I was always a very naughty student back in China. I only did homework when I wanted to do it, and I only listened when I wanted to listen. It was a normal day, and once again I didn’t listen in class. The first thing I did after getting back home was start playing on my iPad, just like what I usually would do. But what made everything different was when my mom got off work extremely early that day. She came home with anxiety and excitement. She told me the papers were ready, and we were going to America in two more weeks. I was completely shocked. Even though I didn’t like the amount of homework teachers gave, I loved the school environment. I loved my friends and teachers. Because it was the last two weeks, I decided to change. I wanted to leave a good impression on both my teachers and students.I didn’t want to make things sad, so I didn’t tell them I was about to leave China and go to America. I started to do all my homework and focus in class. No one knew what happened to me until the last day. I thought everything would be the same, just like the past week. But I was called to the teacher’s office. I thought I was in trouble again. My heart started beating faster until the teacher took out a bag of gifts for me. I asked her what the gift was for. She told me that my mom had told her everything already, and this was the gift to wish me good luck in America. On the plane, I opened the gift. It was a box of my favorite toys and a letter that was signed by all my friends and my teachers. 

This gift had brought my memories back to the first day of school. I remember someone was too nervous and scared when introducing themselves and started crying. Because it was the first day of school, we didn’t do much. We played some Chinese traditional games that slowly replaced the feeling of stress. But the feeling of happiness was soon replaced by stress on the second day of school, when one of the teachers gave out a lot of homework and wanted us to finish it in one day and give it back tomorrow. But the school lunch was pretty good on that day, even though I forgot what we ate. A pile of homework started to become a normal thing after the first week of school. In order to finish those homework assignments, I had to wake up early and get to school early to finish them on time. Because I was often wearing very thick clothes, teachers gave me a nickname, “Winnie the Pooh.” Even though school gave out too much homework, there was still time when students and teachers hosted parties to celebrate Chinese traditional holidays. During those days, students and teachers were more like friends instead of enemies. We sang songs together, danced together, and played games together. Most of the time, teachers would buy a lot of snacks and distribute them to everyone in the classroom, which made the classroom full and filled with happiness.

As my grade increased, everything started to get more difficult, classrooms were filled with the feeling of stress. Most of the students valued their free time more than everything else. Every week, teachers made and gave out an exam for students to finish in one period. During that time, my mom, in order to let me not fall behind the lessons, forced me to go to tutoring class every day after school. On weekends, I had to wake up early to go to tutoring class. The increase of stress and tutoring classes really motivated my feeling of hate toward school and doing work. Because of that, I decided to hide in the school garden to avoid my tutoring class teacher’s search. Even though I successfully hid the first time, that couldn’t change the result of going to tutoring class. The torture of the soul is worse than the slap falling on my face. “Why are you so late again? Why are you trying to hide away from me?” asked by the tutoring teacher. My answer to that question is, “I don’t know.” I wanted to escape from this prison built by stress, homework, and tutoring class, but I couldn’t. I felt like an inside dog trapped outside. I wanted freedom and more free time. I can’t remember the last time we had gym class. Our daily schedule was filled with ELA, Chinese, and math classes, and out of the class, most of the students had to go to tutoring class. Every day, students were functioning like robots, repeating the same exact boring day.

The strict Chinese education did not only reflect on the students, it also reflected on the teachers. I remember that it was a very cold morning, and it was extremely dark outside. I got to school super early just for the purpose of finishing my homework. I thought I was the first person to get to school, except for the police guard. But then I realized the light in the teacher's office was on. I walked in and then saw my teachers focused, working on something. I was trying to sneak out of the office, but unfortunately, they saw me. 

“Why are you here so early?” said by one of the teachers, surprisingly. 

“I wanted to finish my homework,” I said fearfully. 

“Ok… so why are you in the office?” said by one of the other teachers, confused.

 “I don’t know. I saw the light was on,” I said nervously.

 “Eh, ok. Fine. You can start your homework,” said the teacher. “If you have any questions, you can ask us,” said one of the teachers. 

“Ok,” I said. 

“Have you eaten breakfast yet?” said the teacher.

“No, I’m in a rush to school,” I said.

“Here, you want some snacks?” said the teacher.

“No, thank you,” I said.

“You know that breakfast is important, right?” said by one of the teachers.

“So here, take some bread. If you want, I have more on my desk,” said the other teacher.

“Alright I will take one, Thank you very much,” I said honestly.

“Why are you guys so early to school?” I said while eating.

“We have to finish grading your homework and prepare a new lesson for you guys,” said the teacher anxiously.

That was the first time I realized the amount of work teachers had to do, and that they were not as strict as they looked like. I am going to blame all of this on Chinese education, the stress this system had brought to both teachers and students, which had shaped their character negatively.