Poverty-stricken Chinese student’s 17-hour study schedule goes viral
- Student’s holiday study timetable impresses teacher and wins admiration from China’s online community
A 17-year-old student’s gruelling holiday study schedule has won admiration after his teacher shared his timetable on WeChat, China’s popular social media app.
Zhu Zheng, a grade two student from Wuhan No. 11 Middle School in central China, spent almost every waking moment of his 17-hour days studying during the winter holiday.
Zhu won top prize in a national maths competition in September and was put forward by two of his teachers at the end of last year to attend an intensive maths training camp at Beijing’s Tshinghua University.
One of his teachers said Zhu was the only student at the camp wearing high school uniform, which the boy said was due to a pledge to his parents last year not to buy new clothes for 12 months, to save money for his family.
On his return to class this year, his form teacher, Tang Yanping, was so impressed with his packed holiday timetable, full of study tasks, that she posted it on WeChat with the comment “one part hard work, one part talent”, according to Hubei newspaper Yangtze Daily.
At the top of his timetable Zhu had written: “Life has no winter or summer holiday. It’s not that success comes late but that you are not tough enough on yourself”.