A Close Look at Student Life of Beijing University

Abraham Zamcheck
Stuyvesant High School

The most influential and valuable experience I had occurred during our stay at Beida (Peking or Beijing University) when I had contact with the students. It was through the students I met and talked to at Beida that I formed a picture of Chinese society.

One evening I followed Michael, one of our student instructors to his dormitory, a huge cement structure housing over 1,000 students. I don't think I saw a single student with a shirt on. The heat, already unbearable because of the hot summer night, was worsened by the mass of people occupying so little space, and by sockets occupied more often by heat-emitting desktop computers than by the occasional fan. In the hallways it was hard to dodge the dripping rows of jeans and T-Shirts hanging from the ceiling to dry. One bathroom served each floor, with toilets merely holes in the ground, and stall doors often missing. Students were walking through the hallways with plastic washbasins in hand, the only way for them to wash. There was only cold water. In comparison we foreign students were luxuriously housed in the Shaoyuan dormitory, in which two students share a spacious room complete with a private bathroom with hot and cold water and a western toilet.

Seven classmates crowded Michael's room, all members of the political science department. They played a game of cards which I did not recognize. I was eager to talk to the, but they weren't as eager to speak English. Michael wasn't so surprised. They had just received their scores for the GRE exam, the test which determines whether they will be admitted to American graduate schools. Days of memorizing English vocabulary lists had apparently not given them a love for the language. .... In any case our entry caused the card players to move across the hall.

I could not imagine getting any sleep at all in the heat of the room, but Michael and his roommates choose to live together during the summer months, as classes are not in session. ... [A]fter living together for two years, Michael's group of roommates had become very close friends. ... At home, he said, because of the one-child policy, they wouldn't have much company from peers.

In addition to concentrating on their studies (and card games), they often have heated debates about the government's policies, critiques which do not leave the room. Once a renowned center for political activism, since the brutal crackdown on political freedom following the Tiananmen Incident (the movement was largely organized by Beida students) students have not openly conducted political demonstrations. Several students told me that now, should a student join a political demonstration, he risked having the event recorded on his transcript with a detrimental effect on future job options. They also said the change was a result of greater emphasis on a students' economic future, void of politics. .... Through my conversations, I learned that most students desired in some way to eventually influence the government, and make China a freer place.

One word I learned to be of particular significance on Beida and to an extent throughout China was "Guanxi", a term meaning connections, or relations. [For example], those who would be chosen to be officials would not be based on the reasons associated with merit, but instead on "Guanxi". These connections in the political science department at Beida were typically granted through their professors, who play a very large role in advising government officials.

One of the most interesting things I learned on the campus was that though the student activism prevalent throughout the century (especially throughout the 1980s) is no longer present, the university still plays a role in shaping government policy.

I gained a unique understanding of Chinese society and culture that could not have been formed without such a first-hand visit. I now have enormous interest in Chinese studies, especially in the dynamic forces affecting Chinese society, and feel I have only started a lifetime pursuit of the field. I hope to soon return to the country, and to the students of Beida.