From Qingyu

It is midsummer now. A full spring has passed since we last spoke, and my internship at [company removed] is almost over. I plan to return to university to prepare for the civil service examinations. My energy is limited, so I probably will not be able to take part in the autumn recruitment season.

At a departmental dinner today, I heard the usual conversations: “getting local residency, buying a home, preparing for the roughly equal split between academic and vocational education that the next generation faces.” I suddenly felt a sense of fate repeating itself—a group of high-achieving students from small towns passing the same cycle on to their children. What I most wish is that children need not be the whole of a person’s life, and that parents can have lives of their own. I really hope all those parents who work tirelessly for their children can also cultivate rich, fresh lives for themselves.

You may not know much about the points-based residency policy in [city removed]. In short, the threshold rises every year. These days, parents hoping to accumulate enough points generally have to wait until their children are nearly in secondary school. To secure the right for their children to sit the university entrance exam in [city removed], that wait is already approaching the limits of both the policy and people’s patience. I admire their sacrifices: taking on mortgages at any cost—many buy early for residency purposes, and homes in desirable school catchments cost at least [amount removed], an astronomical figure. They endure the pressure of a big city and suppress their own desires. They sacrifice everything for their children, from competing alongside them from early education onward to asking both sets of grandparents to help with childcare. And all this sacrifice is simply to keep the children from being forced by educational selection onto a factory production line, to give them some choice over their future lives.

Seeing their numb smiles and their efforts to appear at peace with it suddenly frightened me. It was like that familiar old story about the shepherd boy: what is the meaning of life repeating itself over and over? If living is only about letting the next generation repeat the same life, surely that departs from something fundamental about being human. I still believe people should live for themselves. If a big city is only the starting point of one cycle after another, its outwardly glamorous life may not be so enviable. I keep wondering how long it has been since we saw days full of sunshine: laughing in the sun, without the exhaustion of leaving early and returning late, those carefree summer days. Perhaps the pressures of society are too great, forcing people to yield and place their hopes in the next generation, hoping their children can live fully as themselves. I wonder whether those still working away from home in big cities, telling their elders only the good news, have really lived the wonderful lives their parents hoped for. And will their own hopes for their children help those children escape another cycle? The steep fall in birth rates in recent years may offer an answer, while the problems it brings will be a bitter fruit our generation must taste. I feel rather pessimistic when I remember visiting [place removed] and seeing grey-haired people struggling to earn a living on the front line of service work.

I try to keep myself as busy as possible to escape these seemingly fixed patterns of life. Perhaps concentrating on exam preparation for now is the only way to stop overthinking. I have rambled on a great deal; I hope you do not mind. It is late at night. May everyone who feels lost have a good dream.

Thank you for taking the time to read my email. Finally, I wish you all the best!