Do you know what this is?

Maotanchang Middle School, known as China's "gaokao factory," where every year before the college entrance exam, droves of students kneel before this statue, crawling up step by step, praying they'll get into university—it's completely insane. To be honest, they'd be better off petting cats @Polymarket.

These students wake up at 6 AM, do early reading, attend classes, their parents bring lunch to the classroom door at noon, they quickly wolf it down, and immediately head back to study. Afternoons, evenings until 11 PM heading back—day after day. The students inside basically study themselves stupid, like absolute idiots. Weekly exams, weekly rankings posted on bulletin boards. Any mistake can mean getting hit with a ruler. The pressure is completely unbearable. The classroom windows and corridors have been welded shut with wire mesh to prevent students overwhelmed by pressure from jumping off buildings.

This high-pressure learning, spoon-feeding through drilling practice problems, is actually effective at improving scores. Maotanchang can guarantee you get into an undergraduate program—you enter as a junior college student and leave as an undergraduate, enter as a second-tier university student and leave as a first-tier, enter as first-tier and leave as a 211 university graduate...

Reading and taking the gaokao have been the only way for countless rural people over the past few decades to change their fate. Once you finish university, you could pass the civil service exam and enter the system, work and settle in the city, never have to farm again. Unfortunately, that path is slowly closing off. Yet Maotanchang still surges with crowds.