As a typical Chinese student, I had the same experiences as you did, or I'd say my high school was even MORE strict than yours? I got up at  6:00 am, and went to bed at 11:30 pm (there was 2-hour lunch break in between). What's worse, I didn't have weekends. It was like every day was occupied by studying for the F*cking Gaokao. They always say this educational system has to be changed, but, in fact, nothing has happened yet. I was told that I had no choice, since Gaokao was still the fairest way to select COMPETENT students from 200,000 high- school graduates. You know what, just suck it up.

Well, I am currently a college student in China and major in English. It is really a big deal for Chinese college students to shoot for a satisfying grade in English tests. You have only to look at those burnt-out students (especially non English-majors) the day before CET 4/6 (College English Test 4/6) to see the truth of this. Why does a certificate of CET matter so much? Because it, to some extents, decides whether you could land a good job after graduating from college. Nevertheless, not all students learn English because they are forced to.  A huge number of students are developing so consuming a  passion in English now that any English native speaker could probably be startled in the street by a question like this " Hi! How are you? I want to learn English. Could I be your friend?" ( It happened to my foreign teacher a lot of times(。_。)). Honestly, I find this " passion" has gone haywire. English is important, indeed; however, as Chinese people, shouldn't we attatch more importance to Chinese rather than English? And Why don't we have College Chinese Test? Is it really something to be proud of when you have a better knowledge of a foreign language than your mother tongue?  Well, I know it sounds extremely ironical, for I am studying English as a major now. But I would say in my heart of hearts that I love Chinese more than anyother languages in the world.

 I totally understand you, because I also ran into this problem before. I couldn't figure out why people just didn't reply to my requests. Then by pulling myself in others' shoes, I guess I know the reasons. If it were me who receive those requests, I would also be hesitated to accept them. For me,  I accept those who declare their intentions Just to be language partners. If the request is long and detailed, that will be better. Anyway, my tip is when you send your request, try to make it detailed ( like why do you want to learn this language or how long have you learned this ,etc) and clear on your purpose instead of just saying" Hi! I am xxx, and I wanna be your language partner on italki."  Maybe I am being picky, but that's what I've learned from my experience on italki; moreover, it really works.  I hope it can help you! Btw, if you want to learn Chinese, I am very happy to help!