[Chinese weird news report] Now this is a strange report...
Link in Simplified Chinese
Fact 1: NCEE is nearly the only criteria for Chinese college admissions.
Fact 2: The writing question in NCEE is extremely vague. See my list of last year's question.
Here's where ZENG Yong entered the question. He is the chief editor for the social news page in the Chengdu Evening Post, and doubles as a freelance for the paper he works if he has the time. In 2002, he wrote A Tribute to the Peach Flower Spring, which is mainly about the overdevelopment of tourist attractions.
Last month (May 2006), Zeng's friend asked him if he can provide that piece as the friend wanted to have a collection of such writings. Zeng agreed, but instead of finding the script at his home, he trusted the Internet-- by the common rule in the Chinese cyberworld, newspaper articles are almost certainly licensed to some portal sites that his piece would still appear 4 years later after he wrote it.
The search result was: yes, he found his piece. But for most of the hits, the writer is given as "One Candidate from Jiangxi." Appreantly in 2004, some NCEE candidate-- out of the 278,298 people in that province-- recited that piece on the answer book and got the full mark; this is why it has been publicized and has actually reprinted in multiple textbooks. (For a reason I don't really know why; answers to exam questions is not thought as copyrightable in China, at least not copyrighted to the person who wrote it--ed.) In all the books that reprinted that piece, the name of that candidate were never revealed, while the writers for all others has been revealed. The NCEE management in Jiangxi didn't comment since they said they can't identify anyone with just one writing answer.
It is a known and historical practice for Chinese language teachers in China to make students recite a few pieces that they thought as beneficial for the exam. And it is the practice that candidates would adopt the style, rhetorics and such from these pieces in their writing assignments. But recite the whole piece? Not likely.
Then, what that article raised, are some legal questions:
Fact 1: NCEE is nearly the only criteria for Chinese college admissions.
Fact 2: The writing question in NCEE is extremely vague. See my list of last year's question.
Here's where ZENG Yong entered the question. He is the chief editor for the social news page in the Chengdu Evening Post, and doubles as a freelance for the paper he works if he has the time. In 2002, he wrote A Tribute to the Peach Flower Spring, which is mainly about the overdevelopment of tourist attractions.
Last month (May 2006), Zeng's friend asked him if he can provide that piece as the friend wanted to have a collection of such writings. Zeng agreed, but instead of finding the script at his home, he trusted the Internet-- by the common rule in the Chinese cyberworld, newspaper articles are almost certainly licensed to some portal sites that his piece would still appear 4 years later after he wrote it.
The search result was: yes, he found his piece. But for most of the hits, the writer is given as "One Candidate from Jiangxi." Appreantly in 2004, some NCEE candidate-- out of the 278,298 people in that province-- recited that piece on the answer book and got the full mark; this is why it has been publicized and has actually reprinted in multiple textbooks. (For a reason I don't really know why; answers to exam questions is not thought as copyrightable in China, at least not copyrighted to the person who wrote it--ed.) In all the books that reprinted that piece, the name of that candidate were never revealed, while the writers for all others has been revealed. The NCEE management in Jiangxi didn't comment since they said they can't identify anyone with just one writing answer.
It is a known and historical practice for Chinese language teachers in China to make students recite a few pieces that they thought as beneficial for the exam. And it is the practice that candidates would adopt the style, rhetorics and such from these pieces in their writing assignments. But recite the whole piece? Not likely.
Then, what that article raised, are some legal questions:
- There should be no doubt that the candidate violated Zeng's copyright. But if s/he was identified, would his college admission be rescinded, since he has already finished Year 2?
- Suppose exam answers are considered as within the public domain, would the publishers for exam guides be liable for copyright infringement?