This article explores the exam-oriented, ritualistic, and exemplary Chinese education system through a double-layered historical and ethnographic analysis. Firstly, I examine three aspects of the educational governing complex--exemplarity, ritual, and examination. Historically, education has been a key locus to craft exemplary subjects through rituals and imitation of models, and this is reinforced by exams to justify social hierarchy. The production of subjectivities in Chinese schools has never been too far removed from these aspects of exemplarity, ritual, and examination. Secondly, I offer an account of the contested "quality curriculum reform" in rural China. While the reform aims to foster creativity and criticizes the overemphasis on exams, classroom rituals, and exemplary icons, its implementation renormalizes the tripartite governing paradigm and produces a contradictory mix of subjectifying discourses in everyday school lives. The study shows that contemporary pedagogic discourse is still rooted in traditional elements, even if the reform aims to do away with, however partially, these elements. In the multi-layered field of Chinese education, pedagogical actors both abide by and react against the historical and contemporary visions of educational governing with hybrid subjectivities. The study sheds light on why China's curriculum reform is far from an easy task.