China Daily Global Edition (USA)
Son’s effort pays off
Poor family’s eldest earns admission to top university
Growing up poor can force young people to mature fast and become independent very quickly. So it was for Cui Qingtao, who graduated from high school this summer.
The 17-year-old, the eldest of three children, lives with his family in Wulipai village, Huize county, in Southwest China’s Yunnan province.
On July 22, while working on a construction site near the family home, Cui received an admission letter from Peking University.
In his dusty worker’s garb, Cui probably didn’t look much like a budding young college student. Indeed, when the mailman arrived, he was too preoccupied with stirring mortar to notice that there was a letter for him.
The contents of that letter left his family astounded, however. They had never dreamed that one day their son would be attending one of the country’s top universities.
“My son, you are amazing!” his father Cui Maorong says.
Such a reaction is hardly surprising because in China, the onus is often put on the eldest child from a poor household to help change the family’s fate by getting higher education.
“I feel happy and excited, because I think my son will not live such a hard life as mine,” says Cui Maorong.
Cui’s family is certainly poor and dependent on government subsidies to supplement their own meager incomes. His parents have done all sorts of part-time jobs, from construction to agriculture, to raise their three children.
The family of five still don’t make enough money though, and often run up debts just to make ends meet.
“We are too busy making ends meet to spare energy on supervising the children’s studies,” says Cui’s mother Xu Shulan.
According to Xu, Cui Qingtao and his siblings are very disciplined about their studies.
Cui scored 669 points in this year’s national college entrance examination and will be admitted to Peking University’s School of Journalism and Communication.
“I want to make my family’s lives easy by gaining knowledge,” he says, adding that he will return home after graduation and try his best to bring prosperity to his hometown.
“Getting an education is not the only way to change one’s fate, but it’s the best way for people like me,” says Cui.
His story went viral online right after he got his admission letter.
A Weibo post about him received more than 140,000 likes and 10,000 comments.
Weibo user Wangboi says it’s not easy for a student from a poor family like this to get admission to such a good university.
“We cannot imagine how much effort Cui has put in it. Bravo! ” says Wangboi.
Cui has become so popular that many reporters from different media organizations nationwide want to contact him and learn more about him and his family, but he has refused.
“I’m just an ordinary person, and there’s not much to report about me,” Cui told Yunnan Television Station, the only television media that has interviewed him.
The attention Cui got from netizens is totally unexpected for him.
“There are many students like me, who are from poor families but get enrolled in top colleges after a lot of effort,” says Cui.
“I am just a lucky one who has got attention.”
According to the Yunnan TV report, there are more than 6,300 high school graduates this summer in Huize county, and 14 of them have been admitted either by Peking University or by Tsinghua University.
Among the 14 students, eight are from poor families.
Zhang Hong, the head of the education bureau of Huize county, says children from poor families are usually more determined to make their life better through learning.
Meanwhile, many corporate entities and individuals have offered to provide financial aid to Cui.
But he has declined the help saying that he has applied for a student grant from Peking University to pay for his education.