My Coming-of-Age Ceremony

After the 2010 college entrance exams, eighteen-year-old Ji Qiu gave up his studies of his own accord because his family was poor. Along with his friends Yao Zifan and Tian Lulu, he headed to Xi'an to find work and earn money. When the exam results came out, he had scored high enough for a bachelor's program, but deliberately left his university applications blank, letting ten years of hard study go to waste. A naive young man with nothing to his name, he learned the importance of education through the trials of the adult world. In the end, he returned to school by retaking the exams. That summer job was the best rite of passage of his life.