A woman in China who discovered her secondary school admission letter 17 years after her father concealed it, which ended her schooling, has renewed scrutiny on China’s tradition of parents preferring boys.
Wang Yanxia, 32, accidentally found the upper secondary school admission letter hidden at her parents’ home while sorting through her childhood photos, she revealed in a post on Douyin earlier this month.
Wang said her mind went blank when she saw the document, as not attending her “dream school” as a sports major had been her biggest life’s regret. A promising athlete who was a national second-tier competitor then, Wang had to give up her aspirations and became a factory worker.
Wang, who left secondary school after the ninth grade in 2006, was stunned to learn of the acceptance letter after believing the school had rejected her for 17 years.
The admission letter, shown in Wang’s video on September 10, stated that she had been accepted to attend as a sports major at the Qingzhou No 3 Middle School in eastern China’s Shandong province.
Wang confronted her father, demanding to know why he had concealed it from her. At first, he appeared embarrassed before finally saying: “It was useless to tell you. I couldn’t afford it.”
Another document Wang found revealed that her family would have to pay 7,800 yuan (US$1,070) in tuition and school selection fee.
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Wang’s husband, whom she met while still attending lower secondary school, said his in-laws were both disabled with less than 10,000 yuan in savings.
Wang said she knew of her family’s financial situation at the time and would not have insisted on carrying on with further education, but was “heartbroken” that her father had not told her the truth.
Wang’s video has received more than 5 million views on Douyin alone and generated heated online debate about gender discrimination and a preference for boys over girls in China.
“She can give up on her own, but her father cannot deprive her of the right to choose. What he concealed was not just the admission letter, but also her future,” said one person on Weibo.
“So ignorant. Studying is almost the only path an ordinary person has to succeed. She could have applied for student subsidies,” another said on Douyin.
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“I can understand her father. If he were really that selfish, he would have thrown the admission letter away instead of keeping it,” said a third commenter.
Some picked up on the fact that Wang has a younger brother and suggested her story was another example of China’s ongoing tradition of preferring boys over girls.
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Wang has not revealed her brother’s level of completed education and did not respond to questions on the topic left on her post.
China has one of the world’s most skewed sex ratios at birth, currently at 0.89, or 100 men to 89 women, according to the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2023.
Social media posts and media reports about young women being forced by their parents to pay for the education of their male siblings and living expenses are not uncommon in China.
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In 2021, a Beijing judicial court assistant told the Beijing Youth Daily that women dropping out of school to support younger brothers or financially supporting brothers after marrying and starting their own families remain common in contemporary China.
Many less-educated parents still prefer sons to daughters, believing only boys can continue a family’s bloodline.
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September 18, 2023 at 08:00AM
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'Heartbroken' factory worker finds school offer letter father hid 17 years ago - South China Morning Post
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