The Rush: From Glengarry Glen Ross to China's Education System

We are the victims, but this is the only chance.

National College Entrance Examination

        National Higher Education Entrance Examination, known as Gaokao in China, is the annual nationwide exam that almost every high school undergraduates must take in order to be admitted to colleges. It is considered as the toughest test in China.

Well, the SATs are child’s play compared to the Gaokao. If the SATs are the academic equivalent of, say, a brisk footrace, the gaokao is an Iron Man triathlon. Across a minefield and through a piranha-infested river that ends in a waterfall. With people throwing ninja stars at you the whole time! Freaking ninja stars.

        For Chinese high school students, there is almost no way to go to colleges academically without a NCEE score. Throughout the nation, Gaokao is the most significant event for each teenager because their career and future depend heavily on this exam, which directly determines which college they go to. It is controversy in China nowadays because it gives students too much pressure and generates unfair opportunities based on different regions. 

       The normal study time for a high school senior in school is 10 hour, and they are supposed to work until midnight. In order to compete with others, many schools have Saturday classes for all high school undergraduates, and extra classes on some courses on Sundays for some of the students. When becoming an undergraduate, there is almost no time for entertain or extracurricular. In addition, opportunities are exceedingly unevenly distributed among the nation by Gaokao. As people are rushing to the universities in Beijing, and Shanghai, in which the best universities are located, universities in these cities set strict baselines for each province, which favor the local Gaokao takers a lot because the universities admit local students a lot more than outsiders.

How many students are wearing glasses in this video? Why? :)

Most recently, photographs emerged of a classroom in Hubei province, showing students taking energy-boosting amino acids from intravenous drips hung from the ceiling. --BBC News.

The Machines and Academic Hierarchy

        Under the great pressure of Gaokao, more and more high school students become "study machines". Sixteen-hour study time is normal to most of the students. Gaokao takers are categorized by Arts and Science. Arts students will have six subjects: Chinese, English, math, politics, history, and geography; science students have six as well: Chinese, English, math, physics, chemistry, and biology. In the first year of high school, they will learn all of them, and at the beginning of the second year they will choose or "be chosen" to be categorized, and they can not switch for the remaining two years. Such extensive range of courses requires plenty of effort and time, and it keeps making students "study machines". Furthermore, there is little time available for high school students to do sports, activities, clubs, and games. More and more people become fat or weak not because they eat a lot, but because they don't move at all. 
        Such machines can be found in Glengarry Glen Ross by David Mamet; the salesmen say that they are machine. They are so disappointed at the world because they keep trying to sell people the land that they don't want. 

Aaronow: Shelly, the Machine, Levene (Mamet, 64).

Roma: It's not a world of men, Machine... it's a world of clock watchers, bureaucrats, officeholders... what it is, it's a fucked-up world... there's no adventure to it. We are the members of a dying breed (105).

These "study machines" in China will have more than ten mock Gaokao exams during their last year in high school, and their ranks are always told for estimation. In some school during the first two years, students have almost as many exams as they will have in the last year. Some of the exams are designed to categorize students. This system makes different levels of class available to students at different ranks. The high level classes, consisting of the top-ranked students at the same grade, will have the best teachers in school and different treatment, including teaching and homework; they learn things at a faster speed and have some "extra accessibility" of knowledge. The low level classes, however, will take a relatively slow pace and are less productive. This classification of students can be found at not only in high school, but also primary schools, middle schools, and colleges everywhere in China.

Levene: Get the chalk and put me on the board. I'm going to Hawaii! Put me on the Cadillac board, Williamson (63).

Such classification is similar to the board system in Glengarry Glen Ross. The salesman who close the leads, get on the board, and the more they close the better leads they will get, which gives them better opportunities to close again. This unfair system will result bigger distinction among people.

Education Inequality and Social Mobility

        Gaokao has a strong influence in China society. Many children are under strict care of parents about their academics at a young age. For parents, in order for their kids to have a better education in high school, they have to get the appropriate middle schools and primary schools, as well. Since the admission for high school and middle school are also based on one exam similar to Gaokao, children have pressure at a unusually young age. In addition, this system allows bigger and bigger gaps among students since the better ones get the much better education while the lower ones keep getting the lower level education all the time.

        Education inequality happens also in rural and urban areas. Rural areas have an extreme difference from urban areas in economics, and such distinction results a broad range of education levels in different regions. To a family in rural areas, the only hope that they could one day be rich and move to the big city is relied mostly on their children. However, it is way harder for a kid to get to university because the school can not afford higher-educated teachers or advanced facilities. Early in 21st century, there would be a celebration in a town if one were admitted by a university. They see this as a chance of social mobility. Unfortunately, such fortune had rarely happened to poor families. To some extent, education is a key reason why the poor get poorer and the rich get richer in China.

Sources not linked:
Mamet, David. Glengarry Glen Ross. New York: Grove Press, 2012. Print. 

"Super Rich Kids" Forever: Eternal Youth With a Price

Money Can't Buy Me Love: Contrasting Extravagance and Happiness 

The key to eternal youth is simple: money. Whether inherited or earned, wealth can effectively extend one's longevity like nothing else. With money, one can live larger (have bigger homes, more expensive "toys"), party harder (ability to afford vast amounts of narcotics), and even extend one's lifetime (access to medical care and cosmetic surgery). The carefree superficiality of youth is also extended. With endless resources and no rules, nothing needs to be taken seriously. However, if everything is a joke, then nothing is funny. Happiness can be hard to find amongst all of the material possessions wealth brings. R&B artist Frank Ocean poignantly points out this hard truth with his song "Super Rich Kids." It is a powerful story of affluent young adults struggling to find real connections in an artificial world, much like the lives of those at the top of the social pyramid in The Great Gatsby. 

Are these well dressed girls truly enjoying themselves? 

Our story begins with the opening line of the first verse, with Frank as our narrator:

"Start my day up on the roof,

There's nothing like this type of view"

The "roof" in this scenario is Frank's penthouse apartment, the first of many images of his well-to-do lifestyle. In this context, the roof does not only embody his economic prosperity, but also his status at the top of the social hierarchy. By being born into a wealthy family, he has obtained a name to go with his riches, solidifying his ability to live freely. His "view" from his apartment lets him look on at those less fortunate than him if he wishes, all while residing safely above any real hardship. This elevated imagery parallels the introduction of Daisy and Jordan, in which they appear to be "buoyed up as though upon an anchored balloon" (8). These women too are floating through life, "rippling and fluttering" about the social pyramid yet always safely secured at the top (8). 

Nice clothes and nice cars: the epitome of the high social class. 

Ocean also comments profusely on the superficiality of the wealthy, something the Roaring '20s is notoriously known for.  F. Scott Fitzgerald, the author of The Great Gatsby, describes America during this era as a time when "the shows were broader, the buildings were higher, the morals were looser and the liquor was cheaper." Though set in the present day, Ocean's lyrics echo this period, particularly in the hook:

"Too many bottles of this wine we can't pronounce"

Here the lack of sophistication parallels that of the wealthy guests commonly featured at Gatsby's parties. Ocean's inability to pronounce the name of the wine shows a lack of sophistication as well as extreme intoxication. He has more than he needs of something he mentally can't comprehend. This too rings true of those at the party, where the atmosphere is full of "casual innuendo and introductions forgotten on the spot, and enthusiastic meetings between women who never knew each other's names" (40). All of this frivolousness is expected among the demographic that Ocean describes: the young, high-school/college crowd. In Gatsby's world, though, this shallow lifestyle is one that every adult pines for and only an elite few achieve, signifying this sort of eternal youth money brings about. 

An extravagant scene of a superficial Gatsby party.

However, there is a major drawback to this seemingly perfect lifestyle. Ocean first hints at it in the hook with the statement, "parents ain't around enough," implying a lack of stable love and care. The idea is outrightly stated by the bridge, which repeats the same line over and over as if it were a mantra:

"Real love, I'm searching for a real love

Real love, I'm searching for a real love"

His world has become so fake that he longs for a real human connection, one of the few things money can't buy. The Gatsby equivalent of this search is embodied in the character of Daisy, for her many searches for love have left her "pretty cynical," in her own words (16). Her old wealth upbringing has given her a carefree existence in which she's never had to work a day in her life, but it has left her empty of feeling anything fully. She has had many love affairs throughout her life, including two with Gatsby, but she is still never satisfied. Perhaps the most vivid image of her instability is the scene in which Jordan finds her before her bridal dinner to Tom in bed, drunk, rejecting the three hundred and fifty thousand dollar pearls he had given her. She sits there and talks to Jordan like a child: 

"'Here, deares,' She groped around in the waste-basket she had with her on the bed and pulled out a string of pearls. 'Take em downstairs and give 'em back to whoever they belong to. Tell 'em Daisy's change' her mine'"(76). 

This moment marks the only time in the novel when Daisy acts in a non-collected manner. Her rejection of the pearls is a rejection of the wealthy lifestyle that has trapped her. She eventually returns to it, but her drunken act of rebellion is a tell-tale sign. Her true emotional turmoil finally comes to the surface, and her juvenile behavior signifies that beneath the wealth, the upbringing, the name, and the status, Daisy is still a scared little girl. As Ocean so expertly phrases, she's a "super rich kid with nothing but loose ends, super rich kid with nothing but fake friends."

Our story ends with a return to the beginning:

"We end our day up on the roof

I say I'll jump, I never do"

No matter what troubles were faced, by the end of the day, Ocean and his friends are still at the top of the social/economic hierarchy. He says he'll "jump," meaning he'll leave his pedestal of wealth and search for something meaningful, but he knows he'll never leave the security his superficiality provides him. This rings true of Daisy at the end of the novel, and how she is capable of just moving on after the deaths of Myrtle and Gatsby. She can afford to be careless, and nothing truly painful can ever reach her. However, she can never be truly happy. It is a sad existence at the top, having everything you can imagine except what really matters. As the song fades out, Ocean repeats his mantra from before, signifying a dying dream:

"Real love, ain't that something rare

I'm searching for a real love, talkin bout real love

Real love, yeah."

Sources Not Linked: 

Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. New York: Scribner, 2004. Print.