Holding onto the last bit of power

I'm in a very small Chinese city, 300 000 Chinese people to 20 foreigners. This province is in southern China, and known to be a very poor province. Everything is very traditional, and they resist change, and development at every turn.

Lately I've been hearing some crazy stories from the students. Stories where I just roll my eyes, and shake my head at the stupidity of it all.

The University itself is surrounded by a wall first off. Every Chinese University is like this, they believe in keeping students in. I'm living in the girls dormitory section, it too has a wall around it with glass shards on the top in case someone tries to climb over. The gate is locked every night at 11pm I won't even bother going into the hassle if you are late.

The powers that be, or the "leaders" as the students call these men who simply love dictating just because they can. They have come up with some pretty strange things in the attempts to keep hold of their power before change comes, and forces their traditional thinking out.

Each morning the music plays at 6:15am to get everyone up, the english majors and the international trade majors (no on else though!) have to be up at the front of their teaching building by 6:30am to do "morning exercises." Now this whole thing takes 20-30 min as I can figure out. They are like robots, long lines of students, each performing in unison. By exercise I'm talking about stretching. No running, nothing else, just stretching. (click on the pic above to see the excitement on their faces!)

After this they have to do their morning reading which should be at least 30 mins long. So where is breakfast you might wonder or cleaning yourself up? Well breakfast is on the fly if you managed to clean yourself up before having to go to class for 8am. Morning reading is a complete waste of time I have figured out. I ask the students frequently "did you remember anything you read?" "No" "Did you understand anything you read?" "No" so why bother?

The students are out by the side of the pond reading thing such as "the cat ran away" "the cat, the cat, the cat, the cat" "ran ran ran" "away away away" "the cat cat cat ran away away" This is morning reading, it drives me nuts when I have to walk by. Who cares where the damn cat cat cat is is??

The students live in rooms with 3/4/5/6/7 other people. No heat, no fan, a room simply made of cement, with bunk beds. So when it is 5C outside, you simply put on more clothes. The room itself reminds you of bare army barracks. No room is bigger than your typical Western living room. There is no hot water, whatever the ground water temperature is, that is the temperature of the water. Shower you might wonder? Well you have to go to a different building halfway across campus, to have a communal shower with about 100 other girls or boys.

There are inspections, oh yes! The more I look at it, the more like the army it is, but without the benefits that can be accrued. There can be no posters on the wall unless they are educational. So no cartoons, no pop stars, no celebrities. If you have one of these on your wall, you loose marks. Which ultimately means if you have a scholarship you could lose it. I'm wondering what does having a clean room, no fun posters on the wall actually do? The only thing I can come up with is "no distractions from memorizing your 150page book for the next exam."

Now think this is bad. A lot of students don't live in the dorm, they live outside the campus. Problem is they are not allowed to do this as it is against the rules of the University. They will get into trouble, the University will yell at them, punished etc etc etc. So they have introduced a new thing, random bed checks! Bed checks are made at 9:45pm!! 24 yr old students have to be "home" by 9:45pm!! My god if you're not in bed/your room come these bed checks, be prepared to be lynched by your teacher then by the head of your department.

The campus where I teach is only for the first years, cause you don't want the older students to corrupt them. You think the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th year students have it bad at least they can go out. The first years are basically in prison. They have to stay on campus all week. They are only allowed out from 6pm Friday till 7pm Sunday. Don't forget the gate closes at 10pm on these nights. After that, you're locked in until the following Friday. Again, there is that wall around the campus with guards at the front gate. You want to get out, you better have a note from your head teacher, otherwise you're simply pointed back up the drive.

I'm so glad that I am not a student here. This is a typical University with all it's crazy rules, and regulations that make no sense what so ever.