Cosmetic Reward

The National College Entrance Exam is finished in China. It's a period of time that is full of stress for millions of Chinese students hoping to earn a place in a decent university. Unlike the SATs in the US, the Chinese students only get one shot at their test. They also have to cover more than just language and math--there's plenty of Communist philosophy and history that they need to write about. This exam causes so much stress that local governments have put together stress-relief programs for students to prevent suicides that have been fairly common in the past.

I may have not been under nearly as much stress as Chinese students preparing for the national exam, but my parents also didn't feel the need to reward me for doing well (they did, however, pay for my undergraduate degree--thanks, Mom and Dad). I had two classmates in high school who scored 1600 on the SATs, and their parents gave them nothing for their achievement. 

So, what do Chinese parents do for their children who score high marks on this exam? According to the Shenzhen Daily, they pay for cosmetic surgery. And it's not just the girls who want to look more attractive; plenty of boys are opting for liposuction (and yes, I do recall seeing many overweight students in Shenzhen).

Fortunately, there is some sense being spoken in China about teenagers seeking plastic surgery. There is a discussion in the article about psychological effects and consultations before committing to the procedures. My favorite quote from a doctor was this: "Blindly imitating a celebrity can only harm yourself." More people need to heed this advice, and not just in the case of cosmetic surgery.

Exams

In the last four weeks of the term I explained the exam to my students (an essay for the MSc classes and a comprehensive essay and short answer exam for the PhD class). I'm now busy marking the PhD exams as I need to hand in their final grades at the end of next week. The MSc classes will continue next term and I'm allowed to sit on the exams a while (although, I'd like to get through at least one class next week).

As I'm looking through the exams, I'm seeing the levels of my students. I've certainly recognized a few students who really didn't pay attention to class. I've also noticed a few whose English skills are lacking, thereby making it difficult for them to answer the questions. In some cases, the students simply did not read the questions carefully--I know I reviewed components of a speech three times in class, and I lost count of how many times I mentioned primary and secondary research. It looks like quite a few underestimated the difficulty of this exam.

I've been impressed by some students' answers thus far and disappointed by others. Overall, I don't expect my students to do too poorly in the end. At this point, it looks like I may have two failures (they didn't participate in class, skipped presentations, and left much of the exam blank). I hope that as I re-evaluate (and slightly curve) the final scores of exams and assignments, I won't have to fail any students.

Language Proficiency (or how inept am I?)

Yesterday, I picked up a copy of last year's Chinese proficiency exam from the office. I was told that this test is more practical than the HSK, which is more focused on grammar. I looked through the exam last night and realized that I probably know about 75% of the characters (the most difficult part is reading the instructions). I don't know what the listening section involves, but Jia said she'd try to make up something to fit it. I think I could probably pass the exam now if I tried, but I'd rather study until May or June and try for a higher score.

One of the more difficult parts that I found was in some of the characters that I already know. One of the answers to a question was 师生 (shi sheng). I know these two characters, but I've never seen them together. I asked Jia about it. Apparently, this means teacher and student. To me, I would think of teacher and student as 老师和学生 (laoshi he xuesheng). However, it seems the Chinese enjoy shortening phrases such as this to confuse the foreigners.

This photo has absolutely nothing to do with the post. I just figured I'd continue with the whole Photo Friday thing and give you something to look at. This is a view of Songpan from a mountainside temple. We stopped for the night after a 12 hour bus ride from Chengdu on the way to Huanglong and Jiuzhaigou. It's a beautiful little town in northern Sichuan province that's known for horse trekking.