Sichuan Earthquake Doesn't Stop College Entrance Exams

“I met the most amazing young woman,” my husband said upon returning home from a meeting of the U.S.-China People's Friendship Association. That was my first introduction to Mengping Li.
As my husband suggested, this 20-something woman was full of energy and gratefulness. Just being in her sphere for a moment injected you with a lightness of being. When we met, she was busy “couch-surfing” (a term I’d never heard of,) volunteering, and working. Yet, she gave me the evening to chat. She reminded me a lot of a man I met last year -- Jason Tu--who was also young, optimistic, energetic, brilliant.

Mengping was about to graduate with her MBA from China Europe International Business School (CEIBS) in Shanghai, and start a job with Microsoft: two events she never envisioned when growing up in a small county of Sichuan Province during one of the most memorable disasters that province has ever experienced.
As a child, Mengping was an avid reader, and participated in something known as the “rocket class” (for intelligent children). Her future appeared brighter then most from her province. Fate intervened the year she was preparing for the college entrance exam.

On May 12, 2008 Sichuan was at the epicenter of an 8.0 earthquake in which at least 69,000 people died, 18,000 people were listed as missing, and 4.5 million people went homeless.
“We were also impacted a little bit by that,” Mengping said in her characteristic understated humility. “Originally the tests, the place where you take the test—they were buried underneath the earthquake. But we didn’t postpone our college entrance exam. They made up another test.”
Whether it was this hastily-put-together exam--or the atmosphere of disaster-- Mengping’s results were not as good as she had hoped. She did however manage to make it into what she termed a “second-tier” college. She studied Foreign Language at Chengdu University of Traditional Chinese Medicine.

(To be continued. Next: Turning a Second-Tier College into a First-Tier Experience.)