Shengliver’s Note: The writer Lingkai has sympathy for his mentally disturbed friend.

I used to have a friend called Alison in Class X. One day last term Alison confided to me that he had had a crush on a girl in Class Y. They were middle school classmates. Despite his infatuation, the girl was indifferent to him.

Some weeks later we bumped into each other again. We chatted a lot. He argued that the current education system was not suitable for him and that there was no point in studying Chinese or reading Chinese literature.

Then two weeks later he was diagnosed with a mental disorder. At the mental hospital the doc said that Alison had come under too much pressure. After the diagnosis he had to stay at home for a week.

After Alison came back to school, we encountered each other again on campus. He was behaving weirdly. When he was babbling along, I could not make sense of his words. I was scared and worried.

Now Alison is no longer in school. He has to stay at home and be under treatment.

In my humble opinion, his ideas are wrong. The system imperfect, there are certainly problems with it, but everyone is more or less on an equal footing. It allows us all, whatever background we might be from, to compete on a level playing field. We cannot start a revolution, so we have to adapt to it. As for Chinese literature, I do not think we study it just for the university entrance exams. My Chinese teacher, Mr Handsome, need not take any Chinese exams, but he is well read and very knowledgeable. Thanks to his scholarship, he has accomplished a lot personally.

Were I my sick friend, I would stop troubling myself with so many thoughts and opinions. Right now, I think my priority is to settle down to study to pass the exam and to get a place at a good university.

This autumn I will be in Year 12, but my friend will have to redo Year 11. May Alison fare well and have a good future.