Parents burn incense and pray for their children to have good luck in the upcoming national college entrance exams in Maotanchang, Anhui Province, on May 29. Photo: IC

While the small town of Maotanchang, in East China's Anhui Province, has earned the name "the biggest gaokao factory," the schools that accommodate the students may well be the most superstitious middle schools in China.

Every year more than 10,000 students come to the town to train for China's infamously competitive annual college entrance exams, known as the gaokao.

While the students sit their classes on very tight schedules, their parents, who have come along to arrange their accommodation, resort to the supernatural, and kneel down and pray.

These students are mostly those who haven't achieved satisfactory results in the gaokao and have come to the special schools to prepare for a second and even third attempt the following year. This further strains the nerves of the parents, who feel their children can't fail again.

Many of the parents have tied their hopes to a big willow tree in town, and pray especially on the first and 15th days of every lunar month, wishing for their children to achieve good marks in the exams.

May 29 is the first day of the fifth lunar month, and according to tradition is the last chance to pray before this year's gaokao takes place on June 7. The small alleyway that leads to the tree was crowded with the parents who lined up to pray, and was choked with smoke from burning incense.

On just the other side of the wall, thousands of students who have come from across the region spend their dwindling time poring over textbooks, just several days ahead of the tests that could determine their fate for many years to come.

Parents line up to burn incense. Photo: IC

A student walks past a wall decorated with banners. Photo: IC

A mother kneels to pray in front of a wall decorated with banners which provide blessings to grant a good performance for students in the gaokao. Photo: IC

 

An elderly woman kneels and bows to pray for her grandchild to have good luck in the upcoming national college entrance exams. Photo: IC