University Life in China

Generally speaking, I think there's some big differences between uni here and in the West, although being a foreigner who speaks dreadful Chinese it's difficult to really understand it properly.

Everyone lives in dormitories the whole time, either 4 or 8 to a room. Strictly no foreigners allowed, and everyone has to be back by 11 every night, otherwise it goes on your academic record. My university (ShiDa) and the foreign language one next door (WaiYuan) have between them at least 50,000 students, but Friday and Saturday nights are as quiet as any other.

The students will have about 20 hours of lessons a week, and lessons are scheduled for evenings (7-9) and weekends as well as weekdays. Everyone has to learn about Marxism and Deng XiaoPing Thought, regardless of subject studied. This is quite strange, as they seem just as disengaged from such things as anyone else. Nearly everyone will eat in the huge canteen on campus, and most will have an afternoon nap. Midday/early afternoon is very quiet on campus, partly because they're sleeping, but also because it's so damn hot.

In their spare time, they sleep, play computer games, go shopping, study, sleep some more. Very very few have part time jobs or do work experience things.

There seems to be a better respect for education here. The campus is really well looked after compared to the rest of China, and it's really peaceful and quiet. The Chinese students I know respect their teachers a lot more then Western people - me and the other Europeans here have no qualms pointing out the deficiences of our teachers, but my Chinese friends wouldn't.

I think the way of learning here is atrocious, and not just in my lessons. The students will have a textbook, and the aim of the class in to learn by rote the entire book. At the end, you do a multiple choice exam and this is called learning. Critical thinking, analysing, arguing, etc, are not on the agenda. There is a library, but it's not expected to be used. My friends who study Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language have to study English, and one book is just page after page of word lists with definitions, and they have to learn the entire thing.