Files Vanished, Young Chinese Lose the Future

Posted by Kendall Harmon

For much of his education, Xue Longlong was silently accompanied from grade to grade, school to school, by a sealed Manila envelope stamped top secret. Stuffed inside were grades, test results, evaluations by fellow students and teachers, his Communist Party application and — most important for his job prospects — proof of his 2006 college degree.

Everyone in China who has been to high school has such a file. The files are irreplaceable histories of achievement and failure, the starting point for potential employers, government officials and others judging an individual’s worth. Often keys to the future, they are locked tight in government, school or workplace cabinets to eliminate any chance they might vanish.

But two years ago, Mr. Xue’s file did vanish. So did the files of at least 10 others, all 2006 college graduates with exemplary records, all from poor families living near this gritty north-central town on the wide banks of the Yellow River.

With the Manila folders went their futures, they say.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Young Adults • * International News & Commentary • Asia • China

4 Comments
Posted July 30, 2009 at 10:18 am [Printer Friendly] [Print w/ comments]



1. Cole wrote:

Critics contend that China’s one-party system breeds graft that only democratic reforms can check.

I wonder if this statement may also become true in the US with all the bills being rushed through Congress without the discernment of the citizens or bipartisan support.

July 30, 10:44 am | [comment link]
2. Helen wrote:

My thought, too, Cole.

July 30, 11:30 am | [comment link]
3. Jeremy Bonner wrote:

It’s interesting that Chinese Communism has come to look more and more like the earlier dynasties that it supplanted. Most endured at least a century, but the early idealism that informed the Ming, the Manchus and the first republic gave way to the sort of endemic petty corruption that ultimately overwhelmed the system. Interestingly, both Manchu and republican reformers sought to appropriate certain aspects of European and American industry and culture only to see them take on a life of their own.

Communism adopted a largely isolationist stance from 1949 until the end of the Cultural Revolution, before embarking on western-style economic reforms. Now the consequences of those reforms are coming back to bite them and the Communist Party seems no longer to enjoy either the stature or the means to counter it.

July 30, 5:21 pm | [comment link]
4. Clueless wrote:

Wait until all of us have our data on goverment computer files, and ONLY on government computer files.  Then our identities also can be confiscated by officials who prefer to sell or give our achievements to others.

July 31, 12:51 pm | [comment link]
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