Chinese College Students

I've had quite a few conversations with Chinese college students in the last few weeks, mainly with He Wei and some with Cortne's roommate Song Yang. I can't say that I have a full image of the way Chinese youth think or how they have been educated in the Chinese system, but I can say that some of the things I've seen are very interesting.

In many ways, their lives are exactly like those of American college students. They come from all over the country, live and eat on campus, go home for holidays, study late into the night...sometimes, prepare for the GREs to go to graduate school in the United States, and even access the same websites as American students (no comment). In fact, they are probably more like I am as a student in the United States than I am as a student in China. Here I eat at restaurants much more often due to the difference in food prices, and I study quite a bit more because you can't get away with not doing the reading when your class is one on one with a professor and the reading is in Chinese! HIT students seem to study even less than I do at Georgetown. I think they must really cram for tests a few days before because it seems like they go for weeks without studying and then one night stay in the library all night (okay, maybe it's not the library). Anyway, in many ways this university isn't very different from most American universities.

However, there are definitely differences between American 20 year-olds and Chinese 20 year-olds aside from the obvious food they eat, language they speak, and clothes they wear. First of all, you can pretty much assume that every student you see walking around campus is an only child. In fact, almost all Han Chinese born after 1979 when the One Child Policy was instated are only children. I personally don't believe that this policy will be around for another 30 or 40 years, but if it were, it's really strange to think that the Chinese would not only not have siblings but wouldn't have closely related aunts, uncles, or cousins either.

While the effects of the One Child Policy are rather concrete and easy to see, there are far more implicit influences on young Chinese that I think greatly shape their view of the world. For example, about a week ago I was eating lunch with He Wei, and he mentioned how it was interesting that we would be in China for the 60th aniversary of the founding of the PRC (October 1, 1949). I responded that it was also exciting that it was the 20th aniversary of the Tian'anmen Square protest. He was rather surprised that I knew about that because he said most Chinese people our age don't know about it. It's really crazy to think that people in this country don't know about an event that was so publicized all over the world. It occurred to me that if there were another protest in Tian'anmen on October 1st, 2009, I might not know about it because I would be in the country where it happened. Shoot me an email if Beijing goes up in flames, will you?

I know I shouldn't be surprised at the altered form of history that is taught in Chinese schools, but when you actually come in contact with the results of it, it really makes you realize that this isn't the same as America. I even see it in the classrooms of the international students building. Each classroom has a world map and a map of China. The world map has China in the middle (China is the Middle Kingdom afterall), and the Atlantic Ocean is called the "Big Western Ocean," but the map of China is especially interesting. Taiwan is shown as a province of China, no different from any other province, and the body of water east of China is labeled as the Japanese Sea. Japanese Sea is crossed out and Eastern Sea is written over it in pen. This is the case with every map in every classroom. I mean, is that really worth the effort? You can still see that it says Japanese Sea under the pen marks.

I suppose it takes time for things to change, and things in China definitely are changing, but if Chinese children and even college students aren't taught about their own history and the world around them, it will be a long time coming. For now, I just find myself saying, "真的吗中国，真的吗？" ("Really China, really?")