Global Courant
BEIJING – After 56-year-old Liang Shi fails the dreaded Chinese university entrance exam for the 27th time, 56-year-old Liang Shi begins to wonder if he will ever make it to the university of his dreams.
Mr. Liang, a self-made millionaire, has taken the grueling “gaokao” exam dozens of times over the past four decades, hoping to earn a place at Sichuan’s premier university and his ambition to become “an intellectual” come true. to make.
By most standards, Mr. Liang has had a successful life – working his way up from a menial job on a factory floor to setting up his own building materials company, earning millions of yuan from it, but his college dreams have eluded him so far.
In his quest for a prestigious higher education, he has spent 12 hours studying, refraining from drinking and playing mahjong, and enduring the media mocking him as the “gaokao holdout”, as well as the online presumption that it is all publicity. stunt.
But despite months of living as “an ascetic monk”, Mr. Liang this year 34 points short of the provincial baseline to be admitted to a university.
“Before I got the result, I felt I wouldn’t be able to get a high enough score to get into an elite university,” he told AFP.
“But I didn’t expect to fail the regular.”
On Friday, the gray-haired businessman — along with hundreds of thousands of high school students in southwestern Sichuan province — carefully typed in his exam identification information and waited nervously to find out how he had done.
Several local media reporters who live-streamed the scene were also eagerly seeking updates – and from their expressions of disappointment, Mr Liang knew before he even saw the screen that the outcome was less than ideal.
“It’s over for this year,” he told himself. “It’s very unfortunate.”
In the past, Mr. Liang’s repeated misses could not deter him.
Each time he came up short, he promised to try again next year.
Now, for the first time in decades, he wonders if his hard work will ever lead anywhere.
“If I really don’t see much hope for improvement, there’s no point in doing it again. I worked really hard every day,” he said wearily.
“It’s hard to say if I will continue to prepare for next year’s gaokao,” he admitted.
But a life without gaokao preparation is almost unthinkable for him.
“It is a difficult decision to make. I’m not ready to give up either,” he mused.
“(If I) stopped taking the gaokao, every cup of tea I drank for the rest of my life would taste like regret.” AFP
