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That seems a bit made up tbh. I’ve worked with a fair number of Chinese overachievers (both in domestic China and abroad) and family background/affluence weren’

That seems a bit made up tbh. I’ve worked with a fair number of Chinese overachievers (both in domestic China and abroad) and family background/affluence weren’t even remotely as much of a factor compared to the US or India (except for the IITs). Also, I noticed there were many many cases of brilliant young people rising through the ranks of the academic system in China compared to India for example where teachers often simply would not show up in public schools. Personal background: I worked and studied in the US, I worked in China and I studied in India

lazide 2y ago
Made up how? It’s still more merit based and class mobile than caste anything. But the tests are the tests and require massive prep, eh? And the tests require massive amounts of memorization and time to prep for, compared to western tests - even now. Historically it was orders of magnitude worse though.
- looping__lui 2y ago
  Kid’s ability to make it through the ranks of academia in my personal anecdotal evidence depends less on financial ability or social standing in China compared to the US or India. I agree that it is merit driven above anything else - not sure I would agree that this is favoring wealthy kids/certain social class in a more disproportionate way than what we see in India or the US. Now, I will say that neither university nor high school in China or India imho prepare kinds for success in life or the corporate world. Europe (with a hands-off “you get no help and will just struggle your way through life and learn quick”) and the US (“here are actual experts dedicated to help you succeed) seem imho to produce capable graduates for the corporate world.
  - lazide 2y ago
    Eh, see alephnerds comment above - that lines up with my experience as well.
    - looping__lui 2y ago
      Ok, the point being though (it seems): advantages are not universal geographically across China; I agree, that I also observed that.
      - lazide 2y ago
        In that geographical advantages are expressly tied to income and ‘official ness’ in an area (the Hukou system)? If one is a poor rural immigrant in an otherwise high end area, you don’t get to send your kids to the nice schools.
        alephnerd 2y ago
        The issue with hukou is two-way. Urban cities of course don't want to hand out urban hukou easily because they don't want an influx of migrants straining social services. But conversely, a lot of rural hukou holders do not want to give up rural hukou because it gives retirement benefits at 55 and is a requirement in order to keep their rural landholding. This is why you have migrants with a rural hukou working in urban China but not gaining an urban hukou. The problem with hukou is fundamentally a social safety net problem - there is little to no social safety net in China, so the "migrant to urban area with rural hukou" is the least bad option out of multiple bad options (keep rural hukou and live in rural China barely eking a living or give up rural hukou and lose the only appreciating asset you had along with benefits at 55). In essence, the lion's share of Chinese development is overly concentrated in a handful of urban agglomerations, and isn't spreading to rural China where 45-50% of Chinese still live to this day.
        lazide 2y ago
        The hokou/education thing is pretty clearly one way though, correct?
        alephnerd 2y ago
        Just making urban hukou easier to adopt (which is something that multiple municipalities slowly started doing in the late 2010s) isn't enough to solve the social mobility issue. Parents won't give up rural hukou if it also means losing your landholding and early retirement stipend benefits. If you're a migrant worker from a rural household, you are most likely an unskilled laborer and are earning around $300/month, with dad working on a construction site or Meituan and mom working in a factory doing unskilled assembly or service job. Around $150 is spent on incidentals because living in an urban area is expensive, an additional $100 is sent back to your family (grandma, grandpa, kids because the one child policy was largely ignored in rural China) back home in your rural town, and you might have $50 left over to save for retirement, healthcare, etc. This is not enough to buy urban property, which is the asset class that appreciated the most in China, and this means the only large asset you have is your rural landholding. Furthermore, that early retirement benefit means you're earning an additional $15-20/month while continuing to work as a laborer or a Meituan delivery driver. Fundamentally, salaries are too low in China and the social safety net is nonexistent, and this is what is causing the issues like overproduction, deflation, and sagging consumer demand which we are seeing nowadays. The only way to solve this problem is to either expand the welfare system dramatically (thus incentivizing the bottom half to spend more by having to save less) or increase wages (thus incentivizing the bottom half to spend more by allowing them to save at the same rate while spending more). Working on increasing the quality of life in rural China would also help dramatically. Sadly, Chinese leadership at the top level continues to ignore social welfare spending and rural China due to financial and moral concerns.
alephnerd 2y ago
I think they mean historic (as in pre-1911 China). And they aren't wrong, as even major China scholars like Yasheng Huang and Yuhua Wang point out that the Imperial Civil Service in China was stacked against merit due to structural issues that biased in favor of incumbents. That said, similar issues continue to persist in China to this day due to the Zhongkao. Specifically, if you didn't attend a academic high school (which only accepts around 45-55% of Zhongkao takers) you wouldn't be prepared for the Gaokao unless it was out of pocket at a cram school (which are now technically banned, but were anyhow exorbitantly expensive in a country where the median household income is $4,000). And if you couldn't pass the Gaokao, you couldn't attend university. Furthermore, Academic High Schools tend to be few and far between, yet take the lion's share of resources unlike Vocational High Schools which most Chinese attend - but not the ones you meet in an air conditioned office unless you order from Meituan. In the vocational schools you see similar issues of teacher absence and lack of pedagogy. The failure of the VET system in China has been a major sticking point in Chinese policymaking recently and a lot of domestic research is being done to understand why it failed [0][1][2] [0] - https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/ET-09-2023-0412/full/html https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/ET-09-20... [1] - https://www.ewadirect.com/proceedings/lnep/article/view/9075 https://www.ewadirect.com/proceedings/lnep/article/view/9075 [2] - https://www.atlantis-press.com/article/125949173.pdf https://www.atlantis-press.com/article/125949173.pdf
- looping__lui 2y ago
  Thanks for the additional details. In Germany only about 30% of high-school kids qualify academic high-school (merit-based) and are eligible to apply for university after two-years of exams that determine your final grade (and chances). There are literally only public schools. I think you describe that it is very similar today in China after they banned the private tutoring a couple of years back. So, we are somehow back to “work hard on not to unequal grounds and your personal merit/luck will determine your future”. Thanks for sharing additional detail and it resembles what I remember - but it does not seem to be “instrumented in a way to keep certain groups out of academia based on income or social standing”. Imho a 30% ratio for university graduates is a sweet spot for society. We have great (free) vocational training programs in Germany that empower all those who did not go to university to make money quicker and they more often that not end up in financially better situations. University often pays off only for top university graduates once they pass 35/40 years of age.

lazide 2y ago

Made up how? It’s still more merit based and class mobile than caste anything. But the tests are the tests and require massive prep, eh? And the tests require massive amounts of memorization and time to prep for, compared to western tests - even now. Historically it was orders of magnitude worse though.

looping__lui 2y ago
Kid’s ability to make it through the ranks of academia in my personal anecdotal evidence depends less on financial ability or social standing in China compared to the US or India. I agree that it is merit driven above anything else - not sure I would agree that this is favoring wealthy kids/certain social class in a more disproportionate way than what we see in India or the US. Now, I will say that neither university nor high school in China or India imho prepare kinds for success in life or the corporate world. Europe (with a hands-off “you get no help and will just struggle your way through life and learn quick”) and the US (“here are actual experts dedicated to help you succeed) seem imho to produce capable graduates for the corporate world.
- lazide 2y ago
  Eh, see alephnerds comment above - that lines up with my experience as well.
  - looping__lui 2y ago
    Ok, the point being though (it seems): advantages are not universal geographically across China; I agree, that I also observed that.
    - lazide 2y ago
      In that geographical advantages are expressly tied to income and ‘official ness’ in an area (the Hukou system)? If one is a poor rural immigrant in an otherwise high end area, you don’t get to send your kids to the nice schools.
      - alephnerd 2y ago
        The issue with hukou is two-way. Urban cities of course don't want to hand out urban hukou easily because they don't want an influx of migrants straining social services. But conversely, a lot of rural hukou holders do not want to give up rural hukou because it gives retirement benefits at 55 and is a requirement in order to keep their rural landholding. This is why you have migrants with a rural hukou working in urban China but not gaining an urban hukou. The problem with hukou is fundamentally a social safety net problem - there is little to no social safety net in China, so the "migrant to urban area with rural hukou" is the least bad option out of multiple bad options (keep rural hukou and live in rural China barely eking a living or give up rural hukou and lose the only appreciating asset you had along with benefits at 55). In essence, the lion's share of Chinese development is overly concentrated in a handful of urban agglomerations, and isn't spreading to rural China where 45-50% of Chinese still live to this day.
        lazide 2y ago
        The hokou/education thing is pretty clearly one way though, correct?
        alephnerd 2y ago
        Just making urban hukou easier to adopt (which is something that multiple municipalities slowly started doing in the late 2010s) isn't enough to solve the social mobility issue. Parents won't give up rural hukou if it also means losing your landholding and early retirement stipend benefits. If you're a migrant worker from a rural household, you are most likely an unskilled laborer and are earning around $300/month, with dad working on a construction site or Meituan and mom working in a factory doing unskilled assembly or service job. Around $150 is spent on incidentals because living in an urban area is expensive, an additional $100 is sent back to your family (grandma, grandpa, kids because the one child policy was largely ignored in rural China) back home in your rural town, and you might have $50 left over to save for retirement, healthcare, etc. This is not enough to buy urban property, which is the asset class that appreciated the most in China, and this means the only large asset you have is your rural landholding. Furthermore, that early retirement benefit means you're earning an additional $15-20/month while continuing to work as a laborer or a Meituan delivery driver. Fundamentally, salaries are too low in China and the social safety net is nonexistent, and this is what is causing the issues like overproduction, deflation, and sagging consumer demand which we are seeing nowadays. The only way to solve this problem is to either expand the welfare system dramatically (thus incentivizing the bottom half to spend more by having to save less) or increase wages (thus incentivizing the bottom half to spend more by allowing them to save at the same rate while spending more). Working on increasing the quality of life in rural China would also help dramatically. Sadly, Chinese leadership at the top level continues to ignore social welfare spending and rural China due to financial and moral concerns.

alephnerd 2y ago

I think they mean historic (as in pre-1911 China). And they aren't wrong, as even major China scholars like Yasheng Huang and Yuhua Wang point out that the Imperial Civil Service in China was stacked against merit due to structural issues that biased in favor of incumbents. That said, similar issues continue to persist in China to this day due to the Zhongkao. Specifically, if you didn't attend a academic high school (which only accepts around 45-55% of Zhongkao takers) you wouldn't be prepared for the Gaokao unless it was out of pocket at a cram school (which are now technically banned, but were anyhow exorbitantly expensive in a country where the median household income is $4,000). And if you couldn't pass the Gaokao, you couldn't attend university. Furthermore, Academic High Schools tend to be few and far between, yet take the lion's share of resources unlike Vocational High Schools which most Chinese attend - but not the ones you meet in an air conditioned office unless you order from Meituan. In the vocational schools you see similar issues of teacher absence and lack of pedagogy. The failure of the VET system in China has been a major sticking point in Chinese policymaking recently and a lot of domestic research is being done to understand why it failed [0][1][2] [0] - https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/ET-09-2023-0412/full/html https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/ET-09-20... [1] - https://www.ewadirect.com/proceedings/lnep/article/view/9075 https://www.ewadirect.com/proceedings/lnep/article/view/9075 [2] - https://www.atlantis-press.com/article/125949173.pdf https://www.atlantis-press.com/article/125949173.pdf

looping__lui 2y ago
Thanks for the additional details. In Germany only about 30% of high-school kids qualify academic high-school (merit-based) and are eligible to apply for university after two-years of exams that determine your final grade (and chances). There are literally only public schools. I think you describe that it is very similar today in China after they banned the private tutoring a couple of years back. So, we are somehow back to “work hard on not to unequal grounds and your personal merit/luck will determine your future”. Thanks for sharing additional detail and it resembles what I remember - but it does not seem to be “instrumented in a way to keep certain groups out of academia based on income or social standing”. Imho a 30% ratio for university graduates is a sweet spot for society. We have great (free) vocational training programs in Germany that empower all those who did not go to university to make money quicker and they more often that not end up in financially better situations. University often pays off only for top university graduates once they pass 35/40 years of age.