This is, um, scary....

Plight of the Little Emperors

Coddled from infancy and raised to be academic machines, China's only children expect the world. Now they're buckling under the pressure of their parents' deferred dreams.

When Dawei Liu was growing up in the coastal city of Tai'an during the 1990s, all of his classmates—95 percent of whom were only children—received plenty of doting parental support. One student, however, truly stood out from the rest. Every day, this boy went from class to class with an entourage of one: his mother, who had given up the income of her day job to monitor his studies full-time, sitting beside him constantly in order to ensure perfect attention. "The teacher was OK with it," Liu shrugs. "He might not focus as much on class if his parent wasn't there."

Across China, stories of parents going to incredible lengths to give their only children a competitive edge have become commonplace. Throughout Jing Zhang's youth in Beijing, her parents took her to weekly resumé-boosting painting classes, waiting outside the school building for two hours each time, even in winter. Yanming Lin enjoyed perfect silence in her family's one-room Shanghai apartment throughout her five-plus hours of nightly homework; besides nixing the television, her mother kept perpetual watch over her to make sure she stayed on task. "By high school, my parents knew I could control myself and only do homework," Lin says. "Because I knew the situation."

The situation for urban young people in today's China, from preschoolers on up, is this: Your entire future hinges on one test, the national college entrance exam—China's magnified version of the SAT. The Chinese call it gao kao, or "tall test," because it looms so large. If students do well, they win spots at China's top universities and an easy route to a middle-class lifestyle. If not, they must confront the kind of tough, blue-collar lives their parents faced. With such high stakes, families dedicate themselves to their child's test prep virtually from infancy. "Many people come home to have dinner and then study until bed," says Liu. "You have to do it to go to the best university and get a good job. You must do this to live."

ION, my boss is amazed that 'squeegee' has four Es.

I'm not sure if he's had his coffee yet....

she just doesn't look all Hollywood-ified and polished

I haven't seen the pictures you're talking about, so I may be totally off base here, but to my eyes, sometimes looking all Hollywood-ified - as you so nicely called it - doesn't mean looking better.

squeegee' has four Es.

I always have to count all the doubling of the letters in "committee".

widow's peak and heart-shapedness of Marilyn's face is always so startling

If I remember correctly, MM shaved/plucked her hairline to achieve that widow's peak. Look at some of the cheesecake shots of her when she was still going by Norma Jean, you can see the difference. I know Susan Hayward did the same thing and there are probably others, but those two I know for sure. One of the less obnoxious things a person can do to "beautify" themselves. My daughter does it occasionally, too and even convinced me to do it once. No widow's peak, but to raise the hairline a little and make the forehead look taller (which for someone like me with a short, squat forehead it can open my face up considerably.)

If I remember correctly, MM shaved/plucked her hairline to achieve that widow's peak.

I think it was Rita Hayworth who had an early version of electrolysis in order to eliminate her widow's peak and give her a higher forehead.

If I remember correctly, MM shaved/plucked her hairline to achieve that widow's peak.

This threw me for a second. I was all "No, it just recedes by itself, why would I want to help it?"

I haven't seen the pictures you're talking about, so I may be totally off base here, but to my eyes, sometimes looking all Hollywood-ified - as you so nicely called it - doesn't mean looking better.

Definitely. I thought Sarah Chalke looked much nicer about 5 years ago before her Scrubs character was glamourized and she started wearing heavy eyeshadow and frosting her hair. The natural look (even if achieved with a fair amount of makeup) suited her a lot better.

I just pray the fashion for women to shave the first inch of their hairlines off doesn't come back, EVER.

was Rita Hayworth

That's who I was thinking of! Thanks, Barb.

ick. I was up too late writing and am now racing around my apartment like a madwoman trying to get my shit together to get to work.

I feel so much better today. Six more weeks of writing, and then Sam gets sent to my agent. Six weeks. then new book in hands! Well. New manuscript. I keep hoping and hoping. And hoping.

Hope with me!