A winning 15-page CV — for a 5-year-old
A CV boasting the achievements of a 5-year-old child has gone viral in China, highlighting the highly competitive nature of the country’s private school system.
The 15-page document describes him as “confident” and holding “rich and varied experience” and has gained tens of thousands of shares and comments after being posted on Chinese social media site Weibo by an entertainment blogger.
Some users were quick to mock the child’s myriad achievements.
It states the unnamed boy enjoys “a wide variety of hobbies” outside of school, including piano, hip-hop dancing, football, and Go, a Chinese board game.
One section claims the child has read more than 10,000 books, in Chinese and in English, with a reading list of hundreds from this year alone as an addendum.
A separate colour-coded map of the world shows the countries the child has visited.
Alongside his achievements and hobbies, the CV highlights his “exceptional” character.
It describes him as “strong” — as illustrated by the fact he did not cry when he received his immunisation jabs.
Elsewhere, under the heading “Can withstand defeat”, the CV reads: “If I get told off, I can quickly adjust my mood and actively dedicate myself to my studies.”
The CV is also keen to stress the child’s emotional intelligence: “I write three English essays per week to express my feelings”.
Weibo users were quick to pass judgment.
“It seems that I can’t achieve more than this child in my lifetime,” read one top-rated comment. Others said that the CV had put them off ever having children.
In China, “tiger parents” go to great lengths to see their children accepted into top private schools, often finding themselves vetted alongside their children as part of the admissions process.
Hot-housing children from an exceptionally young age has become routine. In April, the CV of a 6-yearold who won one of 60 places at an elite private primary school from a pool of 8000 applicants also went viral.
It claimed the child had learned to speak by the age of 3 months, could swim at 3 years, was capable of basic computer programming and could read 2000 Chinese characters — enough to understand a newspaper — by the age of 5.
A cottage industry has sprung up to cater for so-called helicopter parents from the wealthy elite and aspirant middle classes.
Shopfront education centres on busy city streets provide after-school enrichment lessons, while adverts offer private classes for music tuition, exam coaching and redrafting admissions essays, while others offer university visits and summer trips abroad.