2.3. The New Impact of the Idea of "It is Useless to Study"

There is a couple in Zhejiang University who are both Associate Professors. They have three children. They worked for several decades and except books, there wasn’t much else in the house. Later, their first and second child graduated from college; but their life was still as plain and hard as before. A few years ago, their youngest daughter suffered a setback in the college entrance exam and consequently went to work as an assistant to the manager in a luxury hotel. Within a few years, many changes occurred in this household, color TV, refrigerator and such modern appliances entered the house of this poor professor. The old professor proudly said: "All the valuable stuff in the house was bought by the youngest daughter". At the same time of feeling proud, though, he also felt rather sad. (He had) dedicated his whole life to education, had educated many talented people, his works were also numerous, (he) could be said to have made a great contribution to the cause of education. Why is it that he was not even treated as well as the younger daughter who did not go to college?

Others things like this are numerous. There is an engineer in a certain university, whose life had always been very difficult. Even since his illiterate wife set up a snack stall, in just one year he paid back all his debt. The sickly face of this engineer also had some color on it. In addition, there is a young teacher of 26. There were three brothers in his family. The eldest brother who graduated from elementary school spent 100,000 to build a four storied building. The second brother who graduated from high school built a three storied building. He graduated from college, but he could only lived in the one-storied small house his parent left him. He could not even afford to get married, let alone building houses. He pondered for a long time, finally decided not to teach anymore.

Now many teachers are not willing to teach and students are not willing to study, mainly because the living standard for the educated people is too low. Therefore, many schools set up stores and small shops and other profitable enterprises. Many teachers have a second job outside of schools, to increase their income.