…. (with suicides after exam setbacks becoming grimly familiar), and entrepreneurs spoke endlessly about their “success stories” while quietly burying the unseemly details of how their first fortunes were made. In a country obsessed with upward mobility, failure was unforgivable.
I was born in Hebei, one of the provinces once derisively referred to as part of China’s “Mountains-and-Rivers Four” – regions known for scarce educational resources and overwhelming populations. For generations, students there have endured the brutal gauntlet of the gaokao, the college entrance exam often described as “thousands of troops crossing a single-plank bridge.” More than a decade ago, I was one of the few who managed to cross it. The exam changed my life: I left the countryside, entered the city, studied abroad, and eventually became an urban resident. For years, my story was retold in my hometown as a model of success, a reminder to parents that education could still offer an escape from China’s entrenched urban-rural divide and the cruel “scissors gap” of opportunity.
Yet on my most recent trips back, I was struck by conversations that would have been unimaginable only a decade ago. Parents no longer speak obsessively about their children’s test scores. Instead, they share a grim realism: even in the cities, prospects are bleak. The coveted positions in state-owned monopolies are all captured by the children of officials and state-owned enterprise (SOE) executives. Private firms are synonymous with endless overtime and burnout. Low-end work – delivering food, driving ride-hailing cars, cleaning homes, or working as security guards – barely sustains a living and is seen as no more dignified than staying in the village, marrying early, and caring for aging parents.