Is this really a thing is China? Holy shit, I knew our education sucked but I wasn't aware how much better it was elsewhere (probably because of said education system failing me)
This is a very Mao thing, he hated people being too obsessed with reading and quoting rather than understanding and exploring. I don't think it's especially representative of modern China though, which has moved back towards the bourgeois memorization fetishism
Nowadays, no. GaoKao is basically all memorizing except for essays part of the exam. Even then, you have memorization to do to for the essays (structure, arguement, etc.)
Is this really a thing is China? Holy shit, I knew our education sucked but I wasn't aware how much better it was elsewhere (probably because of said education system failing me)
This is a very Mao thing, he hated people being too obsessed with reading and quoting rather than understanding and exploring. I don't think it's especially representative of modern China though, which has moved back towards the bourgeois memorization fetishism
Nowadays, no. GaoKao is basically all memorizing except for essays part of the exam. Even then, you have memorization to do to for the essays (structure, arguement, etc.)