Edu-Fatigue

When weariness descends, does the heart breed coldness and quick anger?

An interesting linguistic phenomenon arises in informal Chinese internet slang when the noun 'reality' (现实) is violently repurposed as a transitive verb, thereby creating a grammatical aberration.

To say “life has realitied me” is not to describe a gradual acceptance of facts, but to name an act of forced awakening: the shattering of illusions, the extinguishing of ideals, the blunt obliteration of a softer self.

Students recognise that grades matter more than curiosity. The exam system, the parents’ sighs, the ranked scoreboards, all these agents of “reality” perform the verb upon her. The machine is not new either. It resembles the thousand-year-old imperial examination system (科举制度), where the essence of a learned man was captured in one brushstroke on the test scroll. Out of that fire came the extreme education system we have today, a system that leaves no place for wonder. One is realitied: the dream of becoming a poet, the late-night wonders, the belief that learning should feel like expansion, are all grounded down.

This verb transforms “reality” from a passive backdrop into an active, almost predatory participant. It reveals that under unrelenting academic pressure, teenagers undergo it like a patient undergoing a procedure they never consented to. And in that undergoing, fantasy is quickly and thoroughly crushed, leaving behind only the exhausted obedience of a student who grows only toward the dim light of the next examination.