Happy December!
Recap of my first semester in China
Hey friends!
Thank you for tuning into the first post about my semester in China. The Christmas spirit is nonexistent on Peking University’s campus since religious holidays aren’t allowed, but my peers and I may trek to Beijing’s Sanlitun area next week to see Christmas decorations. So far, the only sign that it’s Christmas is 1) my politics professor felt bad assigning us a three-hour lecture on Christmas Day but still proceeded to do so and 2) our Yenching Academy program, the fellowship I’m attending, decided to host a Secret Santa and Winter Ball. That said, despite a lack of Christmas spirit in the air, Chinese New Year is around the corner, and bright red decorations are appearing around campus. Next year, it’s the year of the dragon, one of the luckiest and most powerful zodiacs in Chinese culture, so it’s a big deal. I haven’t seen a single Christmas light go up in public areas, but we’re two months away from Chinese New Year's Day, and “Happy New Year” signs have gone up.
Academics in Beijing
I’ve had a lovely three months in Beijing, where the winter is getting too cold and every part of the Peking University campus looks like a snow globe. Our university went bonkers the day it started snowing a week ago, and the art department even sculpted beautiful Michelangelo-esque art. At the sports field, you see snowmen in all sizes and shapes, and for our department, we even added sunglasses and scarves as decoration. It’s very chilly in Beijing, and the worst is yet to come, but so far, except for polluted snow (thanks to Beijing’s unclean air), the winter is gorgeous.
In terms of academics, my classes are interesting. Not exactly great, but not terrible. Contrary to popular thinking that China is full of propaganda and free speech is nonexistent, college campuses are very free, and the professors openly criticize the government in classes. The exception is that people will openly criticize politics, but they’ll never write their criticisms down or share the PowerPoints from class. You can talk about your dislike, just don’t circulate the content.
I’m taking a mix of politics and international relations classes, despite majoring in economics, in part because I want to see what Chinese politics is taught like in China. For the most part, my classes are all three-hour lectures and a true test of how long I can stay awake. But there are more postgraduate students than undergraduates at Peking University, and students here try really, ridiculously hard. When you compete for a job in a pool of a billion people, competition gets fierce. I’ve been told by other Chinese mainland students that typical Peking University departments will only admit the #1 student from undergraduate schools outside of Beijing. In other words, if you’re a Chinese mainland student in second or third place, you should start thinking about postgraduate degree options in US or UK colleges. During these times, I thank America for our foreign passport, which grants us enrollment exceptions. Also, in China, anyone who’s considered educated needs a master’s or maybe a Ph.D. degree. A bachelor’s degree isn’t enough. For the first time in my life, I’ve had FOMO for never considering a Ph.D. degree. Is that wrong?
Yenching Academy
The program is great. I’ve had my fair share of questioning Chinese bureaucracy, especially when they send us to colonial French towns in the name of promoting cultural diplomacy, but the fully funded program has ensured that we live like kings and queens. We get a monthly stipend and have janitors who clean our common room every day. The exception is that we’re hated on campus, for good reason, because Chinese mainland students live with 4-6 people in a small room. Meanwhile, we foreigners each get our room and a library to ourselves. The Peking University library is constantly packed with students, too many of them unapologetically taking naps because privacy doesn’t exist in their dorms.
Living with 112 other scholars, many of whom aren’t American, has fostered interesting conversations at Yenching. I’m learning from Brazilian scholars who like to give hugs and UK scholars whose frequent treks to pubs blow my mind. But I’m also learning from Chinese mainland scholars whose patience sitting in a library — for hours on end — scares me, and I’m equally fascinated by African scholars who jammed up Afrobeats for a birthday celebration. The eclectic mix of people has meant that on most days, I can run into peers without talking about our futures or jobs. Most of the time, we’re sharing tips on how to skip class or order boba in bulk, thanks to an efficient Chinese delivery system. You’d be surprised, but skipping class when attendance is required is quite hard in Beijing. Our attendance is GPS-tracked, so we have to pull more than a couple of strings to figure out how to avoid the teachers and move close enough to the classroom building to hit the “check-in” button. And for the takeout, I consider Chinese delivery apps one of the greatest inventions of mankind. The customer service is so on point that within 20-30 minutes of ordering, your food is guaranteed to arrive. The cakes come with candles and plates, and the lunch meals always come in cute totes. You can order dumpling takeout one day and ballerina shoes another day (speaking from experience). It also means that when you’re on the streets, the takeout deliverymen will honk and screech past you because if they surpass their delivery time, they’ll be fined. What a weird capitalistic way to do business in a socialist country.
Up next
In January, I’m going back to Guam after a year! I couldn’t be more excited, and next month, I’ll stop by the Harbin Ice Festival, world-renowned for ice sculptures and -20-degree weather. I’ll also visit other parts of China, like Yunnan and Wuhan, before dipping for the hecticness of Chinese New Year with my family. The craziest part is so many people want to travel for Chinese New Year that the train ticket apps don’t release tickets until two weeks beforehand. And we need to “fight” for these tickets via a lottery system, in hopes of getting on a train to a major city. May the odds be in our favor; I’d like to eat some dumplings in my grandparents’ homes.
Happy holidays to you and your family! Hope everything in the U.S. is going well.
Toodles,
A human looking forward to Chinese New Year
