In China, Families Bet It All on College for Their Children

Speaking from the position of a high school junior, the competition associated with college in the United States has skyrocketed to unbelievable heights. However, ask and 16-year-old Chinese man or woman, and they will say the same. Families in China bet it all on college for their children. This article by Keith Bradsher, the Hong Kong bureau chief of The New York Times, describes the sacrifices parents in China are forced to undergo in order to provide their children with a higher education. The context of this text that prompted the writing of this article is the spikes in financial burdens that millions of lower-income Chinese parents now endure as they push their children to obtain a higher education.

      The purpose of this article is to show Americans that we are not alone in the struggle for a college education. In fact, Chinese parents are suffering even greater to reach their goal of sending their kids to a university. The audience who would get the most out of this article is American parents who are giving up their lives in order to pay for their child’s education. Not only do they have something to relate to, but they might also find that they are actually grateful for their situation in comparison to that of the Chinese.

      Keith Bradsher uses many rhetorical devices to get his message across. For example, Bradsher uses descriptive language to evoke pathos in his readers. Throughout the text, he uses endless detail to describe a family who has put it all on the line to send their daughter to college. Bradsher writes about the living and working conditions of a father who works in coal shafts everyday making only $500 dollars a month for "choking dust in claustrophobic tunnels,” in order to get the money needed to send his daughter to college. The description that accompanies this heart-breaking story of a struggling family creates a sense of sadness that makes readers not only feel bad for this family, but realize how fortunate they are to be in their situation. On the contrary, Keith Bradsher makes sure he maintains logic by including the raw facts of Chinese education. He writes, "a college degree no longer ensures a well-paying job, because the number of graduates in China has quadrupled in the last decade". The use of statistics furthers Bradsher’s logical appeal when he writes, "For a rural parent in China, each year of higher education costs six to 15 months' of labor..." Overall, both the emotion and logic fuse together to maintain a well-written text about Chinese education.

Through the use of both an emotional and logical appeal, Bradsher does get his message across to readers. The reader is able to fully imagine, understand, and relate to the troubles that the Chinese parents go through to send their children to college. Bradsher writes clearly and effectively to provide his audience with a captivating story that is sure to leave a mark.