That’d be me. The younger one wanted it, both boys (14 and 11) and I read it, both boys are still alive, and, although if pushed I’d describe myself as a dead hippy, so am I.
The book has been out since before the Christmas before last and long enough for a sequel, I don’t remember a rash of suicides all over the UK in the interim.

The vast majority of Chinese really never get the chance to progress educationally simply because the system (educational and government) can’t support it.

I only occasionally work in China, and since TIHE_HO mysteriously stopped posting just before the Olympics, we haven’t had another viewpoint since.

Good to have you on board!

In most other countries, most much smaller than the U.S., only the elite students actually take these tests. In the U.S. every student takes these tests whether they are college material or not.
If you compared the test scores of only the upper echelon of students in the U.S. the ranking would be much different.
In all these comparisons we are comparing apples to oranges.

BTW, I live in China and I can tell you their education system is not even close to the quality of the U.S.

It’s pretty funny!

From a morbid sense of humor view, with such good and funny ways to off yourself, why did these Chinese guys decide to go the traditional routes?

Such a lack of imagination.

BTW, more interesting stuff from the article.

“According to a recently issued report by the China Mental Health Association, suicide is the leading cause of death for Chinese aged 15-34, with the national rate triple the world average.”
(Nope, it’s way worse than 3 times the world average. This is all the Government would admit to.)
“Those children suffer from a lack of real love from the family, or they’re suffering heavy study burdens,” said Li Shuzhen, a consultant at the Psychological Health Education Center at Shanghai’s Fudan University.
(How about both?)
Withdrawing the book is “better than nothing,” she said. “But what I care about is whether it would help. We need to appeal to the public to care more about teenagers’ mental health.”
(Nope, removing the book won’t help. The book is just a scapegoat, a way to save face. Blame the book! Yea, that’s it!)

Maybe because during the 80s and the 90s many outside the USA perceived all that obssession with censorship coming from that country as nothing but BS and simply let KIDS go watch movies like Aliens and Predator without much worry at all. In fact, kids here back then never did something as stupid as copy from the TV or a cartoon just like the kids from the USA did as always.

Nowadays with the constant evangelization of this continent south of the border we are seeing the same BS “for the safety of the kids” obssession with censorship… Not to mention that kids are getting dumber and now are copying the things they see on the TV and on the cartoons.

Maybe the kids in china are being americanized and are behaving more like the dumb idiots the child safety advocates are pleaching to censor.

and

Improbus – they are stupid by comparison

Guess we are all human after all.

So-yes, there are JC colleges (high schools with ash trays) that take everyone they can get, and religious based schools taking anyone with the tuition.

But still, in the USA for those motivated to really succeed, yes, competition, stress, tests, and failure is there.

True. But 250k Yuan is no longer out of reach if your mom or dad is running a company… or is a high ranking commie.