A high-school kid blows off the gaokao to play video games.
Nanjing Official Embezzles 2.5+ Million RMB to Play Web Games
Mr. Zhu was in a pretty perfect position for embezzlement. As an accountant in charge of the finances for one of Nanjing’s economic management stations, he had a fair amount of control over an awful lot of money, and apparently a pronounced lack of oversight. But Zhu was an honest man, or at least he started that way. After several years doing the job the right way, in 2005 a friend convinced him to get into online gaming. He got addicted fast, and started spending large amounts of money buying equipment and upgrades for all his characters. It quickly became a financially draining habit, but luckily, Zhu knew one place he could turn for easy money: the public funds he was supposed to be keeping track of at work.
By his own admission, from 2006 to 2012 Zhu embezzled more than 2.6 million RMB ($426,000) in public funds, and spent most of it on online games. He even took frequent “business trips” (on the government’s dime) that were actually just flights around the country to participate in gaming events and tournaments. And apparently no one ever caught on. But in 2012, when local villages didn’t receive funds from Zhu’s office that they were expecting, village officials showed up to find out where the money had gone. Zhu figured the truth was coming out sooner or later and fessed up, turning himself in to police.
Recently, a Nanjing court finally tried Zhu’s case, and found him guilty (obviously) of embezzling public funds. He won’t be doing much gaming anytime soon; he was sentenced to 11 years in prison.
(Modern Bulletin via QQ Games)
A Promising College Dropout’s Gaming Addiction Nightmare
After getting a 647 — a damn good score — on China’s college entrance exam and earning admission to Jilin University, Jin Aibing seemed destined for success. But then, in his sophomore year, he got into online gaming. Soon he was addicted, and the failed classes started to pile up. When the rest of his classmates graduated at the end of their senior year, Jin had earned high levels in a bunch of online games but had failed to earn a diploma.
After college, Jin basically made gaming his life. He switched his phone number and dropped out of contact with his family. He eked out a subsistence living on around 1500 RMB/month ($238), which he earned by selling in-game equipment. He didn’t even really talk to the people at the internet cafe; his life was strictly online.
That was basically Jin’s life until his family managed to track him down in March of this year. Now, he calls his gaming experience “a nightmare,” and his story is making the rounds on the web as an example of the dangers of internet addiction. A Guangming Daily report on him even includes concerning-but-dubious statistics like “among net users aged 18 to 23, more than 26 percent are addicted.” That’s pretty hard to believe, but it is true that gaming addiction can be a serious problem and that China’s schools, especially, are pretty unequipped to deal with it or combat it. Jin’s story is one part news and one part propaganda, but it’s telling that once Jin got too deep into gaming, it seems no one other than his family was all that interested in helping to pull him out.
(Guangming Daily via QQ Games)
High-Schooler Ditches Gaokao to Play Games Online
Another story making the rounds right now is that of a Shandong high school student who was meant to take the gaokao — China’s college entrance exam — this year but dropped out just ten minutes before the test was to begin. “They haven’t passed out the tests yet; I’m not going to take it,” he reportedly said while walking out of the test site. You can probably guess where he headed next: the internet cafe next door, where he played an afternoon’s worth of games instead of taking the all-important test.
His story has since gotten quite big online, but perhaps not for the reasons you’d expect. While some have condemned the kid for throwing away his future just to play some video games, others have taken his story as an example of the rigid gaokao system’s failures. In an online poll about the student’s decision on QQ Games more than half of the nearly 20,000 voters, when asked what they thought, responded simply that the gaokao wasn’t the only path to success. Another 28 percent pointed out that college grads are having trouble finding jobs anyway. Only 12 percent condemned the student for being stupid and wasting an important opportunity.
(And as a fan of gaming, I tend to agree. Not that everyone should blow off standardized tests to play games, of course. But tests aren’t for everyone, and they aren’t an indicator of lifelong success. A student who’s confident enough to skip out on the test, spend the afternoon playing video games, and then give calm, well-spoken interviews about the whole thing is probably going to land on his feet anyway).
(via QQ Games)
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