Wang Yuxiang is not really looking forward to the coming weekend, even though he will getthree and a half days off from Friday afternoon for the traditional Qingming Festival.
"My mom says we are not making any tomb-sweeping trips this year. I have to attendEnglish and math classes as on normal weekends, and take three major exams," said Wang, 11.
For the fifth-grader, extra classes and exams by private training companies -- widelybelieved to bring opportunities to enter Beijing's better junior high schools -- matter morethan anything.
Or so his mother Wu Lihua thinks.
"Sweeping tombs can wait but classes and exams cannot," said the Beijing-basedaccountant. "Besides, three days are not enough for us to get back to our ancestral home inHubei, so he might as well concentrate on his studies."
As a result, Wang will be even busier during Qingming than on normal weekends. He willspend Saturday, Sunday and Monday mornings taking exams organized by three differenttraining companies. He has to get up at 6:45 a.m. to be on time, as his doting mother hasforecast traffic jams near the exam sites.
Each exam will last three hours and cover math -- including algebra and geometry that arefar beyond primary school students' curricula, as well as English and Chinese.
Organizers of the exams -- including name brand companies like Juren, Xueersi and Gaosiwhich focus on providing extracurricular training for primary and secondary schoolstudents, said at the end of these tests, they will shortlist the straight-A students for secretadmission tests to Beijing's top schools, using their special "connections" with schoolauthorities.
The underground tests come as a result of Beijing's education authority banning entrancetests for public schools in the 1990s, hoping evenly distribute resources throughout thenine-year compulsory education period.
A recent document from the city education commission restated the ban, and prohibitedpublic schools from collaborating with private training companies in any recruitment tests.
Eliminating these tests, which are much coveted by parents who want their children to behandpicked by the city's best schools, is not easy.
Wu, a college graduate herself, said she is relying on these tests for her son to enter one ofBeijing's best schools. "Schools also want to recruit the best students, so he'll still havechances as long as he studies well."
Wang now studies at a primary school near their home in Chaoyang District in thenortheastern part of Beijing, traditionally considered an underdeveloped area in terms ofschool resources. An ideal high school, as his mother sees it, should be one of the bestschools in the downtown Xicheng District or in Haidian District, northwest of Beijing.
"He will have to compete with about 100,000 Beijing primary school graduates next year,so he must study harder in order to stand out," said Wu.
For Wang, "to study harder" means spending all weekends and holidays attending Englishand math classes and sitting for exams, with little time for sports, games or parties withfriends. Standing no more than 150 cm tall, he weighs 55 kilograms and is near-sighted. .
After a cluster of spring holiday exams, he will attend two Olympic math competitions onApril 12 and 13. In May, he will sit for the Cambridge preliminary English test.
"Hopefully, high scores or award certificates will help pave his way to a good high school,"said Wu.
Wu admits endless cram classes and tests are depriving her only son of a happy childhood.
"But hard work always pays off, so to work hard and take delight in his own achievementsare much better than wasting his time on cartoons or computer games," she said.
Wang is unclear of his own future. When he was a preschooler he longed to be a double-decker bus driver. Now he only hopes he can sleep some extra hours on weekends. Butthat, he was told by him mom, should come after his goal of entering a good high school.
A TIME TO MOURN; A TIME TO STUDY
Qingming Festival, or Tomb-sweeping Day, falls around April 5 each year. The Chinesetraditionally honor their ancestors by sweeping their tombs on the day, and thegovernment made the day a public holiday in 2008 to preserve the tradition.
But Wang Yuxiang and many of his peers can hardly associate the holiday with the oldtradition: some children are busy attending crammers, while others who are not nativeBeijingers and cannot afford the time to travel back to their ancestral homes.
A time for mourning, therefore, has become a time for study and little fun for the children.
A writing assignment on the Qingming Festival has perplexed Li Yutong, a sixth gradestudent in Beijing. "I will have math, English and piano classes on the first two days, and onMonday afternoon, I'm going to see a movie with my friends."
The 12-year-old knows precisely that none of these activities echo the theme of Qingming. "We are supposed to sweep tombs, mourn our ancestors and the heroes," she said. "Butsince our family do not have anyone to mourn right here in Beijing, I might as well searchfor something about the war heroes on the Internet and make up a story."
