Locustland | Shanghainese youth borrow a page from Hong Kong's regionalist slurs
With the central government moving to compel schools in coastal cities to open university entrance exams to 'non-local' students beginning next year, things are getting a little crazy.
Zhan moved to the city with her parents when she was just four years old and went straight into the local education system, thriving academically throughout her nine years of compulsory education.
She hit her first obstacle when the better public junior middle schools in the city began refusing to accept her as a student due to based on her non-local status.
Instead of putting her into a vocational school or relocating to Jiangxi to let Zhan finish school smoothly but with significantly reduced expectations, the family chose to stay in Shanghai and challenge the system.
"I want to take my gaokao exam here," Zhan has written online, "but I don't want that to depend on my parents' job, income, taxes, assets or pensions. If that's what it takes, then what chance does that leave kids from poor families? How would they be able to change their fate through education?"