When I was considering what age group of kids to question for this Field Note, I decided that the best thing to do would be to find kids outside doing interesting things. During one of my excursions, I ran into a group of middle school kids that happened to be on a field trip. I was planning on exploring a museum in Nanjing on the history of the Chinese government exam when I found the students to interview. There is a deep history to the tradition of taking exams in order to go into government jobs.
In fact, the kids were at the museum not only to learn about the history, but also to learn about the influence of this testing on the lives of high school students that have to take standardized tests to get into college. China was the first country to ever implement a test system like this, and as a result, the tradition of test taking has influenced countries such as Korea, Japan and even Western countries like the United Kingdom and the United States! I was also able to ask other kids while walking around in the town.
For breakfast, most of the kids said they like to eat porridge and fried breadsticks or a specific type of Chinese crepe called a jian bing. The jian bing, a popular breakfast street food, is mainly made with wheat and flour as the roll and then it is topped with minced meat, an egg and various types of vegetables.
