YangXin Students

This is one of the classes in a major high school in YangXin County in Hubei. They are children of farmers. They are survivors of the one-child policy, hence bearing their families’ hope for improving their lives on their small shoulders. The lives of farmers in mainland China are hard, and much harder than city dwellers (that’s why so many are so eager to move into cities). So the best hope of improving their lives (or at least the lives of their children) is for the children to get into a good high school, get into a good university, and then find a job in a big city. Under the one-child policy and the numerous abortions, most have no brothers and sisters.

That’s why these students start school at 7 am and finish at 10 pm for six and a half days, with only Sunday afternoon off. Most of them live in and around the school because they come from a long distance. YangXin is a county of a million farmers, and this is one of the best high schools around. So competition to get into this school is keen, and the competition to get into good national universities is even keener. We can see their books all piled up on their desks, because they practically live in the classroom, leaving only to eat and sleep. We were told they regularly outperform their counterparts in schools in larger cities.