Reflections on Interactions with Beida Students

It’s currently late Sunday night and I have a ton of homework to do for tomorrow, but my friend Kuong (he’s American) and I were just discussing this issue and I realized that if I didn’t write about it right away, its effect would wear off.

So anyway, we were talking about meeting Chinese students and what we discussed with them, and I realized that I often do all of the talking. Now, most of you know that I’m quite a talker in general, so naturally I would attribute a lot of this to the fact that I simply like to talk. However, I do feel like I spend a lot of time simply answering their questions and talking about what activities I did in high school and what I do in college apart from classes and where I have worked, etc. (by the way, I’ve found explaining to many Chinese people that I worked for a US Senator to be very difficult, no matter how good their English is). I make a sincere effort to ask them about their own backgrounds, but the conversation inevitably turns back to me. Clearly, this has a lot to do with the fact that they are exceptionally curious about what our lives in America are like, but I consider myself equally curious about their lives in China. It just doesn’t seem like they have much they want to tell me.

Here’s the deal with the students at Beida: Beida is widely considered to be China’s most prestigious institution of higher learning. It is incredibly difficult to gain admission to Beida, especially when you factor in the sheer number of Chinese students that exist in China. In China there is a huge test at the end of high school that is used to determine if/where you go to college. It is a huge test, like no test in the US, even the SATs. I mentioned earlier how my roommates and I meet every couple of days with our language partners, Phoebe and Crystal. We recently asked them how they were accepted to Beida, and their response was that they essentially devoted all of their non-sleeping and non-eating time to studying for and taking tests. Crystal said they typically woke up at around 6 am and went to school and studied until bedtime at midnight, and this was what almost everyday was like for them throughout middle and high school. There was no time for extracurricular activities or after-school jobs. For the most part, due to China’s one-child policy, Beida students are only children, and all of their parents’ focus is devoted to their success (this also means that a lot of them – but certainly not all of them – are very spoiled and have pretentious attitudes). Ah ha! This also must also explain their sheer amazement at the fact that I have three younger sisters. Anyway, many of the Chinese students just love to hear us talk about the sports we played or clubs we were in or jobs we had when we were in high school and in college. They didn’t have that luxury – all of their time was devoted to rigorous study.

My Chinese friends have also mentioned how strict their schools are. In the US, we are generally taught to think for ourselves and to stand up for what we believe in and to question authority, whereas my friends in China were taught to be obedient, both in the classroom and out, and not to strive to be individualistic and independent. As part of their preparations for the GREs, Phoebe and Crystal have sample essay questions that they have to practice answering, and many of them ask for their opinion on a certain issue and then to elaborate on their viewpoint. They asked my roommate Katie and me what to do because apparently, they aren’t accustomed to expounding a personal opinion. This initially caught me off guard because so much of my writing in high school and college involved defending my opinions (and everyone knows that I certainly have my opinions!). At any rate, to a fiercely independent individual like me, the notion that one would strive to be like everyone else seems utterly foreign and unwise. I could get into how this probably relates to questions of why Mao was able to do what he did and why China’s government remains so authoritarian despite unprecedented economic reform, but I definitely don’t have the time to do that at the moment.

It is also hard for my Chinese friends to understand the issues with which America constantly grapples. I mentioned to my friend Cherry that Spanish is widely spoken in the US because the Hispanic population is so large. She started to ask me questions about immigration and minorities, among other issues, and seemed amazed that we even had such concerns. It makes sense, though, when you consider the homogeneity of China’s population. In the same way that China’s homogeneity is so intriguing and unfamiliar to me, America’s diversity and its effects must be overwhelming for many Chinese.

China is such a fascinating place to study, and I feel so fortunate to have the opportunity to see it for myself. I wish more American students would choose to learn Chinese and study abroad in China. Like I mentioned in one of my earlier posts, many Westerners simply view China as a future rival of the US that has aspirations to one day take over the world. They don’t understand the naiveté of such convictions.

Now that I’ve spent so much time writing this entry, I guess I should really start my homework. Hope all’s well with everyone!