China Exchange 1999 - International Programs @ TCC

In many ways, the lives of students at BBI are very similar to the lives of students in the United States. There are some differences, however. Students from each department stay together with the students that they enter with for the five years that they are here. They take all of their classes together and live in the same dorm rooms. This means that there is a very strong bond between the individuals of a particular class. They work and live and play together. Each class has a class leader who serves as a representative of and an advocate for that group of students.

Sports is an important part of life at BBI. The favorite sports are tennis, soccer, and basketball. The school often holds competitions between the different departments. For men's sports this usually puts the International Journalism department at a disadvantage since the overwhelming number of students in this department are women. At a soccer tournament that we watched the opposing team was able to change players at various points during the game. Since there was a limited number of players on our team they had to play the whole game with no break. They still put in a heroic effort, tying the game three to three.

Eight people share this room. There is not an inch of space that is not put to use.

Benjamin, Yuan Zebin, sharing some of his photographs with me in his dorm room. While most students room with the people in their own department, due to the lack of men in the International Journalism department, Benjamin rooms with Engineering students.

The main complaint that students have about life at BBI is the dormitories. Conditions are crowded and, at least in the men's dorm that I visited, dirty. (I'm told that the girls dorm is cleaner and smells better.) Students live eight to a small room with barely enough room for the four bunk beds they sleep in. When I visited my student, Benjamin, in his dorm room we sat on his bed to look at some of his photographs. The bed moved. I couldn't quite figure out why. He explained that the support for the bed went through the wall into the next room. When the person in that room sits on his bed Benjamin's moves. He said when he first started living there it used to scare him pretty badly. The bathing facilities are so crowded, I was told, that many students bathe in the laundry room. Not much activity happens in the dorm room besides sleeping, most students study in the library or classrooms. While life in the dorms is very trying for students, the rooms certainly were interesting to look at - lots of stuff everywhere.

There are some other differences between higher education in China and in the West. It is very difficult to get into college in China. Admission is based on a series of very competitive examinations. Once in, however, one is virtually assured of a degree. It is very unusual for someone to flunk out. When I asked some students about this they said it was changing. They said that, now, if you failed four classes you could not graduate. I asked how often this happened. The reply was practically never, that the teachers tended to be "very nice". There is also great continuity in the age of university students in China. People over a certain age, 23 I think, are not allowed to pursue an undergraduate degree. When I showed the students here pictures of students in classes at the Visual Arts Center they were quite surprised at the range of ages.

A student practicing for a performance.

There were a lot of talented acts at this show put on by students but the real standouts were the announcers, professionally trained at Beijing Broadcasting Institute.

We leave China on Monday. I will post one more page before we go. On our way home we will spend ten days in Japan before arriving in the States on May 13th. I have enough material to cover more topics about life in China so I may post another page or two on our return.

NEXT: Goodbye to Beijing

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ED GIBBS
egibbs@tcc.edu
   

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