This is enraging. Identity theft in the United States can be a headache, sure, but in most cases the financial institutions are the ones taking the brunt of the damage, and even that is probably covered by some sort of insurance scheme. This woman had her entire life stripped away from her, not to mention making her doubt her own abilities by implying she “failed” the exam.
How do these people live with themselves, especially the daughter of the CCP official who assumed the stolen identity? I’m sure financial criminals justify their behavior by telling themselves that in the end corporations suffer the cost of the theft, but in this case a single individual was forced to bear the brunt of this fraud for the rest of her life considering how important and life altering a good exam score is in China.
It boggles the mind that people can live with themselves and can carry on living with such guilt. Then again, maybe it’s my western sense of morality that tells me the perpetrator should feel guilt. Perhaps they don’t...
The western sense of morality didn’t stop the admissions scandals to all top western universities like Harvard Stanford and so on.
Chinese universities as far as I know don’t have things like institutionalized legacy admissions.
I’d like people to reconsider the view that western societies are somehow inherently purer or less corrupt. Often it takes different forms.
This can be seen in the way sanctions are imposed for companies using slave labor in Xinjiang but there is not nearly as much reflection on the vast amounts of prison labor in the US mostly of people unjustly given heavy sentences. In fact the number of people in American prisons rivals the number of people in Soviet gulags. Yet there is no shortage of sanctimony or moral rectitude.
Anything wrong with western society is an unfortunate flaw in an otherwise just system but anything wrong outside the west is a civilizational failing that can only be fixed by adopting some theoretical enlightenment values which the west itself struggles to practice without hypocrisy.
We can criticize others and ourselves without essentializing or casting ourselves as inherently moral.
While I think we should criticize others and call them out for their bad behavior I do want to stress that it is very important to hold ourselves to a high standard. This is an essential part of a democracy. There is always room to improve. We are trying to form a more perfect union. Criticize others to learn from their mistakes. Criticize ourselves so we fix ours. (I do think think self criticism is common in the west though often misunderstood, even amongst ourselves. Especially in the current political climate)
I don't think it's just rampant in non-democratic vs democratic societies. A colleagues wife had him sit and take her entire online pharmacy class for her, sitting online as her for the entire course. He is a physician and had to actually take the classes themselves because when he tried to sit just for the exam for her he didn't get a high enough score. Other than checking IDs in person for exams, I'm not sure how to prevent someone else sitting behind the computer for you during an online course.
I don't think you meant to respond to me. I was talking about being critical of your state and others. I think you meant to respond to the more generalized discussion of cheating. This discussion diverted a little from that.
The same universities that were affected by the scandal regularly give admissions for donors’ kin. It’s just that the money went to a third party instead of the college in the scandalous cases. Free market - not arguing the morality of it - allows for the person with the resources to get an edge on various things - from life saving medical treatment to life changing opportunities.
> It’s just that the money went to a third party instead of the college in the scandalous cases.
That's a pretty huge difference. Letting someone donate money in exchange for admission smells bad, but if the donation is larger than the cost, they made more room for others than they occupied themselves. If a third party captures the "donation", that's just a roundabout form of theft/embezzlement.
I don't know of any people who say that the US is entirely a meritocracy. I have heard the argument that success in the US is _more_ based on merit than it is in certain other places, or that basing success on merit is good and is something we should strive to do more than we currently do, but "it is possible to get ahead in ways other than merit" does not disprove either of those.
Maybe that’s a bit grand to say “Western Society” where both examples would not apply to other non English speaking Western countries.
The American high incarcerations rate is an exception in the western world.
Legacy admissions simply do not exist in countries like France or Germany. Some elite engineering colleges in France have an exam based admission system very similar to the Chinese one but identity theft on this scale has never occurred.
"I’d like people to reconsider the view that western societies are somehow inherently purer or less corrupt. "
That's fine, we can be open to that perspective, but we should also try to be objective and accept that there are rough objective measures of 'corruption', upon some places are going to do better than others, and that arguments based on cultural relativism are usually not very strong.
Transparency international has at least one take on it [1]
Chinese universities do have this concept -- certain students are marked VIP, so that professors will know.
But the concept of granting admission based on such status, as opposed to extending special treatment to an admitted student, is very much muted.
There are ways of getting in to a university without passing the gaokao threshold that would ordinarily be required. But those generally involve receiving a point boost that the college has the official discretion to offer, or doing well on an alternative test -- someone scoring 303 out of 750 would obviously not pass a lower discretionary threshold either.
Note that when "officials in Shandong say new processes are now in place to make sure such incidents will not happen again", they are correct -- it's already possible to look up both your gaokao score (this girl's score wasn't falsified; rather, her identity was stolen) and the 分数线 that applied to you when you applied to a school. The problem would be instantly detected[1] by anyone who felt bitter about what happened -- and this is quite likely, since you have a strong idea of what your gaokao score will be before you actually take the test. (You have to, because you apply to colleges before you get your official result.)
China as a civilization takes the notion of a merit based on examinations very seriously. They pioneered this system hundreds of years before anywhere else in the world.
Cheating may exist but in terms of valuing meritocracy China has it as deeply ingrained as the west.
On paper, yes, China takes official examination rather seriously. In realty, a saying in China goes: as long as there are exams, there are cheaters.
An ancient Chinese source estimates that 20% to 30% participants of imperial exams are imposters.
Endless examples of high ranking officials pave way for their descendants to succeed as top performers. A renown prime minister invited the chief examiner to his library, where he had removed all reading materials except a copy of an essay his son would write for the upcoming exam. The chief examiner was left waiting forever, so he was forced to read the only reading material within reach. When he later read it again as part of national exam, he recognized it immediately and made the the son of the prime minister NO. 1. This only came out because the emperor did not want PM's family become too powerful, but merely demoted the son from NO. 1 to NO. 3.
Not unlike elite institutions in the West, publicly the imperial exam system was lauded but a system of "donation" co-existed to fill official posts. This is a legal way to buy one's way into officialdom. "Legacy" entry was also available, not unlike today's system in China or elsewhere. Human nature prevails everywhere.
Cheating is also deeply ingrained in the culture, though. Much like it is in the US entrepreneurial culture (not just VC backed companies and fortune 500s, but mom and pop businesses).
Old history is one thing, but the whole country being run as a corporation for the past 70 years is another.
Official VIP students... wow that’s horrifyingly corrupt. Clearly admissions is also letting things slide, just with less official backing as fewer people need to be involved.
In the US, collages have more or less rigorous programs rather than simply letting people slide through.
You just said: “There are ways of getting in to a university without passing the gaokao threshold that would ordinarily be required.”
VIP students is a way to communicate across the university. Otherwise professors have no way of knowing who they need to give extra leniency to. I know collage professors at several schools and we really have nothing widespread like that.
It’s useful for people very close to the cutoff, but comparing a few legacy students vs regular ones and the difference is not that obvious. Especially when you consider parents of legacy students often help them distinguish themselves well in advance via appropriate after school activities etc.
Trump transferred to Wharton after two years at Fordham. Fred Trump was a NYC real estate developer with no connection to either school; successful in his world of outerborough residential developments, sure, but an utter nonentity outside it.
George W. Bush was a longtime legacy at Yale, yes, but he performed about as well as Kerry did at Yale and Gore did at Harvard. With no family connections to Harvard he applied to HBS without telling his father, who had by then served as a one-term Texas congressman and UN ambassador, and was serving as the head of the Republican National Committee. To show how little "pull" the Bush name had despite all that, Bush was turned down by the University of Texas law school before getting in at HBS.
>The western sense of morality didn’t stop the admissions scandals to all top western universities like Harvard Stanford and so on.
Chinese universities as far as I know don’t have things like institutionalized legacy admissions.
As far as I'm aware, it's an American trope, not a « Western » one. But it makes sense that kind of practice would occur in the US where universities were founded by communities to educate their own people, rather than as extensions of the State.
Just as many Chinese citizens are proud of their country and culture, there are lots of people in the US who are proud of their country and culture. Are there lots of hypocrites in the United States? Yes. Are there lots of naive people? I mean people still love Trump now while the rest of the world laughs at us. The people in both societies are flawed so let's put that aside.
If we look at both systems (and not as individuals), the US as a whole makes an attempt to do what's right and the system attempts to correct bad behavior. The original founders tried to prevent any one person from usurping power through checks and balances. As Trump tries to upend the country, the Supreme Court restricts what he can do but also tries to ensure the presidency retains power against the legislative branch. Trump has very little power against the Supreme Court and his Supreme Court appointees have voted against him several times already.
Citizens in United States can take to the street to protest against change. Does it always work? Most of the time no. But occasionally, with George Floyd's case, some changes are happening. When individual citizens has their rights taken away, it is possible to sue the government. When this is taken to the Supreme Court and the citizen wins, change happens.
These things will not necessarily get us to a better place but the mechanism for the people to make the change is enshrined in the constitution. Fortunately, this mechanism does eventually guide us to the right place. So far.
As far as I can tell, this kind of corrective behavior does not work in countries like Russia, China and North Korea. It's citizens cannot demand change. What these countries do have is a level of efficiency that democracies will never match. I am envious of this. I am jealous of China's high speed rails and it's ability to erect large cities and hospitals in a matter of months and days.
No doubt United States is in a bad place right now. It has lost its leadership status in the world, it's citizens are sick and dying with a virus that the rest of the world has controlled, and citizens are demanding to not be murdered by their police. However, Trump will most likely be voted out in the fall. Congress is slowly passing laws for better police reform. Counties and states who do not agree with the President covid policies can work against the President's demands to better protect their citizens. Yes there will be problems. Some bad actors will get away with unethical and immoral behaviors. However, the system will attempt to correct the problem. This is why Western democracy is regarded higher than dictatorships in countries like Russia, China and North Korea. The system in United States will give its citizens a better chance to weather the storm than a country with dictatorship.
Western democracy is really being torn at the seams with Trump and Brexit. Both are policies which any sane outside observer will conclude are extremely harmful in the long term. However because of brainwashing a large portion of the citizenry are okay with it anyway.
Large sections are manipulated via social media by forces both external and internal dipping society into chaos even in the midst of existential threats like covid.
This is like saying yes we invaded a country and unleashed mass death but we also protest against it and make poignant films about how our soldiers felt really bad doing it so it’s all okay and it makes us better than those who don’t. The point is to not do it.
As we speak Iranians are dying in droves in the middle of a pandemic made worse by cruel sanctions imposed by the very people claiming to be enlightened. Imposing sanctions in the middle of a pandemic is nothing short of a crime against humanity.
As a Chinese person, I totally understand that Chinese culture is not ok with tyranny. China's rise to riches can only be done with the efficiencies of a dictatorship. In order to understand China, you must understand China's poverty and shame from foreign rule.
With China's new digital surveillance system, it will be pretty hard to overthrow any dictator. China's control on news and media will ensure loyalty from a large percentage of the population. People who were critical of China's initial Covid response were silenced. Some disappeared. I guarantee you many people of Wuhan did not think that there was prosperity and justice.
Western democracy is being tested but I think the United States constitution is holding up pretty well. Today's Supreme Court ruling was 7-2 against Trump, with both justices nominated by Trump voting against Trump. The Supreme Court is focused on being impartial, so the navigated a ruling that will only release Trump's tax returns after the election.
"We reaffirm that principle today and hold that the President is neither absolutely immune from state criminal subpoenas seeking his private papers nor entitled to a heightened standard of need." - Justice Roberts
The Supreme Court, 9-0 affirmed that the President is not above the law. This ruling will be executed on up and down the government chain. Trump wants to build a wall but he can't. Trump wants to deport DACA immigrants and he can't. While Trump did accomplish a lot for Republicans, the most egregious actions were prevented. Ultimately, Trump's damage can be limited and contained.
I agree that the US does not know how to handle foreign interference through social media. Trump seems like he's allowing it to happen. I'm reserving judgement till the next president gets involved. I also agree that Iran sanctions from Trump is criminal.
Ultimately, no system is perfect. United states and Western democracies are designed to limit the damage, which in turn can limit upsides. Dictatorships are efficient but can easily run afoul. The hope is that we can all choose the system we prefer.
> China's rise to riches can only be done with the efficiencies of a dictatorship.
You probably have heard that propaganda piece so often that you think it's true.
A part of China is rich despite the dictatorship murdering 70 million of its people; miraculously, that democide set back the country only by twenty years. If one wants to blame anything for making people rich, its the effects of unfettered turbo capitalism as practiced after Deng.
Why would that be worse. The Han chinese are keeping the government in power. Without their support this government would fall. They as a group have a vote. But a general policy with fines is not what we are talking about.
Millions of Uighurs are forced into camps. They force them to take pills so they cannot have kids. Then they mass migrate han chinese into the region. One day soon they can say the majority are han chinese.
Europe will start putting pressure on China when they realize building this direct road to London China is building is the reason for the suffering they will impose punishment. Meanwhile the US has started creating a different supplies chains excluding China. When grow slows what will happen in China? Will the people revolt? Going to be an interesting 10 years.
Dictatorships can work great, but all it takes is one bad dictator and you are hosed. E.g. the complete ceasation of progress in China once emporers decided to cut off access to the outside world and outlaw logic.
When Google took $500M fine and $300M to share holders for Rogue Pharma Ads. While the counterpart in China --- Baidu, with rogue hospital ads which lead to the death of a young man. LOST NOTHING.
Laws are enforced differently throughout the world. But it's not enforced in CCP controlled China for certain groups.
> Then again, maybe it’s my western sense of morality that tells me the perpetrator should feel guilt. Perhaps they don’t...
I wouldn't say it's your western sense of morality but your personal values. Many westerners sleep very well at night and yet are guilty of the same behavior.
> It boggles the mind that people can live with themselves and can carry on living with such guilt. Then again, maybe it’s my western sense of morality that tells me the perpetrator should feel guilt. Perhaps they don’t...
The average westerner walks around in clothing made by incredibly desperate people living in poverty who work long hours in horrible conditions.
Why did you feel the need to say “western sense of morality” rather than just “sense of morality”?
The article describes national outrage at this story of injustice, your implication is that a larger “eastern” sense of morality has allowed this to happen, rather than the corrupt individuals named.
Have a look at statistics on corruption in non-Western countries. Then compare those to that of Western countries. Bribes, cover-ups, corruption, and so on, is rife. At least in western countries most people have the shame to try and hide it. But in many cultures, what we would consider a bribe, is simply a part of doing business.
> This woman had her entire life stripped away from her, not to mention making her doubt her own abilities by implying she “failed” the exam.
Not just hers, her entire family. They worked together to help her do her best, including her brother dropping school. How much that conversation have gone when the results came back that she failed.
Unbelievable. Apparently some people have been punished, but what sort of punishment can make up for the awful position this family has been in for 15 years?
> and even that is probably covered by some sort of insurance scheme
Also what a lot of people don't seem to think about is that said insurance scheme premiums aren't generally paid for from the company's profits, but rather from increasing customer fees enough to cover it.
Fraudsters aren't actually taking money from the pockets of the company, but rather from the company's other customers.
Back in the days when electronics records were not the norm there were a lot of these things especially in less-developed provinces. Nowadays it's better but I'd suspect there are still things similar going on.
In the less developed areas of China the so called "Cheng Guan Wu Ju Tou" (The five masters of the town, usually includes the party secretary, the town mayor, vice mayors and maybe a couple of other important officials e.g. the head of the finance bureau) holds a lot of power over the general populace. Their family members also hold other important positions and they have been living in the same areas for maybe centuries.
Historically the central government had to rely on these local masters but nowadays it's getting the upper hand and a lot of these things are being reported publicly. It's kind of difficult to do the same thing (as in the BBC report) nowadays as electronic records are everywhere.
>Back in the days when electronics records were not the norm there were a lot of these things especially in less-developed provinces. Nowadays it's better but I'd suspect there are still things similar going on.
Like some Chinese criminals with money hiring body doubles to serve their prison term for them.
Yeah heard that too years ago. I remembered back in maybe 5 years ago marriage information is not shared among the provinces so technically you can marry multiple times in different provinces and not got caught...
> Until today, the imposter's colleagues still know her as Chen Chunxiu, say media reports. Her degree has since been revoked and she has been sacked from her job. A government report says she is still under investigation.
Is it nuts to anyone else that the more powerful, socially connected person stole the poorer but better scoring person's identity for not only school, but continued to be her professionally for years after?
I was reading and wondering what good this did if someone else got the degree, and was flabbergasted to see that the imposter just decided to take over the identity in perpetuity. I would assume in the west that usually only happens when the imposter's original identity is problematic (a criminal, poor and trying to hob-nob with elites, etc). In this case we have the child of an obviously well connected (and I assume well-off) official willing to take over someone else's identity.
> Is it nuts to anyone else that the more powerful, socially connected person stole the poorer but better scoring person's identity for not only school, but continued to be her professionally for years after?
For Chinese professionals, your school network -- the alumni and peers -- is a large influence in finding a job after graduation and helping get promoted.
Well-off people sometimes turn to thrill seeking. Apparently financially stable stay-at-home housewives are a big demographic in loss prevention because they steal for fun.
I can see that, but I also don't expect those people to take over the identity entirely. Financially stable stay-at-home housewives have a lot of things tying them to their real identity.
This story reminds me of the stories that were common on my country of origin in South America. We had free high level education, but there was a system rigged to preserve nepotism. I was in Russia for the World Cup in 2018 and heard the same crap.
The US has evolved a similar rigging for our privileged. We supply various obscure sports accolades that can be purchased for the children of wealthy families to obtain admission to our leading universities. Unfortunately our schemes have also been exposed and a number of people are being prosecuted. So for the moment one must resort to investing in rather costly facility construction or similar expansion projects while we develop low cost alternatives to replace the now compromised schemes.
IMHO the situation of the USA is worlds apart from what I experienced as a kid in South America. The systemic corruption is normalized in Latin America. I remember when my dad bought a car that looked nice and we considered trading it because transit cops would stop us every now and then to get a tip from us. If we didn't agree to tip, we could potentially be arrested and paying your way out of the commissary was more expensive. The privileged had government printed plates that stopped cops messing with the occupants of the car.
I came to the USA to have the future I couldn't have back there, and I call bullshit on your comparison. I didn't go to an ivy league school, I went to a public school, and today I make hiring decisions over engineering candidates with Ivy League school backgrounds. That type of social mobility is a fantasy in South America and the other countries you are trying to compare with the USA.
100% the US is better than the more corrupt countries in the world, even if it does seem we tend to have more problems than the other first world countries. But on nepotism, I wonder if it’s not just that we are somewhat more against nepotism, and more that there’s wealth of opportunity here such that parents can help their children in potentially dubious ways while still leaving plenty of positions and money to go around for everyone else. There’s always a bit of a back and forth pull between culture creating a countries conditions and conditions creating a countries culture after all.
It's even simpler than that, the US has a codified system of nepotism in place called legacy admissions, which has been in place for several decades [1].
> In a deposition, Rakesh Khurana, dean of the college, said a legacy preference can foster another kind of diversity: placing people with deep Harvard experience alongside those without it.
They refer to nepotism as "deep Harvard experience", that's the only difference.
Technically nepotism means giving favors to your own family, not granting membership to your exclusive school to people of the same family. Your real issue is that this private school is still seen as exclusive despite doing this, and that the legacy admits gain unearned reputation due to their admission. But this is not Harvard's doing, they do not control what others think of their students. This is the rest of society being ignorant.
A better example of nepotism in college admissions has occurred in the past where Governors or other politicians had the ability to give scholarships at major universities in their state, and they customarily gave these to their own children or those of friends. For that matter many school overtly give benefits to their faculty and staff such as free tuition for immediate family members. Perhaps even an easier chance at admission for some.
Hmmm, there probably is actually a benefit to the other students there, but not “Harvard Experience.” Assuming the child of a previous Harvard grad is more likely to have important social connections than the average applicant, them being at the school gives other people potential opportunity to make connections through them. And connections do of course matter a lot.
Regardless, the reason colleges actually do legacy admissions both seems obvious and isn’t something they’re likely to say. It makes Alumni happy, and keeping Alumni happy is how you get those fat $donations$.
I view the legacy stuff as a but more nuanced. Universities want to admit people that really want to go there, and that will increase their prestige later through some combination of espousing the benefits of that school, becoming famous, or becoming successful. It's not hard to see how the legacy systems tick a few of these boxes automatically, making those candidates seem slightly better than others (if nothing else, the candidate probably really wants this as their college over any other choices, and will likely have more pressure from self and family to complete college and do well).
The problem then, as I see it, is not legacy consideration helping people get admitted, but legacy considerations overriding the other criteria. If legacy considerations where only a 15-20% in applicant suitability, I think most people wouldn't be that upset about it. When it leads to wholly and obviously unsuitable people going, that's probably when the legacy system has gone out of control.
More nuanced nepotism is...nepotism. You're basically saying that whether or not your parents went to some school should positively influence as much as one-fifth of the consideration of whether you could go to a school or not.
That is, if you scored this in a rubric, some kid whose parents went to Harvard would score 20 and I would score 0. That is wrong on a fundamental level. It's a bit like anti-affirmative action.
I am fine with this system as it stands. However, it is wildly inconsistent with the pearl-clutching top comment (I know, not you) spewing stuff about the "Western sense of morality".
> That is, if you scored this in a rubric, some kid whose parents went to Harvard would score 20 and I would score 0. That is wrong on a fundamental level.
Is it? Why?
I think it depends on the amount of government funding they get. For a completely private university, is it wrong? I think it's wrong for a university that gets a majority of its funding from the state to act this way, but for universities that have giant billion dollar endowments? Sure, let them manage at least some of the admissions somewhat as they would as if private.
> It's a bit like anti-affirmative action.
It's exactly like affirmative action, except to benefit the university. I think being able to apply this on some small percentage of the students, maybe five percent, is acceptable.
It's going to happen, why not account for it and control it rather than make everyone involved act like it isn't happening and then we just have a vague sense that it happens but little info and control over it?
Not the author, but it could be either. For donations 10-40x as large as those in the recent fraud I think you're referencing the Universities are absolutely fine letting students in.
While I’m not so sure all of the universities were as blissfully ignorant as they claim, what does it matter? The system was still rigged in favor of wealthier applicants with or without the schools’ knowledge and awareness of the scheme.
Suppose you’re the president or another executive at a major university. Imagine, for the sake of argument, that you are entirely amoral. You find out that one of your employees is taking bribes, falsifying athletic recruit records, and personally pocketing the money. Do you:
(a) look the other way because you like rigging the system, or
(b) fire them and call the FBI.
I think (b) is the clear answer. Even if you want the children of the rich and powerful in your university, you want to
know who they are, you want to collect any money that comes with it into the university’s coffers, and you do not want your employees enriching themselves at your university’s expense.
Add in the fact that most universities’ presidents are unlikely to be entirely amoral, and I think it’s pretty hard to conclude that this particular incident indicates corruption at the top levels.
(Sure, one might argue that the fact that athletic recruiting requests are considered at all for admissions is a problem, but the case in question wasn’t really about this.)
If it was corruption because employees lied, violated their employment contracts, etc. in return for bribes, then the system is not "rigged". Important distinction, because in one case the system actually is striving to be better, even if humans break rules now and then.
"We supply various obscure sports accolades that can be purchased for the children of wealthy families to obtain admission to our leading universities."
? I don't really think this is the mechanism.
When major donors, who are alumni and part of the institution, ask for a favour to have a slot for their kid ... to me that may seem 'unfair' but it's also above bar if the school wants to do that and I have no problem with it so long as it doesn't take up a huge share of any particular intake.
Polo, sailing, rowing, football, basketball, baseball... You name it; for a few hundred thousand you can have fake sports credentials fabricated -- complete with photoshopped team memberships -- and get yourself pencil-whipped into UoT, Yale, UCLA, USD, Georgetown, etc.
Please don't post nationalistic flamebait to HN, even if you're personally of that nation. It starts flamewars either way, and we don't want those here.
I don't think it's really flamebait to make that observation. There genuinely are significant cultural differences regarding what's regarded as fair play between various regions in the world. That needs to be understood, particularly among readers of HN who, as a demographic, work with co-workers, contractors, or businesses across borders more often than the average population.
If you don't think it's flamebait, you haven't seen the flamewars that such comments lead to. It's our job to be the fire department here. If someone tosses off a lit match at a gas station, that's either arson or criminal negligence, and the fires burn the same either way.
There are good reasons why the site guidelines say "Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive." and "Eschew flamebait." It's not as if we sat down and dreamt them up one day. They come from many years of experience and directly address how internet forums function, and commenters here need to follow them.
No dang, you’re wrong. This is like arresting a man who is walking down a dark alley with cash in his pocket for “robbery baiting,” which is insane. His comment is civil, polite and on topic. Censor people who actually flame. don’t punish people for saying what they think is true. Again, this guy hasn’t made any personal attacks or broken the rules in any way. Cmon.
It's absurd to say that slurring "the general attitude of Chinese people" was civil, polite, and on topic. If you say that, I can only imagine that you're not coming into contact with the very large numbers of people who would find such a comment to be the opposite of civil and polite. That's not our situation, and we have to take care of all HN users. Everyone has the right to come here and not see their country or race or ethnic background (or similar groupings they may belong to) put down in that way.
Perhaps you don't feel like this matters, but I can tell you for a fact that people have been hounded off this site by comments of this nature (e.g. China-related slurs), including extremely ugly personal attacks. I don't want to have anything to do with a site where that happens, and I don't believe that the vast majority of this community would either. None of us wants that community. But we can easily end up with it anyway, if we're not careful, because that's how group dynamics work.
Part of the problem here is that the forum feels like an intimate conversation, and in intimate conversation there is more latitude for talking in a grand and speculative way about this stuff, especially if you have high trust from previous interactions. But when you post to HN what you're actually doing is broadcasting to millions of people. Public broadcasting has to have different standards. Imagine what would result if a million people heard the things that you (or I, or any of us) said to your friends, without any mitigating context.
I just respectfully disagree. So it’s not possible to be civil or polite while pointing out an unfortunate or unpleasant fact? This is obviously ridiculous. It isn’t hounding and it isn’t slurring and it isn’t personal attacks. You have trouble seeing the difference for some reason. All national groups have problems and the only way they get fixed, the only way we’ve made progress, is by refusing to overlook problems for the sake of not stepping on anyone’s toes. Or for the sake of political expediency, Dan.
Unfortunate and unpleasant facts can apply to an entire country and culture. There is no physical law in the universe that prevents this from happening.
In reality, for this specific topic, the canyon is not so wide as you believe and I don't think you have the relevant cultural context to make such a judgement call on how wide it is. It's a century old question... how much freedom of speech and how much censorship and at what cost?
In this case you chose to censor something that could potentially be flame bait (but wasn't) at the cost of preventing any discussion about a very real and general truth about China.
>"Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive." and "Eschew flamebait."
I mean, tbh, these are rather vague guidelines. You could say my comments are "thoughtful and substantive." I made an observation that the corruption in the article had many responsible parties and people from all walks of life participating in it, more than what would normally happen in the states. The fact that so many people participated does say something about the culture in general.
As for "eschew flamebait"... how much flame did this post cause? There's definitely a bit a flame, but I would say overall a flamewar didn't happen. So basically you're wrong. You use your "experience" to justify the warning but I would say your experience is wrong for this case... most of the sub threads aren't things that I would classify as flame.
I get where you come from though. It's hard to see from a distance whether a comment will cause a forrest fire.
Maybe put out the forest fire if you see one starting, but don't ban the use of matches all together.
"It only started a bit of a fire in this case" is obviously not a good argument, especially when the fire department showed up to contain it.
I'm sorry, but I have to pull rank about this, based on years of experience and god knows how many thousands of cases of dealing with this. The issue is the expected value of the subthread: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
If you're going to comment on a topic this inflammatory, you need to include way more flame retardant in your comment. Two helpful ways to do that are (1) be clear and explicit about your intent, and (2) speak about your own personal experience.
>"It only started a bit of a fire in this case" is obviously not a good argument, especially when the fire department showed up to contain it.
You didn't contain anything. You didn't even respond to the subthread where people were were actually starting fires. You just threw a warning at me after most of the conversation already played out. Not only did a fire not happen, you showed up after most people left the premises.
>I'm sorry, but I have to pull rank about this,
Go ahead and pull rank man. You can even ban me if you wanted to, it's your right. I'm not trying to say anything to the contrary. The servers are based in the states, but they're private property so you are 100% in your rights to do whatever you want.
>The issue is the expected value of the subthread
No offense, but your "years of experience" or "expected value" is equivalent to your "biased opinion" because, as other people in this thread and I have shown, we had another "biased opinion" on what that probability distribution for the expected value looked like. To me it doesn't look like flame bait and it looks like their's plenty of flame retardant as well. Either way, none of these predictions or opinions really matter in the face of what actually occurred.
The expected value of a post is a moving target that eventually coalesces into the actual demonstrated value of the post.
The actual value of this post demonstrates that no flamewar occurred. So you were wrong while other people and I were right.
Whatever... if you want me to add more "flame retardant" next time I'll add it. It doesn't change the fact that for this thread you showed up onsite with a firehose to put out a fire that never occurred.
This wasn't flame bait. It was just an observation. Please realize that it was other people who decided to flame. Just because someone decides to have a bad attitude doesn't make my post flame bait.
I made a general observation about corruption and culture, other people decided to respond to it in a bad way.
If this type of comment isn't allowed on HN it's a form of censorship. Basically I can't say anything negative about a culture or a country because it's classified as flame bait.
This is similar to the way the CCP practices censorship in China. People in my country basically can't say anything negative about it. Thank you for perpetuating that sentiment here on HN.
"It says a lot about the general attitude of Chinese people" in the context of a story about fraud is obvious flamebait. Please follow the site guidelines. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
You can call moderation 'censorship'—people mostly just mean by it that they don't like something. I don't see the similarity to the communist party myself, but have been accused of communism so often by now—invariably after doing a bit of standard moderation that somebody disliked—that it has all come to seem more internet-silly than anything anybody actually believes.
>"It says a lot about the general attitude of Chinese people" in the context of a story about fraud is obvious flamebait.
The context is fraud in China. The context involves multiple people from all walks of life and society in China contributing to the fraud. A stark contrast to how corruption occurs in the states. I don't think it's obvious flamebait at all. The definition of what is flamebait itself is rather vague..
A good way to definitively define flamebait is to call it any comment which starts a flamewar.
This means a definitive classification of flamebait can only be crystallized after the posting of the comment in question and observing the resulting aftermath...
In this case I see no flamewar, so I don't believe my comment constitutes as such.
To be more specific, I think it says a lot about the general attitude of people that have grown up under the CCP, and the 'take what you can get or starve' environment they've fostered.
It's seen in other ways like lack of queuing, littering, and the general corruption throughout all levels of bureaucracy.
The attitude is far less pervasive in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, or other countries with significant Chinese populations.
I'm not sure it's fair to place the blame solely on the CCP. A lot of the less desirable behavior stemmed from scarcity of resources, especially when the country was poor.
Can't comment too much on corruption as I don't have much experience there, but I have noticed things like lining up and littering get better as the standard of living has improved over the years.
For sure, thanks for being more specific. I definitely noticed the overall attitude is generally different for Asians who are not of Chinese Nationality.
It’s also common in India which had a socialist economy with the same “take or starve” outcome until the 90s. It prevails to this day due to to corruption.
Discrimination against any culture or race is also a form or bias.
"Raw objectivity" would be this instance says a lot about the common nature of human beings, the consequences of lack of accountability and oversight etc.
Drawing conclusion on Chinese people requires either strong empirical evidence, or prejudice.
Nobody is being prideful, your logic is shoddy. Your hypothesis and the null hypothesis both lead to the same observation. To disprove the null you have to actually observe non-Chinese not cheating. Given that half the comments here are people complaining about something similar happening in their own countries, the evidence points towards the null hypothesis.
I'm curious as to how these tests compare to the US SAT. You can take the SAT multiple times and submit your best attempt.
In this story, the test seems one and done. You get 1 attempt and you either get in, or you don't.
Also reminds me of the story from India like 1 or 2 years ago where a test had faulty answers and people thought they didn't get into university because of that
First, they are offered once a year. Didn't do as well as you hope? Try again next year.
Second, the material is significantly harder. Take math as an example. The exam questions are a lot closer to AMC/AIME than to SAT. In fact, suppose language is not a problem, many Chinese middle schooler would do pretty well on SAT's math section. Also you are not allowed any calculator.
Finally, for the vast majority of students, the test score is literally the only factor deciding whether you get into college. Basically, you will provide an ordered list of preferences to colleges and majors, and the student with top score's request would be satisfied first, then the second, the third, etc.
One 'neat' tweak that the Indians take is the publication of the scores. You find out how you did because your name and score are printed in the newspaper, along with everyone else's.
So all the gossipy aunties and your folk's friends know your score and you know the scores of everyone else in school.
The social pressure to do well is insane. Your score reflects on your family, not just you.
Publications of scores doesn't happen any more, atleast for the exams similar to the gaokao, which would be the JEE. It happened only for localised exams AFAIK, where almost all applicants were local, and the pool was small enough to be printed on a newspaper. In the pre internet era, it might have been necessary though, since it wouldn't have been possible to mail all scores and expect perfect delivery in the rural parts of the country. But the internet has ensured almost all test results are online now and not published openly.
Vaguely reminds me of the Cambridge (UK) system. Your scores can be checked online, and you can now request they not be published, but the way everyone in my social group found out their results was to make the twenty minute walk to the University admin buildings and look at the printed list posted outside.
It got the "What did you get?" conversations out of the way pretty quickly!
Here in Norway, we don't have any entrance exams - your HS grades are the only thing that counts - along with some extra points for age, military service, etc.
For the most prestigious University majors, this results in two sets of students: Those that had good enough grades to get in on their first try, straight out of school - or those that simply have to wait X number of years, until they've re-taken enough classes, gained enough age points, and what not.
One roomie of me during college had spent like 5 years doing all that, before finally getting accepted to medical studies. It's insane.
But still, with all that, I really feel bad for the students in China / India / Singapore / etc. where your future pretty much rests on one exam, and that's that.
At least here in the west, especially richer northern counties, people can "screw around" for years trying to find their way, without it hurting them too much - financially, or professionally.
I have had to get admitted to high-school and college by a similar 'one exam' system, and in my time you could only pick just one high-school or college to apply to. This forced me to learn really hard in the 8th and 12th grades, like everyone in my generation. Admission was solely based on the exam score. It was scary but it made for well prepared students.
Calculators shouldn’t be allowed on any mathematics examination. With limited exceptions, high-school mathematics and beyond is not really about arithmetic or numerical solutions, but about demonstrating understanding, which you don’t need a calculator for.
Questions on exams that use numerics also put people with dyscalculia at a disadvantage even if they have great ability at differential and integral calculus and other symbolic operations.
But mainly because it’s the best way to sneak-in crib notes past the exam invigilators. Especially in the US where everyone uses TI graphical calculators (yay for regulatory capture).
It's once a year and in general I'd say they are tougher than SAT.
Here is what I know back then as a student who took GaoKao in the 90s:
1. GaoKao also has provincial variants.
For example, back in the year when I took GaoKao, my city used a form called "3+1", which means 3 primary (Chinese, Math and English) plus 1 auxiliary. You can choose the auxiliary at the end of 11th grade, and the choices are Politics, History, Biology, Physics, Chemistry, etc. Other provinces used different forms but the majority were and still are on "3+2", so instead of one auxiliary they have to prepare for two.
From what I recalled, a few years after some provinces switched to 3+X (X depends on your choice). You still only get 1 exam for the X though.
2. Different universities have different entry scores for different provinces.
For example, I got a score of 420/600 I think? The university I went to actually charged different entry scores for different provinces. It makes sense in one way, as different provinces have different forms of GaoKao, but overall it's very unfair to students from less developed areas. I won't expand the reasoning from here but it has been a huge debate since decades ago.
This test is absolutely brutal compared to the SAT. Imagine if US students were subjected to three days of testing, eight hours each day, that included all the SAT II subjects plus regular SAT subject matter. Oh, and throw in a whole section on Middle English, too.
In Brazil, you're tested on 10+ subjects, ~half of which are open questions and the other half are multiple choice, plus an essay.
Which subject goes in each of those categories depends on the major you're applying for, so you have to decide what you'll want to study in university at age ~17 (or prior to that, really, when you're 15 in High School so you can focus your studies on the harder questions). For instance, if you want to go to Med School (which is an undergrad course in Brazil), you need to know all things Biology, from Nemathelminthes to the Krebs Cycle. Conversely, if you want to go Law School (also undergrad) or major in History, you'll need to know everything that happened between Plato and Gorbachev including really in-depth stuff on Brazilian history. The problem is, all of the High School classes are the same regardless of your intended exam – you have to learn all of the above for school along with everyone else.
And you get to take the same exam for each university you apply to, meaning you basically spend a year taking exams at various dates for all the good universities. Each major has X number of spots available to candidates, to the top X scores get in. Your extracurriculars, who you are as a person, anything on your resume is irrelevant. All that matters is your score.
Want to switch majors? Gotta drop out, take the exam again and restart your university life.
The SAT by comparison is an absolute joke of an exam
> Your extracurriculars, who you are as a person, anything on your resume is irrelevant. All that matters is your score.
Sounds absolutely brutal. That said, I was caught with the quoted paragraph. Why should your extracurricular hobbies or "you as a person" matter? As far as I see, all that should be considered in university admissions is indeed your test scores.
You'll see the term "well rounded" thrown around a lot in discussions like this. The idea is that elite schools (or even just good ones) can take their pick of academic high-performers, so they seek out students who are more than just academic high performers.
They become very interested in questions like "does this person have volunteer experience that might have exposed them to a worldview larger than themselves?", "do they have a sport or hobby they enjoy which might provide them a boon in mental health?", "have they done anything which would require practical application of skills or collaboration beyond raw book learning?"
The same kind of thing comes up in job interviews all the time. As a hiring manager, I'm of course most interested in whether the candidate can perform the hard requirements of the job as described. But I'd also like signals about whether you're at risk for burnout, whether you might have empathy for differing points of view, or whether you can think on your feet in non-ideal scenarios or whether you'll crumble if a plan changes or a compromise must be found.
People are complex, and well-roundedness is a worthwhile goal on its own for a complex world. There are relatively few scenarios outside of standardized testing where raw academic or technical ability is the exclusive measure of a person.
Thanks for the thoughtful reply, this makes sense to me: if you have books full of top qualifying candidates, it can be beneficial to have a secondary selection criteria.
I'm not familiar with an academic system like this so I can't really comment if it's giving good outcomes vs. purely academic selection. My country is small enough to have a single top tier university and multiple second level institutions, so I'm ingrained with the idea you should choose the best academic candidates from a limited applicant pool.
I think it's more about trying to identify people with self-agency and leadership qualities. Schools generally prefer to have an above-average-intelligence alum who changes the world, over a brilliant alum who retreats from it and gains their satisfaction in life from introverted pursuits like learning things.
College itself is where you get a larger worldview. Requiring people have it already seems like a great way to exclude people trapped by family and financial constraints.
Something similar applies to the UK, at least when I went to university there. Almost everything comes down to exam results on a particular day with (essentially) four years of prep work leading up to that day.
Each university publishes the grades they will accept at a minimum for each major so you essentially choose your major at 17, or really 15 as mentioned above, because you need certain subjects with an “A” result to enroll at the university.
At uni itself, almost all classes are mandatory for a given major with only one or two chances to take an elective. Failing a class at any point usually means either dropping out completely or being moved to a less prestigious major (e.g. “general science” instead of a CS degree).
Because maybe you did something interesting in your young life that others aspire to achieve like: front a popular rock band[0], star in a popular television series[1] or a few movies[2][3], or even change a professional sport [4]?
I'm not sure why you linked to these people though? These achievements may be tales to recite to your grandchildren but none of this should come up in academic entrance decisions. These people have chosen a career in entertainment which is completely orthogonal to higher learning.
Many universities aren't just about academics though. They wouldn't have things like, say, theatre clubs if they were. At some level, universities are about helping to prepare young people for life and a career. Certainly a lot of what I got out of the various degrees I obtained had very little to do with specific courses I took.
Yes, different clubs are common and beneficial, and there's a lot of growing taking place during your uni years. But the parent was linking to professional actors, and I fail to see any relation there. The topic wasn't about admissions to theatrical majors in art universities.
I would much rather learn from somebody who has done it professionally at a very high level than some academic (or worse, a wannabe academic) who is all theory and no results.
You see no value to taking a music theory class with a platinum artist in your discussions on song structure? Or maybe the rock star wants to expand his horizons a bit and is also in your Ethics class discussing the effect of Napster on his ability to afford tuition. Or maybe he sits next to you in Econ and wants to use his experience in the music biz as the basis for your group project. etc, etc...
Forget the exam nerds, I'll take the real players every time. YMMV
I'm all for rock stars expanding their horizons if they score better than those nerds. Though the education is even in that case likely better invested in the student aiming to get a career in the field, rather than in a rock star's recreational studies.
The "real players" could also visit as guest lecturers on your music theory class, assuming they have good enough merits on the subject.
At least a couple of them were English Lit majors. But I don't really disagree that well-known actors who attended university off and on are really the best examples.
That said, you might be surprised at the number of people who even go to a school like MIT and end up in journalism or something else that isn't obviously related to what you associate the school with.
>Why should your extracurricular hobbies or "you as a person" matter?
They certainly do at elite US schools. The logic is that there's no shortage of students who could handle the academic work but Harvard or even MIT aren't looking just to admit the students who did best on an exam.
Added: The way it at least used to be done (and I assume this still applies at least somewhat) was that quantitative academic scores are used to set something of a floor but, beyond that, they were just one of the factors that went into admissions decisions. (With weights and other considerations doubtless varying by school.)
My understanding is AP test results are usually used to grant credit for college classes, and not as an admission requirement? I guess it could be a factor in admissions, too, but I recall mostly people doing it to get a bit of a head start towards graduation, rather than to get a better shot at admission. (People passing AP tests are likely to get in _somewhere_, even if not their first choice)
What do you take issue with? The first two are clearly factual. AP tests are limited to a single subject and are 2-3 hours in length.
My comment on grading is also pretty objective, imo. Your AP score is 1-5. And the curve is crazy; when I took AP Physics C E&M I would have gotten a 5 whether I scored 60% or 100%. When reported, though, nobody will know what percentage of the points you scored. OTOH gaokao scores are reported in full.
Sometimes it's no better here in the west. I know of a situation where a Chinese student fabricated every source for a paper. Completely made up everything. The professor saw right through it immediately and failed her. But the university big wigs told the professor to give the student a passing grade. The student graduated university.
IMO this whistle needs to be blown because as who knows how many dangerous engineers, doctors, or whatever other safety critical professions are being graduated.
I think this is a good opportunity to discuss on what would be the ideal process for selecting students for higher education.
China's system is probably the fairer one compared to US. I don't know the system at Europe India, or any other nations ranked high in intellectual competitiveness. Would be interested in learning the details.
Additionally, conventional higher education is mostly obsolete. Technically, one absolutely can access the same quality education outside of a typical 4 year university. That is a sea-level change compared to that in 10-20 years ago.
Prominent institutions today primarily serve as social selection process to find the compatible individuals and assimilate them into the elite class.
My observations identify that as obvious in US. China also have similar setup in Tsinghua and Beijing university. Especially since Hu Jintao's presidency, while the majority of the standing committee of CCP Politburo are from these 2 institutions. And the culture aura attached to them is also purposefully cultivated by CCP and the government.
Now, what is the proper mechanism to prevent the small fraction of elite institutions from inbreeding, and make sure a diverse and representative student body be admitted into these institutions. For example, it was a huge problem in China that the students into the better higher education institutions have <10% from non-urban areas, while the total population has 57% in non urban areas. This number used to be >20%.
> At China's parliament meeting last month, there were calls for college admission identity theft to be criminalised. One delegate said it was "much more harmful than [monetary] theft".
It's not already criminalised? I would expect fraud to be illegal.
It's not exactly like that. For example, university official will track you down (through phone call, through help of local official or your high school official/teacher) if you didn't enroll. This is done to ensure people (especially from rural areas) don't give up their admission due to difficulties (for example, economical ones).
Obviously these doesn't help when some one takes your identity and enrolls on your behalf.
Even if there is rejection letter. It probably wouldn't make a difference to the subject of this article. A fake rejection can be easily fabricated (especially if the recipient doesn't know what a real one should look like.)
Also, the subject knows his/her score. The university has limited discretion to deny admission of people above the score threshold. At the end, it all comes down to low social economic status and corrupted officials working against the subject.
But the parent comment was about neither genocide nor systemic racism. It was about corruption and how, despite it taking different paths in the US, it's equally reprehensible.
Is it in the West or Non West where these horrible trangressions are openly discussed and citizens freely elect new officials and educate themselves so such things can never happen again?
Something I've heard from Chinese people online about the difference between the US and China is that in America, you could be a plumber/auto mechanic/skilled trades and still have a middle-income lifestyle and a decent amount of societal respect. In China, working with your hands puts you on the lower rungs in society, hence everyone wants to get into college.
The kind of cultural attitude you describe reflects the supply and demand logistics of the economic conditions that were responsible for modern China as it is today.
Modern China was built off the backs of Cheap Manual laborers
That's in the past in the US. It was true until maybe 20-30 years ago.
China today seems to put bright people into improving manufacturing technology. There are PhD theses from China on electrolytic capacitor free switching power supply designs for LED lightbulbs. US academia would frown on something that practical.
Even more perverse, there seems to be a broad sense that this is the way things should be. This is one of the secret strengths of right-wing populism. You can see it when tabloids whip up resentment against tube workers for paralysing London during contract disputes: the very fact that tube workers can paralyse London shows that their work is actually necessary, but this seems to be precisely what annoys people. It's even clearer in the US, where Republicans have had remarkable success mobilizing resentment against school teachers, or auto workers (and not, significantly, against the school administrators or auto industry managers who actually cause the problems) for their supposedly bloated wages and benefits. It's as if they are being told ‘but you get to teach children! Or make cars! You get to have real jobs! And on top of that you have the nerve to also expect middle-class pensions and health care?’
I don't think "deserve" is the best word to use, but I can absolutely see how it's a deciding factor whether you get to live a comfortable and secure life, vs pretty much working to survive.
But that's not really unique to China. One can go to the more expensive cities in the western world, and take a look at how the working classes are just surviving. Zero upward mobility, once you're trapped in those jobs - from a professional point of view.
I've had the great displeasure of working minimum wage dead-end jobs, in a major city, and it was the most stressing thing of my life. Poor pay, ever-increasing rents and general living costs, zero job security, close to no prospects of owning your own apartment or home.
You don't really feel like a permanent resident. Just a transient passing through, and when the jig us up, you're out.
How do these people live with themselves, especially the daughter of the CCP official who assumed the stolen identity? I’m sure financial criminals justify their behavior by telling themselves that in the end corporations suffer the cost of the theft, but in this case a single individual was forced to bear the brunt of this fraud for the rest of her life considering how important and life altering a good exam score is in China.
It boggles the mind that people can live with themselves and can carry on living with such guilt. Then again, maybe it’s my western sense of morality that tells me the perpetrator should feel guilt. Perhaps they don’t...