📝 Note

The gaokao (高考) is China’s national college entrance exam — taken once, at the end of high school, and for most students it alone determines which university they may attend. Youth in China is commonly divided into “before the gaokao” and “after” it. This essay is the first post of my old blog, written on the morning we went back to school to collect the answer keys, before the results were out.

Frankly, I’m quite nervous right now. Not because we’re going to collect the answer keys this afternoon — I already have a fair idea of how I did; only the essay, where I took a risky angle, still leaves me a sliver of unrealistic hope. What truly makes me nervous is this: from now on, I have to face my own life in earnest. There are no more excuses for not immediately doing the things I long to do, no more putting things off, as I pleased, until “after the gaokao.”

The days I could squander freely are gone for good. I’m afraid I can no longer drift about with a clear conscience, changing the subject to Dota whenever things got serious. What I cannot do today, I should not expect of tomorrow. In truth, the things I found difficult before are every bit as difficult now. I open great books and read only the preface and the table of contents; I grasp theories only at the surface; I learn skills only to the point of getting by. Perhaps the old me still had the gaokao for a shield, but if I go on as before, I fear I will keep company with shallowness for the rest of my life, and never have the luck to glimpse the beauty buried in the depths. Looking back on three years, I did foolish things that make me want to slap myself, and I did things the present me is grateful for. As for the time that has passed, there is no calling it right or wrong — nothing to regret, nothing to be proud of. I only ask to take it as a warning: to face life honestly, without running away. That is enough.

Naturally, in losing that shield, I also broke free of my shackles. The uniform standard of school days is a blessing for some people; for me it was a misfortune. While everyone else strove toward that standard, I was busy doubting the meaning behind it. Maybe that is what the weak do — but who really cares. From today on, I need not mind what the textbook says; I need only remember the version of the description I judge closest to the truth. I am no longer content to memorize the simplified edition of a truth — I want to uncover its derivation, its meaning, and the story behind it. This is freedom, and it is also a challenge: right and wrong, truth and error, I must now tell apart for myself, and nothing short of a flawless proof will convince me — even if the one holding forth is a figure ranked with Aristotle and Newton, a master shoulder to shoulder with Spinoza and Russell.

Ah — my classmates and I are about to part. Parting with us are the greener selves we used to be. The chances I will have to set foot on this campus again are running out. I remember telling one of our Chinese teachers: I’m about to leave this school, and I still can’t name all the flowers in the flowerbeds. He laughed and said, “Don’t worry — neither can our biology teachers.” I often wonder what my classmates and I will each become in ten years. It is genuinely hard to say: your school days may turn out to be the peak of your life, or its trough. Some people part here with the best version of themselves; for others, the happy years only now begin. Young people, on the whole, are never too bad; it is growing up that fits us with one hideous mask after another. I have no grand ambitions. I only wish that ten years from now, I will not have become someone I despise.

Every loss has its gain. Through this exam I did confirm one fact about myself: at the critical moment I may not outperform, but I can deliver what I am capable of. Granted, that is no excuse for the way I usually coast — but I now have confidence in my nerves when it counts, and I suspect that will pay off in more than exams.

June 9, 2014

At home