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look at Peking nive‘rsity

By Ross Meek - printed from the Martlet by Canadian University Press

n Fushao lives in a damp, ten by sixteen, cement red room with five other women and some rats. les, dishes, books, clothes, in fact, all the worldly ngin‘gs of six people overflow the one shelf, two tables, and six bunks. Lin must carry her own 5 to thecafeteria, purchase food with ration tickets return to her room\ to eat. The cafeteria has no e for tables and no money for dishes. After a ten day, Lin falls asleep surrounded by mosquito ng with onlya thin quilt between her and a wooden ress. ‘ n Fushao is an elite student attending China’s ier university, Beijing Dash wei (Peking University).

y Canadian Student would be appalled at these living itions, and_certainly distressed by the academic facilities. two at a time can study in the dorm, others must line ttside the library 'a half an hour before it opens, hoping d a seat. Books are held in locked stacks. Students can )u’ only those books that apply to their field. This onl} pealing to the overworked, unsympathetic librarian. *rures are constantly. interrupted as stray students walk and forth through ’the classrooms. Revoluntionar} ise music plays periodically over loudspeakers‘outside, ning out the professor. t to some'ten thousand students at Beida’ (an abbrevia- for Beijing University), this is the best .of all possible 5. They are among the highest class in a classless society. few years ago, thinkers and scholars were fstinkers’; , they are d'espartely needed,” said Theodore H. White recent article in Time. In the wake‘ of theCultural ution, a decade .of chaos between 1966 and 1976, the communist leaders nowknow they must find young to carry forward their tired government. They must - a— new mandarin class of scholars and bureaucrats to ister their experiment in modernization. o are these new. mandarins? And, what role will they ntheir country’s—future? ‘ » ., ' the new mandaim dawn breaks early. . v s 5:30 am. and a heavy haze hangs over the tree tOps. un has yet to break through but the Campus is alive with ng exercise. ,It is strangely quiet. Individuals beside the or on the dusty knolls perform the ancient art' of Tai he slippered shuffle of joggers rounding the lake is ned inthe still air- . . ' 5 early morning ritual provides breathing space, a l escape from the regular crowds of 25,000 residents ~ 50 acre campus. ‘ v ' r I “g Bonfan finishes his breakfast of rice gruel, pre- i dofu, ammonia iisen bread with bean curd and collects oks for class. He is a geography graduate student “Zing in quantitive methods. Zhang approaches his class down the poorly lit hall ‘ dilapidated Riussian‘ Languagebuilding, four young A giggle and chatter like elementary school students. t presses them. He has been selected to study at rd University next year. A great honour. ‘ receive this opportunity, Zhang holds important cations. He is near the'top of his class. He speaks well. And most importantly, he is a member of the unist Party. Proud of his accomplishment, he feels r cent Western.’ ’ ‘ When, visiting Canadian students show him a women’s ‘ magazine he is silent and blushes at the lingerie ads. Orer'coming his shyness; he ‘asks how they know Wthh e is for sunbathing and which is for underclothes. ‘her Student, Ding Bilan, is; fortunate to lunch at the studentscafeteria with herfCanadian friends, went)“ udents from the ;,Universityv.v of british Columbia’s phy Department. The UBC "students are‘spending 51x

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weeks of their summer at Beida‘ in the first student exchange with China at the departmental level.

This cafeteria has tables with dishes and chopsticks, and is attended by serving girls. During the conversation, Ding fills up on therich food that is unavailable to regular students. She gestures with her chopsticks and pigtails bob up and down while she searches for the correct English words to describe her country’s customs. '

Explaining the superior treatment of foreign students Ding says, A“it is our tradition to treat our guests with whatever the best we have. When I told my family that we had taken 'you to the student’s dining hall, they blamed me for being ‘ridiculous’; for ‘whoever heard that guests could be enter- tained in a student’s dining hall?’ My grandma likes to tell me about a village tradition; if one receives a present 'of cakes or vegetables, they usually preserve it as long as possible

A few years ago, thinkers and scholars were ‘stink'ers’; today, they are desperately needed '

_, in case any guests might come'. They would not eat the best

food, themselves. So you see, there is nothing extraordinary.”

Ding’s Canadian friend noticed quite a separation between male and female students. She asked Dingabout her male classmates. “Where are the boys in my class? To tell the truth, they are so ‘tiny’ (both in size and in ambition) that they escape our notice (no bragging). First of all, girls are the majority in my class. Secondly, most of the girls study harder and are better than the boys. I do not mean they'are not smart. They are. Only they are not intelligent enough to bear the title of ‘men’. Lastly, girls are ,more bold and

outspoken, Actually, being of a more generous sex, we treat

them well enough/3 explained Ding.

This did not coincide with reports of campus security flushing many young lovers from the bushes ab0ve the small man made lake. But it did make aniinte‘re‘sting contradiction.

Not lucky enough to eat at tables :in foreign students

cafeteria, Lin plods back to her dorm, dinner in hand. Most of it eaten by the time she arrives. She hungrily swalloWS the

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Gnome/Cord Weekly 4' we: syosr '53 slippery noodles, nibbles the crisp lotus root, and crunches the deep-fried rice cake. The scrambled egg and tomato will wait, and her roommate would bring rice for all to fill up on after the meal.

Although there is now plenty of food, it never seems to supply enough energy. The students tire quickly, probably because their diet supplies “1800 calories a day, on average. A Canadian consumes close to 3000.

Lin smiles and nods at the elderly lady sitting at the entrance to her dorm. She is the housemother, a Party member, and

' Lin is always polite to her.

After her meal Lin must line up, waiting for the library to reopen after the supper break. Beida’s library is reputed to hold some three million volumes. Other libraries suffered vandalism during the Cultural Revolution. There were

‘ gutted by the Red Guards and the books sold for fuel. Beida

was Mao’s favorite library, so it survived.

When the library doors open, she smiles at the doorman (also a Party man) and enters to find a seat in the crowded hall. a .

There are many lingering reminders of the persecution felt by scholars during the Cultural Revolution. “Work. Work is

good,” says a campus maintenance worker. This statement

has clear overtones suggesting ‘my work is good, but what students do is no good.‘ He is old and can no longer shift his values with China’s zig-zagging policies.

The tormented decade of the Cultural Revolution was a time of terror and persecution. 1t resembled civil war, no! culture. White describes it as a “sweep of terror, China under the Cultural Revolution was the equivalent of Nazi Germany. Thugs, Red Guard bands and idealists fought in the cities, all rivaling one another to show loyalty to Mao Thought So millions suffered.”

White quotes a one-time student: “ ‘My brother was at Peking University; he was beaten to death; then my mother committed suicide.’ Anyone with an education could be sent down Being ‘sent down’ or Xiafang, as the CinCsc call it, was a very simple punishment. ‘Stinking intcllcctuais‘ were supposed to learn from the peasants what life was like when one must stoop for hours transplanting rice seedlings in the wet muck.”

Students must live in the wake of such chaos, resentment

Continued on the next page

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