Wang Taoyuan's Today Is the Tomorrow of China's Countryside

In Guantao County, Hebei, there is a village called Wang Taoyuan with 125 households. From 1978, when the college entrance exam (gaokao) was reinstated, to 2018, it produced 128 college students, earning a reputation as a “scholar village.” Guantao County developed it into an education-themed town, preserved the old primary school, and—in a typically “magical” Hebei fashion—created the country’s first village-level education museum. They also built a Zhuangyuan Arch that lists the names of students admitted to universities each year.

Seeing the Zhuangyuan Arch inspires respect for a village that has sent students to college for forty consecutive years. In many parts of China, some townships do not produce even a single college entrant in a year.

For rural people born in the 1960s and 1970s, the gaokao was the only path for children to leave the countryside. Their generation faced few outside temptations, and the harsh reality that without study they would remain farmers, so motivation to study was high. As China’s industry grew and factories demanded large numbers of young workers, many rural children born in the 1980s and 1990s dropped out to work. Villages like Wang Taoyuan that have kept nurturing college students for forty years are exceedingly rare. Wang Taoyuan is a vivid embodiment of the tradition of “ploughing and studying.”

Yet Wang Taoyuan’s future is uncertain. As families raise college students who leave the countryside—sometimes taking their parents with them—will the entire village eventually disappear, leaving only empty homes and school buildings? How ironic: after all the hardship of nurturing college students, Wang Taoyuan may see its own village vanish.

Published at: Oct 31, 2018 · Modified at: Sep 13, 2025