Small-town Swot

Small-town swot or Xiaozhen Zuotijia (Chinese: 小镇做题家; pinyin: xiǎo zhèn zuò tí jiā) is a Chinese satirical internet slang that describes students from rural China and county-level cities who come to work in bigger cities but are disappointed to learn that despite their diligent studies and examination success in entering elite universities, they lack the cultural and social capital of their well-connected city-born workplace peers.

[1][2] The supreme test-taking abilities enable the small-town swots to score high in the Chinese college entrance exam Gaokao and enter first-class universities, namely, the schools of the 985/211 Project.

[3] Group members share their similar disappointing experiences and sought resonance in the self-deprecating nickname "five (废物)", which is the homonym of "waste" in English.

[4] On the introduction page, the group states its purpose is to build a "university for fives: a new campus for the Project 985/211 graduates who dropped out of school or become unemployed, share failure stories and discuss how to get out of trouble".

[3] The earliest traceable post on Douban that mentioned small-town swot is titled "Majored in Biology, Chemical, Environmental, Material with bottom grades, let's talk about my future (生化环材专业垫底成绩，一起来想想去处)".

[7] In 2021, an article titled "Education in China is becoming increasingly unfair to the poor" published in The Economist first translated the term "xiaozhen zuotijia" into English as "small-town swot".

[2] Qian Wang, a Conjoint Professor at the Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, commented that youth from rural areas face invisible barriers such as poor levels of foreign language and less creativity in scientific research.

[2] By contrast, the posts on " Project 985 Waste Introduction Plan (985废物引进计划)" show more critical attitudes towards the small-town swot phenomenon based on their own experience of being misfits and having poor job prospects.

[2][3] A post on "Project 985 Waste Introduction Plan (985废物引进计划)" criticized Tenzing Tsondu (丁真), a social media influencer who received a job offer from the local government that he has no outstanding personal quality and ability compares to his classmates.

[13][14] China Youth Daily commented that the small-town swots may feel jealous and angry to see they are not as successful as a good-looking influencer with a low degree of education, which is not a practical attitude.