08/19/24 - You have to take advantage of the golden learning period when your kid is 3-6 years old.
[Sorry, I haven’t been able to make substack load on my laptop for some reason for the last couple of days. I’m borrowing a laptop to post this. I wrote down a post for the 17th too, which I will post in a moment. I’ve got a friend coming over to see if he can help me fix whatever is going on.]
“Three major events just went down in the Education world, and every step is very much “calculated” by the higher ups! Parents need to see the intentions behind it!
Previous years, the field of education has always been pretty quiet during summer break, but this year, three big things went down. It means that the higher ups have a very clear idea of what to do about the future education of our kids.
The first event, Shandong smashed the iron bowl. [Used to describe an incredibly stable job that you can work for the rest of your life, like a bowl that you can eat from for the rest of your life.]
Shandong declared that over 100,000 government positions are going to become private contractors. What kind of place is Shandong? The biggest government worker state in the country. Shandong people’s dream job is government work. In the eyes of Shandong people, if you’re not working for the government, you might as well be employed. If even Shandong has fallen, are other provinces far behind? When 70% of Qinghua and Beijing University graduations are going into the government, you’d know that this is not sustainable.
First, government workers got huge pay cuts. Now there are massive layoffs. There are a lot of parents whose original plan was to go for a 985 University and then take the civil servant exam, but now this path has basically been blocked off and it’s only going to get worse. It’s not that you’re worse off now than before, but that the treatment of government workers is going to continue to decline. For a lot of middle-class kids, it’s basically losing money to gain face.
The second event is a big confusing! This year, they’ve increased 831 doctorate locations and 1924 Master’s Degree locations. Half of the graduating class last year hasn’t found a job yet, but they’re still increasing postgrad enrolment. Sure, increasing enrolment can decrease the pressures of unemployment. A lot of universities are deciding to increase their postgrad course, from 2 years to 3 years, or 3 years to 4 years. So long as more people are in school, less people are going to be in the work force. And by the time they do start looking for work, government work has become private work, and teachers are no longer a government position. 2000’s kids have been fucked by the times.
The third event is even more baffling. The government’s supporting the tutoring industry again. They’ve passed 20 policies trying to encourage spending, internet commerce, gaming, and tutoring. China’s economy is slowed down to the lowest in 5 seasons. Before the Double Reduction policy [“less homework, less tutoring”, a policy the government came out with in 2021 to ban tutoring in the hopes of lessening the pressure of students.], the tutoring industry offered 30 million jobs, equal to three years of graduating uni students. Once the policy came out, New Oriental’s [biggest tutoring agency] stocks immediately fell by 10%. After the Double Reduction policy, kids are only under more pressure. Now all the tutoring agencies are reviving, trying to get back what they lost over the last few years. The degree of involution is going to increase at least 10 times.
When we combine these three events, it’s not hard to see that the main strategy behind our education policy is just to increase spending, increase employment. If you think about education from the point of view of job competitiveness, you’ll find, that no matter what kind of high-paying job your kids want when they grow up, they need to have core learning abilities.
That is to say, everyone is involuting. If you lay flat, then your kid will be diverted [the policy where only 50% of kids should get to high school], and face unemployment. But some parents are smart, and are already planning a path for their kid where involution will be easy, using tactical hard work to cover up strategic laziness. This is my experience after 12 years of study accompaniment [basically like home school, but your kids still go to school, where as the parent, your primary job is tutoring at home], this is my experience and the lessons I’ve learned. It’s very suitable for normal kids from normal families and can make sure you don’t stray down the wrong path and save you alot of money.
Don’t waste kids’ daycare time. Take advantage of the amount of free time kids have in daycare and primary school, and start them in on various extracurriculars and broaden their knowledge in various subjects. I highly recommend the science documentaries and educational cartoons produced by CCTV. It’ll make sure they have a basic level of general ability. Normal families shouldn’t try to hop on any trends. Wasting money is one thing, you can’t get back any of your kid’s time that you’ve wasted. I suggest you use a few minutes to test your kid’s talents and interests, then analyse between about 50 extracurriculars, to see which one is the most suitable for your kid’s age right now. Sharpening your knife doesn’t slow down splitting wood. It’s only worth persisting if you’re going in the right direction. My best friend in Beijing University told me that most extracurriculars on the market have a cheaper alternative where it’s basically the same thing once you understand what they’re doing. And it doesn’t waste your kid’s talent or interest. You’ll save five figures over the course of a year. Not only will your kid not laze around, their abilities will improve all around.
You have to make your kids interested in extracurricular reading. This is the most worthwhile investment and smartest choice you can make. Your kid will benefit for a lifetime. Not only can it broaden their worldview, increase their knowledge, and it can improve their Chinese and writing skills. After all, in the newest version of Gaokao, the Chinese exam is nearly 10K words long. Some kids can’t even finish reading the whole thing, let alone answer all the questions. Between kids in the same class, the gap widens little by little because of daily reading accumulation. What they read is important too. I’ve compiled a list of books that geniuses in top primary schools read, and educational books, every one is a classic. After my kid finished, his Chinese grades shot up like a rocket.
You have to pay attention to English. Don’t believe any bullshit about how they’ll cancel English in the future. Get your kid into it as early as possible. The newest edition of textbooks not only didn’t delete any English, but now it’s much closer to overseas textbooks. You can tell how important English is. Use these cartoons by age group and books by age group for your kids. You don’t need to know much English yourself and you don’t need to sign up for any classes. Your kids will be interested in it and they’ll have a foundation already, and they can rule their class in middle school.
You have to take advantage of the golden learning period when your kid is 3-6 years old. You don’t have to sign up for any classes, but you can buy your kids educational toys and watch some math cartoons. Just watch things like Gauss Maths, and Super Classroom for Olympiad Math over and over again, and it’ll carry you through second grade. Your kids won’t just learn knowledge, but also a math mentality.
Train your kids self-awareness and planning skills. Primary school is the best time to raise your kid. If they haven’t formed good habits by primary school, they won’t be able to get into a good high school or university. By the time they reach middle school, classes are going to ramp up, and if they don’t know how to study by themselves, they’ll fall behind, and it’ll be hard to catch back up.
Remember to train their bodies. Swimming, basketball, jogging all works. By the time they reach middle and high school, what people are going to compete on is stamina. They’ll go to sleep at midnight and have to get up at 5AM. If your kid isn’t fit, they won’t be able to take the pressure, and will easily fall to depression and anxiety. Kids who are good at sports are more confident, and confidence is so, so important to a kid.
Comments say, “Wow, you said a bunch of scary sounding stuff to start with, and then it just turned into a bunch of ads?”
“So you’re just another tutor?”
“Qinghua and Beijing University students are getting into government, but a lot of them are spies.”
A compilation of jobs that don’t seem like much but make a lot of money.
“A lot of businesses that make a ton of money don’t look like much too. I have a 10 sq meter fully automated adult toy store. The stuff in there selling for 300-400 RMB I wholesale’d for just 30-40 bucks. I’ve been running it as a side gig for years, and I get 4-5K a month, and I don’t have to sit around in the store all day.”
“Remember the jello stalls trending on tiktok? Yeah, I actually went for it. At first, it was only on the weekends. Then, there was so much business that I’d put up my stall even after work on weekdays. Did I make a ton of money? Sure. But it was so exhausting that I ended up not doing it anymore anyways.”
“I suggest girls go make AI promotional art. It can change your life. I make ads on tiktok with AI art, and I made 500K in the last 6 months. Every order I get, I charge 20-300 RMB, and when things are busy, I can get a couple thousand orders a day. Don’t worry about the cost of the foods, just go for whatever is selling well, and you’ll make what you used to make in a year in just a month. Anything picked out by AI big data is not going to lack for popularity.”
“Last year, when I went to my husband’s hometown to hold our wedding, the make up artist told me she conservatives make a million a year. A bride makeup is 588 RMB, and she goes through 600 brides a year. She owns a store that sells wedding dresses and other wedding supplies too, and she tattoo’s eyebrows when business is low.”
“It’s true. The makeup artist I found for my wedding charged 2600 for wedding makeup, and she sells insurance, rents wedding dresses, runs makeup classes, and does all kinds of commercial makeup. It’s amazing.”
“My college roommate has been selling study materials from sophomore year. Tons of people at school want it. She made 6K+ every month, more than enough to cover her own living expenses.”
“Same as what I saw on the channel Mr. Luo Teaches Entrepreneurship. He just sells info packets. It’s super detailed, a bunch of snack recipes and all kinds of tutorials. But it’s just the same info packet over and over again that he’s selling people, so it’s nothing but pure profit. I sold those info packets for three months and made 50K.”
“A neighbour of mine just retired and started selling veggies on a three-wheeled truck. Later, she’ll sell wreaths for funerals to, and she’s visibly gotten richer and is super stuck up too. My MIL passed away in March and it cost 11800 RMB to get a full package funeral service. There must be at least a couple of grand of pure profit in that. Her son is prepared to follow in her footsteps.”
“My sister works as a hospital companion [someone to go to the hospital with you]. It doesn’t sound like much, but she makes more money every month than I do in my office job. I asked, and she charges 200-600 RMB per order, and she can get through 2-3 orders a day. Her time is totally free and she can still pick her kids up from school. I plan to join her for the rest of this year.”
“Musical instruments gets old for 3 times higher than you buy them from the factory.”
“I made some reaction images for people to use, and someone offered to pay me to to make a personalised reaction image. So I made it my side gig. It takes a ton of time, until I learned how to use an AI to churn them out in seconds. It used to take me a week to make a set, and now I make 20-30 sets a day. If they’re good quality, I can get 200-500 RMB per set. That’s not bad for a side gig.”
“Locksmiths make a ton of money. I locked my car keys inside my car and called a locksmith. He drove over on a bike with a little toolbox, poked in a bit of steel wire, and got it unlocked in 15 seconds. Charged me 80 RMB and said it was a friendship price, that he normally charges 120-200 RMB, more for luxury cars. And it’s practically free in terms of cost.”
“Locksmiths really do make a fortune. My ex did this. He unlocked cars for 100 RMB, house doors for 60 RMB during the day, 70-100RMB at night, and 150 RMB in the early morning.”
“Unclogging toilets. People make 40K a month. That was deeply shocking.”
“It’s so expensive if you have to get one in the middle of the night. My toilet got clogged and I got a guy to come over at 11PM and it cost me 200 RMB, and he only took a minute to unclog it.”
“I made a little over 10K at home doing tutoring during summer break. Bought myself a computer, an iPad, concert tickets, and new clothes and shoes. I even went on vacation in Wuhan.”
A compilation of what people have been teaching foreigners:
“Back in 2015, I met a French guy in Yubeng [village in Yunnan], and I taught him that when other people ask him to Gan Bei [bottoms up, you have to drain your glass], he has to say, “还不够.” [Hai Bu Gou - I want more/that’s not enough.]”
“I went to high school in Germany, and guys in my class were curious how you swear in Chinese, and I taught them all, “我爱你” [Wo Ai Ni - I love you] and “你真棒” [Ni Zhen Bang - You’re great!]. So I often saw two guys screaming at each other across the hall, “Fuck you!! I love you!” “You’re great!!””
“My friend went on vacation in China and came back and called me “Daddy!”. I’m still grateful to whichever Chinese person taught him to do that.”
“When I was gaming, I ran into an Indonesia girl who was yelling, “I like eating poop!”. She said a Chinese person taught her…”
“I still regret teaching my classmates the four tones in Chinese, and how you say “Fuck” in each tone. For an entire half a semester, I woke up every morning to, “Morning! Fuck!” They said it feels more lively that way…”
“If you meet a Turkish man in Dongbei who greets everyone with, “你瞅啥” [Ni Chou Sha - The fuck are you looking at?], don’t beat him up yet! I told him that it means “I’m glad to meet you.””
"Use these cartoons by age group and books by age group for your kids."
What are these? Curious as to what English books/cartoons are popular in China, or, failing that, at least the ones that a rando on social media is recommending.