Review of Two Books on China's (Rigid) Education

choi

Maura Elizabeth Cunningham, China's Education Grind. Education and economic expansion changed China utterly in a few short decades. The rhetoric -- and harsh tactics -- of the Communist regime haven't changed at all. Wall Street Journal, July 13, 2024, at page C7.
https://www.wsj.com/arts-culture ... from-china-d8aa6702
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/w ... m-china/ar-BB1pSoFz

Note:
(a)
(i) This is a review on two books:
(A) Peter Hessler, Other Rivers; A Chinese education. Penguin Press, 2024.
(B) Yuan Yang, Private Revolutions; Four women face China's new social order. Viking Press, July 2, 2024 (in US).

The same book was published on May 9, 2024 in London (for UK, with British English spelling) by Bloomsbury Publishing (based in Bloomsbury, a neighborhood in in West End of London): with the same title, but different subtitle: Coming of age in a new China.
(ii) "When Peter Hessler arrived in Fuling as a Peace Corps volunteer in 1996, he traveled via boat: The town, deep in the Sichuan region of south-central China, had no railroad station. Fuling Teachers College, where Mr Hessler taught composition, was not a prestigious institution. * * * Mr Hessler's memoir of those Fuling years, 2001's 'River Town' "
(A) Peter Hessler  何伟
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Hessler
(1969- ; "After graduating from Princeton, Hessler received a Rhodes Scholarship to study English language and literature at Mansfield College, University of Oxford * * * Hessler joined the Peace Corps in 1996 and was sent to China for two years to teach English at Fuling Teachers College, in a small city near the Yangtze River in Chongqing. * * * In August 2019, Hessler and his family moved to Chengdu in southwest China. He taught nonfiction writing at Sichuan University - Pittsburgh Institute [for two years]. * * * Hessler is married to journalist and writer Leslie T Chang 張彤禾 [her middle initial stands for Tónghé, pinyin for her Chinese name")

• 四川大学匹兹堡学院简介 SCUPI Introduction. 四川大学, undated
https://scupi.scu.edu.cn/en/about/about-scupi
("Sichuan University-Pittsburgh Institute (SCUPI) is a new academic entity jointly established by Sichuan University (SCU) and the University of Pittsburgh (Pitt). * * * The goal of SCUPI is to provide a world-class engineering education * * *  All courses in SCUPI are taught in English.

University of Pittsburgh has an identical Web page in English also, but adds two words at ten end of the first sentence: Sichuan University-Pittsburgh Institute (SCUPI) is a new academic entity jointly established by Sichuan University (SCU) and the University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) "in 2015" == and identifies the same in Chinese as 四川大学美国匹兹堡研究所. Undergraduates in Sichuan University may transfer from Chengdu, after two or three years, to University of Pittsburgh for the last two years (2+2) or one (3+1) respectively and received bachelor's degrees (in engineering) from both universities; or they may spend entire four years in Sichuan University (4+0). See Admission. SCUPI, undated
https://scupi.scu.edu.cn/en/admission
*"学费 TUITION FEES
Annual Tuition Fee in SCUPI: 85,000 RMB, Accommodation Fee in SCUPI: 1,200 RMB")
(B) Fuling is 重庆市 涪陵区. See 重庆市
https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/重庆市
(section 5 行政区划, section 5.4 现行区划)

separately: "在长江、乌江两岸 * * * 涪陵区，涪陵——因乌江古称 '涪水，'  [周朝]巴国先王陵墓多葬于此而得名."  zh.wikipedia.org for 涪陵区.
(C) 长江师范学院  Yangtze Normal University
https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hans/长江师范学院
(重庆市涪陵区; this is the name of the school since 2006: the same school had been 涪陵师范学院 2001-2006 and 涪陵师范高等专科学校 1982-2001)


(b) "Mr Hessler writes: “Same rallies, same images, same songs—'The Motherland Will Not Forget [祖国不会忘记 (a 1992 song)].' * * * 'Private Revolutions: Four Women Face China's New Social Order,' by Yuan Yang, a journalist who recently became Britain’s first Chinese-born member of parliament. * * * After earning her degree, she [June, a character in Yang's nonfiction] joins an online startup in Beijing that capitalizes on anxious parents who fear their children will end up without a seat in the education game—'injecting kids with chicken blood,' in slang terms. * * * a prisoner's dilemma * * * his [Hessler's] Sichuan students instead spoke of China's problem with involution, 'a point at which intense competition produces diminishing returns.' "
(i) Yuan YANG  杨缘
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuan_Yang_(politician)
(1990- ; table: Political party  Labour; "bachelor's degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Balliol College, University of Oxford in 2011 with first-class honours * * * Yang attended the London School of Economics from 2012-2013, studying for an MSc in Economics.")

She has served as a Member of Parliament for Earley and Woodley after July 4, 2024 general election and was sworn in on July 10 (which was three days ago).
(ii) "injecting kids with chicken blood"
(A) Taiwan does not have this slang.
(B) Victor Mair, Chicken Baby 鸡娃. In Language Blog. Department of Linguistics, University of Pennsylvania, July 20, 2019
https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=43717
("It is common that such children take extra Chinese, math, and English courses")
(iii) prisoner's dilemma
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma
(iv) involution (n; from Latin prefix in- + verb volvere roll) can mean rolling in (as in embryology, describing layers rolling in) or retrograde in size or physiology.

involution (n):
" * * *
4. (physiology) the regressive changes in the body occurring with old age.
* * *
8. (neologism, slang) a state of increased competition for limited resources, requiring great effort to stay ahead.
* * * "
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/involution