07/04/24 - Some people show up not to take the exam at all, and just to memorise the questions.
“Landlords refuse to rent to me because of my job.
I just want a place with a big yard, and the landlord asked what I do for a living, and I replied honestly. And then I got discriminated against!
I’m kind of shocked. I guess the revitalisation of Daoism only exists on the internet. People are still pretty bigoted against my job in real life.”
[OP attaches screenshots of their text exchange with the landlord]
OP: “My store is around here. Um…is there a problem?”
Landlord: “Yeah.”
OP: “You can tell it to me straight.”
Landlord: “It’s your job…”
OP: “Is it possible that I’m just some guy? I’m just gonna live here. It’s not like I’m gonna do anything weird. XD”
A compilation of comments follow: “Because of your job? Holy crap, I thought you were a whore or something. What’s wrong with being a Daoist?”
“Looking at the text exchange, my first thought was that you were a mortician.”
“If I was a landlord, I would hope and pray that I could rent to you, assuming you’re the real thing and and you’re a decent person. It’s just such a safe choice! If anyone else comes and wants to rent from me, I can use you as a selling point, right? And if I ever run into any supernatural troubles, I’ve got someone to consult with. It’s so many birds with one stone. If it was me, I’d ask if I have the destiny to become your disciple or something.”
“No, I mean, you’re a Daoist though. Wouldn’t it be great if you moved in? Then there’s definitely not gonna be any ghosts around.”
“He’s worried OP’s a scammer and people are gonna show up wanting revenge. There’s a lot of risk in this sort of thing. I wouldn’t consider it if I was a landlord too.”
“When I rented a house, the landlord was super happy when they heard I was a Daoist.”
“Can you move Guangdong’s rain to Henan or something? I can’t stand it anymore.”
“If my birth numbers bring bad luck to my boyfriend, but we get along super well, is anything gonna happen if we get married?”
“Can you teach me a spell to bring down thunder or something? I’m going to Japan, and I’d like to smite some people when I’m in a bad mood.”
“This time coming to Sweden, I wanted to see just what Scandinavian countries were like. After a couple of days, I already can’t stand it. I’m not a huge people person normally, and I like peace and quiet too. But as one of the biggest cities in Sweden, Gothenburg is a little too peaceful and quiet.
This photo was taken around lunch time on Gothenburg’s main street, and there’s nobody around. I can’t stand the food either. It’s just the same couple of dishes on repeat.
I think for me, if I’m really after peace and quiet, I’d rather go to a third or fourth line city in China. There’s still convenient takeout options and fast package delivery, but there’s not that many people either. There’s no restrictions against buying pickup trucks, and there’s still plenty of basic infrastructure.
I’ve never been to Norway or Finland, but I’m pretty sure it’s the same in Oslo or Helsinki…”
Comments say, “You tried any canned herring noodles?”
“I went to Finland a little over ten years ago, and it really was super quiet. The only place you saw a crowd was at the train stations.”
On the 2nd of July, the Chinese Phillipines Embassy announced that a Chinese citizen has been kidnapped and killed in the Phillipines, alongside another Chinese American. The Chinese American’s friend has been speaking out hoping to get a response from the Filipino government. According to the Filipino Daily Inquirer, from January to May this year, there has been 18 kidnapping cases in the Phillipines, most of which involve Chinese citizens. Most of these cases took place in Manila, and are related to offshore gambling operations.”
“I’ve just been doing past high school entrance exams, and this shocked me. [OP underlined a line on her exam, that says, “All the questions in this exam were derived from student memory.”] Holy shit, Nanjing students. You’re fucking awesome! An entire exam! Including reading comprehension!”
Comments say, “Another cool fact: all the full marked essays you can read from the Gaokao were memorised and copied down by examiners.”
“They just didn’t publish that year’s high school entrance exam for some reason. Supposedly, there was a mistake on the exam.”
“When you go to your civil servant exam or postgrad entrance exam, all of those come from memory too. Several people will go in together, and each person has the job of memorising one question and writing it down on their ID to take out. When I took my postgrad entrance exam, the proctor doesn’t care if you copy down the questions. One guy knew he wasn’t going to make it, so he spent all of his time copying down the questions and selling it to a tutoring agency afterwards, and they paid him 500 RMB.”
“I can remember 80% of the questions on my postgrad entrance exam, and I didn’t deliberately try to memorise it or anything.”
“There was a problem with the physics question in 2022 in Nanjing, they made a mistake in one of the questions, so they never published the original exam. But I think some teachers can still get their hands on it, so they might have written that line on it just for plausible deniability, because high school entrance exams are supposed to be kept secret for 3 years.”
“It’s the same here. The afternoon after the exams, someone’s already handwritten the math exam from memory and posted it online.”
“As a middle schooler graduating in Nanjing, I want to say that there’s a lot of people writing down exams from memory this year too. Why don’t they just release the exam questions? Because they like to add in questions that were never in the syllabus.”
“Our teacher says that you have to memorise all the questions to be an exam proctor.”
“It’s not that hard to memorise reading comprehension, because they credit where the passage comes from at the end. Just memorise that and find it again. It’s not like you have to memorise the whole passage word for word.”
“It’s really simple. Just memorise some keywords and look it up online, and you’ll find the part they took out to be the passage. Can’t do that for English though. Theoretically, English reading comprehension passages comes from overseas published material, but big exams will edit the passages. My teacher says that sometimes, they edit it so much for the Gaokao that they might as well have rewritten it.”
“It’s the same for the Gaokao. Some people show up not to take the exam at all, and just to memorise the questions. How do you think we know what the exam questions are otherwise?”
“I just took my exam in Xuzhou this year, and I completely don’t remember my exam anymore already.”
“My coworker just walked up and punched my bread. I was all like ???? And she freaked out and said she thought it was a stress ball like she sees on other coworker’s desks.”
Comments say, “Yeast: >: ( T_T”
“Actually, bread tastes the best after it’s been beaten to death. It’s super chewy.”
“Not gonna lie, I always punch my pineapple bun before eating it, because the flaky bits on top will flake off a lot. I can’t accept any tastiness being wasted, so it’s a lot better to eat it after it’s been crushed flat. Especially buttery pineapple buns! But you gotta use your palm and not your fist for those, or the butter will splatter everywhere and get wasted.”
“Watermelon protection mission!
I bought some super tasty watermelons at a roadside stall. They were so good, that I decided to buy about 20 of them to give to all my family and friends. But this watermelon is super fragile. You look at it the wrong way and it’ll crack. So I was super careful on the way, driving as slowly as possible. I got passed by several cars, and every time, they’d look at me as they drove by, and I can hear them thinking, “Oh, it’s a woman driving. No wonder.”
I was screaming in my heart, “No! It’s because of watermelons! I’m carrying watermelons!!””
Comments say, “But did you succeed?”
“I guess I’m not included in your friends and family.”
“Ugh, watermelons are so expensive this year! I haven’t seen any Qilin Watermelons [a particularly sweet variety] for less than 4.5 RMB. Even a normal watermelon is still well over 2 RMB.”
#Why is Inner Mongolian college application like an auction? Just watched how Inner Mongolians apply to college and just about had a heart attack.
Even though every year, the Gaokao become a trending topic at the end of June, no place quite shocks you like Inner Mongolia when it comes to how college applications work.
Just look at all the preparations you need to make beforehand:
Figure out which internet cafe has the highest internet speed. Contact experienced application specialists. Get an operator with steady hands. Put together a committee of consultants. Practice how to accurately and quickly use the number pad. And pick out several different colleges in different tiers in the doorstopper of a book, “College Application Guide”, just in case.
It’s not that Inner Mongolians involute a lot. It’s that the whole process of applying for college is a goddamn thrill here.
As the only state in the country to practice “real time rankings”, few out of staters are aware what Inner Mongolia students go through. Their thrill is unique in the country.
The idea of “real time ranking” is when you’re applying online, you can see how many people are applying to the major in the school you want and what their scores are, and you can change your application at any time.
And “changing your application at any time” means that in the application window, you could get squeezed out of the rankings by someone with a higher score than you at any time.
And the application rules are very simple. So long as you file an application before the window closes, and you’re still in the ranking for the number of students schools plan to accept, you’ll get in.
So if a certain school is accepting 5 students, then you have to make sure you’re in the top five students applying there before the application time ends. If not, you go to your second choice.
As for what it feels like, some people describe it as, “It’s like watching the stocks rise and fall in the stock exchange.” And some people say, “It’s like doing some kind of Sotheby’s auction.””
Comments say, “That’s even more nerve-wracking then!”
“I mean, it sounds like a hell of a time, but that’s also a really awesome system.”
“This is the fairest way to apply for college.”
“What kind of weirdo came up with this weirdo idea?”