ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a rich picture of the kinds of experiences that a range of people in contemporary China have gone through as part of their educational development. The overall picture that emerges from participants is that education is not something that is meant to be enjoyed and social activities are neither a necessary nor desirable part of the educational experience. A particularly interesting theme emerging from the context of private education in China, is the new role that money seems to be playing in ensuring that educational opportunity is attained. The value of the accounts about early educational experiences as related by the participants have in their presentation a vivid, if impressionistic, picture of the cultural sounds and sights of Chinese schools from a student's viewpoint. In spite of the overwhelming uniformity in descriptions of environment and pedagogy, the students' reported experiences of education still contain differences.
