56-Year-Old Millionaire Attempts Gaokao Exam for 27th Time in China

UNUSUAL – With graying hair, a well-established fortune, an atypical candidate came to sit alongside millions of Chinese high school graduates. This Wednesday, June 7, Liang Shi, a 56-year-old millionaire, tried to pass the gaokao, equivalent to the baccalaureate, for the… 27th time.

In terms of social success, Liang Shi can be proud. He began his career with a menial job in a factory before founding his own flourishing building materials company.

A “monk’s life”

But the 50-year-old has always kept a frustration, that of not having obtained a sufficient mark in the « gaokao », or entrance exam to institutions of higher education, to be able to integrate the prestigious university of Sichuan, the province of south-west China where he lives.

In the Asian country, this exam is the test of a lifetime, especially for the most modest. Only students with a very high score can access the best universities, in a country where competition is fierce in education, places are limited and family pressure is strong. And a diploma from a recognized university is synonymous with social status and virtual assurance of being recruited by a good company.

This year, in order to be competitive among the 13 million candidates in the ranks, Liang Shi says he conducted a “monk’s life” For many months. Up every day at dawn, he immersed himself, 12 hours a day, in the class manuals.

“I wanted to become an intellectual”

“It is unpleasant to think that I did not manage to go to university”, he told AFP. Because “I really wanted to go there and become an intellectual”. Over the past four decades, he has tried his luck 26 times, but each time his grade was insufficient to open the doors to the university of his choice.

The local media ended up making him a celebrity. “They call me ‘the irreducible of the gaokao'”, he said proudly. When he took the exam for the first time, in 1983, he was only 16 years old. Then, for almost ten years, he ironed it to improve his grade, before throwing in the towel in 1992.

At the time, the authorities limited access to the gaokao to high school students or students under the age of 25. As soon as this limit was lifted in 2001, Liang Shi thought he had a new opportunity.

His son had the baccalaureate before him

He has since taken the exam 16 times, and every year since 2010. Even the Covid period, marked by strict health restrictions complicating the holding of exams, did not discourage him.

His case is intriguing. Some Internet users even wondered if he was doing it just for fame, or as part of an advertising operation. “What would be the point? », respond Liang Shi. “Nobody in their right mind would pass the gaokao for decades for a publicity stunt”.

Sign of his motivation, he says jokingly: he stopped drinking alcohol and playing mah-jong, a traditional game very popular in China, during his preparation for the exam.

His son passed the gaokao in 2011, sometimes a little embarrassed by this multi-recidivist father. “He didn’t really like it at first (that I retake the exam so many times), but now he doesn’t care”raconte Liang Shi.

Once the test passed for the 27th time, the eternal candidate planned to relax a little, after all these months of work. “I’m going to play mah-jong with my friends for three days and three nights!” »he assures.

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