For the first time in 20 years, China has lost a world math championship to the United States—and many people in the nation seem happy about it. The unexpected defeat came at the famous annual International Mathematical Olympiad, a championship Chinese high school students have won 18 times since 1990.
But to some, losing the Olympiad offers hope that painful years spent studying for the contest could finally be over. "Hopefully the Math Olympiad won't scourge our children anymore!" said one parent, "I can't care less whoever got the golden cup, as long as my child won't be forced to study it."
Unlike many American students, ordinary Chinese pupils are no strangers to the difficult math completion. Students often start getting math Olympiad training in elementary school. And it's not necessarily because they love math. The motivation is rather beneficial -- winners of math Olympiads have long received bonus points in school entrance exams, where a small score difference can greatly change a student's future.
So the math competitions become another bitter pill to swallow on the road to success. One Chinese, Wei Wei, compared math Olympiads to "gutter oil," a type of distilled sewage used by some restaurants to cut costs. "It makes people uneasy while eating it, and feel disgusted thinking of it, yet they still fight for it because it's profitable. In the last year, some provinces have taken steps to stop the bonus point policy, as educators wonder whether the math Olympiads are actually serving the right purpose.
In an opinion piece in the China Youth Daily Wednesday, a well-known educator, Yang Dongping, wrote the competitions were a "waste" of talent. "The question we should ask is why we don't have great mathematicians in China," he said. Then, appearing to answer his own question: "Many of our math champions continued to study math—many left academia for Wall Street."
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