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Bonus material: Class mobility in China

It is crucial to understand why education is held with such utmost importance in East Asian culture.

In 103 BC, the Han Emperor Wu (aka the Martial Emperor of Han) made a decision that would change world history forever. The nomadic Xiongnu tribes in the north have always been a nuisance for the Central Plains governments. The periodic raids into the border towns have mostly been opportunistic raids, with the nomadic tribes taking advantage of their cavalry mobility. It wasn’t that the Central Plains armies were not capable of defeating the Xiongnu tribes, but it had always been a question of costs. Usually, you settle with some bribes, they go away for some years before coming back for more. It was the cost effective solution that held the balance for a long period.

Imagine Trump wanting to mobilize the entire US military to expel the Canadians into Russia Far East. It is not that the US is not capable of doing so, but the costs would be exceedingly high, all three of the political, economic and social costs.

But that’s the Han Emperor Wu wanted to achieve. He would launch the greatest Northern Expedition ever seen at the time, and with capable generals like Wei Qing and Huo Qubing, absolutely steamrolled the Xiongnu nomadic cavalry.

The third and final Northern Expedition would double the territory of the Han Dynasty, reaching as far as modern day Xinjiang! The Xiongnu nomads were forced migrate west and eventually their descendants became the Huns, who would wreak havoc in Europe centuries later.

But… at what cost? lol, you ask.

The cost is that to sustain the huge logistics necessary for the Han military for their long expeditions, the peasants were coerced to increase their output under excessively demanding conditions. The people would be squeezed to their death, fighting a war that most of them had never even heard of.

This was when the feudal lords (豪族, haozu) began to take center stage. Amidst hardship, coercion, forced conscription and levy from the government, the peasants took refuge under the protection of the feudal lords, who often held their own private army, land, farms, and production bases. The peasants voluntarily turned to slavery, because at least you are not left to fend for yourself against banditry, and the evil government officials who want to squeeze every grain out of you to embellish their results, or worse, dragging you to join the army.

The rise of the feudal lords would eventually evolve into the infamous Guanlong group by the 5th-7th century AD, an oligarchy holding very important positions in the imperial court and in regional provinces.

To fight back against the overarching influence of the oligarchs, the Imperial Court Examination began to take shape starting in the 5th century AD during the Northern Wei dynasty to seek talented and qualified officials from the lower classes (寒门), as a means of counter-balancing force against the oligarchs (门阀). The examination would become a fully mature institution by the 8th century under Wu Zetian during the Tang dynasty, the first and only female emperor in Chinese history.

The significance of the Imperial Court Examination would influence Chinese culture for the next 1500 years. This became the only chance that a person from the lower class can ascend to the higher class. A mechanism for upward class mobility.

As the saying goes, 一人得道，鸡犬升天 (one person gets promoted, even his chickens and dogs get to ascend to the heaven), meaning that if you won the examination prize and become a government official, it would be a ticket for your entire extended family, including those of your teachers, to ascend to a higher class. A much much higher class, with a lot more material benefits to reap.

As such, for many poor families, usually one kid (the eldest son) was tasked to study, while his brothers and sisters worked in the farm. This coincided with the invention of woodblock printing, and later paper, that drastically reduced the cost of accessing books for the lower classes. If the son became a local official, then their fate would be completely changed.

Even in the modern days, examination offers a one-way ticket for class mobility. It is no different for Japan and South Korea, having been influenced by Chinese culture. Getting a job at Samsung will literally change your life in South Korea, you simply have to compete with the rest of the nation to get there.

In China, that’s what gaokao is about, for getting into higher education. That’s why the kids study so hard. To be a civil servant, you also have to take the civil servant exam (考公), which is equally as competitive. Once you are part of the 60 million civil servants in China, you are “in the system” (在体制内), you have guaranteed employment, good salary, social benefits and welfare that are inaccessible to the rest of the working class.

Funnily enough, back in the 2000s and 2010s, becoming a civil servant was actually not very encouraged. It was seen as a boring career choice with not much upward trajectory. If you’re a civil servant, you could be tasked to some random town and that’s easily the next 20 years of your life. And because your supervisor isn’t that much older, you’re probably not going to get promoted any time soon. You won’t have much choice, but you will at least have guaranteed employment and benefits.

Back then, it wasn’t an attractive choice. However, since Covid, with the economic downturn, the number of people taking the civil servant examination has exploded. The total number of people taking the examination was 2.8 million people this year (!!), with an intake ratio of 74:1 (1.65%). That’s totally wild. People would rather have a stable employment and boring career than to risk it in the private sector. This tells you just how much the times have changed. Totally unthinkable even back in 2018-2019.

And because the civil service force is not going to expand much (mostly replacing the retiring employees), with the local governments experiencing increasing financial strains as their debt bubble becomes unsustainable, and with AI starting to replace all the desk jobs, the situation is only going to get worse. The people’s concerns are not unreasonable.

That’s the picture the youth is seeing in China today. What is the point of studying if the door for class mobility is being shut?