Today’s article — I sincerely hope that if you’re a parent, you’ll read it through to the end.
Not for your sake, but for your child’s.
Yesterday, a reader came to see me consumed with anxiety, specifically to have me read her child’s destiny chart (命盘).
Parents worrying about their children’s future is the most natural thing in the world — every parent wants their child to grow up safe and happy. But this particular mother left a deep impression on me.
Because every word she said to me was a textbook example of the “Chinese-style parent.”
What defines a Chinese-style parent?
Grades, grades, grades — and specifically, exam scores above all else.
They carry a mental equation, half-formed but stubbornly fixed: good grades = good future.
So when her child’s grades showed even the slightest wobble, she’d lie awake night after night — sleepless, anxious, irritable.
Seeing her like this, I set the child’s destiny chart aside for the moment and shared a story from my own experience.
About a decade or so ago, my older cousin had her parents in exactly the same kind of distress over her academic performance. Her grades were the classic kind: good enough to get into high school, but nowhere near enough to land her in a decent university. I wasn’t looking down on her — it’s just that those of us who’ve been through it can usually read a child’s academic ceiling at a glance. The margin of error is rarely more than 10%.
And just the same, my aunt and uncle were going grey with worry over it.
Eventually, at a family gathering, they specifically sought my opinion and asked for advice.
I didn’t mince words. I came right back at them with a question: “Why are you so fixed on her getting into a good domestic university? A so-called good Chinese university — even if she gets in — only promises a reasonably decent job after graduation. Starting salary? Seven or eight thousand a month. And years down the road, if she’s an ordinary person, she’ll still be just another ordinary person in the crowd. Given her grades, why not consider mastering a specialized, high-end skill and building a sustainable career around it?”
My aunt and uncle nearly blew a fuse. They assumed that when I said “specialized skills,” I meant sending her to a vocational college.
I smiled. “You’re half right,” I told them. My actual suggestion was to send her to a specialist professional school overseas. After graduating, she would go straight into an international five-star hotel chain — and she would not come back to China right away. She had to put in several years abroad, build real credentials, and only then return home.
I’ll skip the twists and turns along the way — let me just tell you where she is today.
She’s the dedicated Greater China Business Manager at the Anantara hotel in Bangkok, Thailand. Annual take-home salary: 600,000 RMB. Accommodation and meals fully covered by the hotel — she shares a staff dormitory room with one other girl. She also gets both Chinese and Thai public holidays, which means she only works around 200 days a year — with almost no work pressure to speak of. On top of that, during her time off she can check into any property in the hotel group’s global portfolio at 30% of the rack rate — and a large suite is the standard offering.
So today, my cousin’s life — COVID’s two rough years aside — is essentially a steady rhythm of pleasant work and happy travels around the world. Her quality of life far, far exceeds that of the vast majority of her former classmates who made it into good domestic universities.
Of course, some classmates earn more than she does — one girl, for instance, landed a job at a major tech company. But the relentless pressure has already left her, not yet thirty, repeatedly warned by her doctor about hormonal imbalances and chronic stress. Carrying a pregnancy to term would be a miracle.
So why did I tell this story to the mother at the beginning of this article?
Simply to make one very important point: Chinese universities are genuinely not worth as much as you think. Especially since the university enrollment expansion began in 1999, their value has been in near-freefall. To this day, unless you’re in a top program at a top institution — what you walk out with is a diluted, hollow degree that offers no real competitive edge whatsoever.
So tell me — is that really worth making the supreme goal of your child’s education?
Clearly not. Or at least, not worth this level of obsession.
I have always believed this: a parent’s vision directly determines a child’s possibilities. The narrower the parent’s perspective, the more constrained the child’s future — and the harder the road.
Let me give you another simple example — a father who came to me ten years ago to have his child’s destiny chart read.
Back then, I didn’t yet have the refined social development planning and life pattern analysis skills I have today. My destiny readings were accurate, but I wasn’t yet able to translate them into direct, clear-cut recommendations. Fortunately, this father was a close friend of my uncle’s, so the conversation came easily.
What was my thinking at the time?
The child’s destiny chart was dominated by the pioneering energy of the Seven Killings star in the Self Palace, with a strong Migration Palace and a Five Elements (Wu Xing) alignment of Water. The other details I can’t quite recall, but the overall configuration was solid.
The one problem: the child’s exam scores were genuinely unimpressive. Solidly average, nothing more.
But I had what felt like a sudden flash of insight, and I said directly: why couldn’t this child consider becoming a professional pilot? It was a perfect match for the chart.
The father smiled. “My son has 550-degree myopia.”
You see — I was young then too, and these oversights were inevitable. But that prompt did map out a direction.
That boy — average grades, destined for an ordinary university, most likely to spend years collecting a mediocre salary and drifting through life without flavor — is today the permanent Second Officer on a luxury international cruise ship operating the North American route. Annual take-home: a solid one million RMB. And his daily life, outside of his regular duties, is spent enjoying complimentary perks aboard ships that feel like floating palaces.
As a maritime worker, he effectively works six months and rests six months each year. If there’s ever a genuine emergency at home, the ship docks the next day and he can fly back — it’s that convenient.
Tell me — is that life not comfortable? Not dignified?
Just the other day, I was in a friend’s group chat and everyone was enthusiastically debating how to raise successful children. I couldn’t help but think back to these two cases I’d personally guided.
Neither of them is what you’d call a dragon among people — they’re simply ordinary people living comfortably and contentedly. There’s a vast distance between them and the truly exceptional. But who can deny their quality of life?
And at the end of the day, isn’t that exactly what we want as parents — for our children to live comfortably, happily, steadily, and with dignity?
Of course, I believe both of them went through struggles we outsiders never saw, before reaching where they are now. But at least they didn’t have to keep walking a road that was never going to work for them.
The truth is, academic achievement is simply not the right path for every child. Maybe 20–50% of children are genuinely suited for exam-based education. But plenty of others may not be academic — and yet they might have exceptional hands-on ability, outstanding practical skills, or remarkable social intelligence.
So as a parent, remember this one core truth: all roads lead to Rome.
You have to cultivate your own broad perspective — so that you can read your child’s nature and point them toward the path that truly fits them. Not like those foolish parents who, blinded by a narrow worldview, can only see one option: forcing their child to study. Then using all manner of strange, obsessive tactics to force academic compliance — and when the child can’t deliver, writing them off entirely.
Oh, I almost forgot — the mother and daughter from the beginning of this article.
My recommendation was this: the daughter had weak science abilities, but strong humanities skills and a naturally warm, highly empathetic personality. On top of that, the family had relatives in Australia. So I suggested the girl seriously consider becoming a professional nurse. Yes, the training still involves a period of intensive memorization and study — but that’s far better than grinding through a mountain of meaningless content only to emerge just as lost as before.
The moment the mother heard this, it was like a light switched on. “You’re right! My sister’s daughter is a nurse! Her middle school grades were actually worse than my daughter’s! And now she earns a very solid salary every month — just the overtime alone equals what two entry-level office workers make here! And it’s relatively relaxed, not much pressure at all!”
I smiled. “Exactly. You have to open your eyes and learn about the options you don’t normally encounter. Don’t fixate on a single narrow path and stubbornly run yourself into a dead end. We’re all ordinary people. What life calls for is ease and contentment — there’s no need to force your way down the hardest road just to prove something. Who are you even proving it to?”
Finally — I regularly discuss the best approaches to education and guiding children toward success with my community. And the results are far, far greater than piling children into mountains of tutoring classes whose purpose no one can even articulate.
Because this is, simply put, playing at a different level entirely.
While some parents are still hysterically force-feeding their children information, other parents have long since found the real shortcut — and taken it.
Because as someone who has never believed in pushing children through excessive academic pressure, I am firmly convinced: one good idea from a parent with broad vision is worth more than thousands of nights of your child toiling alone under a lamp.