tiny cubicles — barely large enough for one person and one desk — and experience what ancient candidates actually endured. Beijing’s Guozijian was the highest institution of learning during the Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties. The Confucius Temple and Guozijian Museum together present the complete picture of China’s ancient educational system. In Qufu, the Temple of Confucius, the Kong Family Mansion, and the Kong Cemetery form a sacred site for understanding the Confucian educational tradition.

Finally, if your travels in China happen to coincide with the June gaokao, you will experience not just an exam but a nationwide social ritual. You will notice hotel prices rising, as parents book rooms near examination centers well in advance. You will see restaurants filled with anxious waiting parents who order full tables of food but barely touch their chopsticks. You will feel a collective tension and hope that is unique to Chinese society.

Li Ming is now a college sophomore. He wrote these words in a university library study room — well, this is a fictional story, of course. But Li Ming is real. He is the composite of every Chinese student, the smallest yet most essential unit in this vast educational system.

The next time you stand on a Chinese university campus, watching young people hurry past with books clutched in their arms, you are witnessing not just individuals but a civilization’s method of passing itself forward. The imperial examination system was created over thirteen hundred years ago, and the idea of selecting talent through testing has never truly left this land. It has simply changed its name, its format, its subjects — but its core remains unchanged.

That is why, when you walk through Beijing’s hutongs, Shanghai’s lilongs, or sit in a Chengdu teahouse and hear people talking about their children’s studies, you should stop and listen. They are not just talking about homework. They are talking about a nation’s past, present, and future.

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