China's National College Entrance Examinations are extremely hard and extremely important. The stress of this once in a year test is enough to put the best students on edge. For one mother in South China's Sichuan province, the end of the test was an opportunity to surprise her daughter with — cosplay!
First reported by Chengdu Television channel 5, Mrs. Chen of Chengdu wanted to do something to lift her daughter's spirits up. Her daughter, Xixi had been taking the National College Entrance Examinations, or Gaokao, all weekend.
Knowing that Xixi enjoys playing the Chinese massively multiplayer online role-playing game Jian Wang III, Mrs. Chen decided to use the game in her surprise. Mrs. Chen found some of Xixi's online friends, as well as real world friends and found out that Xixi enjoys cosplay. She then gathered Xixi's friends and organized a surprise cosplay meet up.
On the last day of the exams, Mrs. Chen and Xixi's friends waited on a bus for the final bell. As Xixi exited the school where she was taking her test, her friends rushed over to greet her, costumes and all.
Xixi was surprised to see her friends dressed up as characters from her favourite game. In an interview with CDTV, Xixi was so elated that she wasn't even coherent.
Normally Chinese parents aren't very into letting their kids play video games. According to CDTV, Mrs. Chen says that Xixi's grades have always been good and because of that, she's allowed to game.
This kind of surprise seems like a good one. Having never taken anything besides the US standard SAT, I can't say how hard the Gaokao is. My friends in China who have taken both say that the SAT is phenomenally easier and that the impact isn't as big as the Gaokao.
成都最萌妈妈《剑网3》cos舞庆女儿高考成人礼 [Chengdu TV]
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Eric is a Beijing based writer and all around FAT man. You can contact him @FatAsianTechie@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter @FatAsianTechie