at the china university of politcal science and law (中国政法大学）, where we're on exchange, every year is divided into different "classes", each with its own class committee. it's not a "class" in the sense that they have all their lessons together, but it's more to facilitate planning of recreational and co-curricular activities. every university student in china has to stay on campus and participate in student life, which isn't as bad as it sounds, seeing as many of them come from all over china to beijing to study. it helps you feel less lonely, i suppose.
the class president (who's called a 班长 ban1 zhang3, just like in primary and secondary school!) of the class we were assigned to has been extremely nice to us - jolie and i agree that he thinks we're very amusing because our spoken mandarin is terrible, so we're like pets which amuse him, hamsters or guinea pigs or something of that sort of small furry animal you can keep in a cage and observe.
so when he told us that there was going to be a class "meeting," because some students in the class had done something wrong and the level guidance counselor said they had to have a soul-searching and repenting session together (自我检讨), we agreed to go, if only to lend him some support.
remember how, in jc, we used to make the class or subject representative mark us 'present' in the register even though we were in the void deck talking nonsense, drinking ribena and eating chocolate hello panda (well i was, anyway, and i was assistant class rep. ****** was responsible enough i suppose, and he spent half his time in lectures with his head supported by his right hand, falling asleep)? three of the girls in the class had done something like that, arriving back in school after the lunar new year holidays later than they were supposed to but getting the class president to sign them in anyway. and although many students do it, unluckily enough, the teachers decided to do a spot-check on their class attendance.
you can imagine the sort of things the three students and the class president had to say. but it was sincere, and they were all rather eloquent, and we didn't go away feeling slightly embarrassed for them. thankfully no teacher sat in, as the class president had said might happen. or it might have been a lot longer. the class president kept his sorry speech short, and ended by saying that since it was a new semester they wouldn't talk about such sad things anymore.
not that such a thing would have happened in jc when we flouted the rules that way, but somehow i can't imagine something like that happening in a secondary school or junior college in singapore without everyone present going away with a bitter taste in their mouths and the feeling that the session was an utter waste of time.
i'm sure that sort of thing will carry on. but as jolie and jinni and i agreed when we were out in the cold waiting for the bus home, there is something very sincere about the chinese university students we've met. i don't know if it's true for all of them, but they're not afraid to be themselves, and they actually have an opinion about things, and different and worthy ideals. it's quite different from university students in singapore, or maybe it's the education system and the culture. and our smallness. stand out from the crowd, and you'll be noticed instantly. and we're afraid of being noticed.
***
as i was saying, we were waiting for the bus back home - we commute to school everyday, and usually we catch the shuttle bus back from the main campus to the research institute, which is very near our house. the main campus is some 30 plus km away, if we measured the distance correctly on the street directory. there are two drivers covering the route, and the 7 p.m. bus was driven by the very mean one and he didn't allow us on. well, it was very crowded and the shuttle bus is mainly for professors, anyway.
so we trudged out to the bus stop, where jolie and jinni insisted that the express 919 bus service hadn't stopped because it was still too early, but after two of the 919s which plied the normal route passed by, we decided to stop the third and ask. whereupon we found out that the express 919 stopped pretty early, and so we hopped onto that one.
it was already dark at 1930, and because it was 1930, the roads were pretty clear and the journey passed quickly. maybe because we sang chinese songs all the way back on the bus (to prepare ourselves for a karaoke session with our university mates) in the dark, as, for some reason the bus driver turned off the lights. for people to sleep i suppose, but i thought it was a rather strange thing to do. especially since at times the bus took us down roads which came straight from a horror movie - no streetlights, leafless trees, only the headlights of the bus providing some direction.
two chinese nationals sitting in front of us were very amazed at the vast amount of chinese songs we knew.
anyhow, we were just talking about how much we liked faye wong and 我愿意, and i said yah so nice hor she's singing about how she's willing to give up her name for the man she loves. jolie and jinni stared at me, and i said it's wo3 yuan4 yi4 wei4 ni3 fang4 qi4 wo3 xing4 ming2, 我愿意为你放弃我姓名 right? which makes sense, because women give up their maiden names when they get married.
and then it dawned on me that xing4 ming2 in this context was more likely to be 性命, or life.
i'd actually thought she was singing about giving up her life, at first, but then quentin told me that she was singing about giving up her name.
i suppose googling it would solve the mystery, but at this point, would you rather belive girls who came from chinese-ed schools at one point or another in the course of their education or an acs barker boy?
the class president (who's called a 班长 ban1 zhang3, just like in primary and secondary school!) of the class we were assigned to has been extremely nice to us - jolie and i agree that he thinks we're very amusing because our spoken mandarin is terrible, so we're like pets which amuse him, hamsters or guinea pigs or something of that sort of small furry animal you can keep in a cage and observe.
so when he told us that there was going to be a class "meeting," because some students in the class had done something wrong and the level guidance counselor said they had to have a soul-searching and repenting session together (自我检讨), we agreed to go, if only to lend him some support.
remember how, in jc, we used to make the class or subject representative mark us 'present' in the register even though we were in the void deck talking nonsense, drinking ribena and eating chocolate hello panda (well i was, anyway, and i was assistant class rep. ****** was responsible enough i suppose, and he spent half his time in lectures with his head supported by his right hand, falling asleep)? three of the girls in the class had done something like that, arriving back in school after the lunar new year holidays later than they were supposed to but getting the class president to sign them in anyway. and although many students do it, unluckily enough, the teachers decided to do a spot-check on their class attendance.
you can imagine the sort of things the three students and the class president had to say. but it was sincere, and they were all rather eloquent, and we didn't go away feeling slightly embarrassed for them. thankfully no teacher sat in, as the class president had said might happen. or it might have been a lot longer. the class president kept his sorry speech short, and ended by saying that since it was a new semester they wouldn't talk about such sad things anymore.
not that such a thing would have happened in jc when we flouted the rules that way, but somehow i can't imagine something like that happening in a secondary school or junior college in singapore without everyone present going away with a bitter taste in their mouths and the feeling that the session was an utter waste of time.
i'm sure that sort of thing will carry on. but as jolie and jinni and i agreed when we were out in the cold waiting for the bus home, there is something very sincere about the chinese university students we've met. i don't know if it's true for all of them, but they're not afraid to be themselves, and they actually have an opinion about things, and different and worthy ideals. it's quite different from university students in singapore, or maybe it's the education system and the culture. and our smallness. stand out from the crowd, and you'll be noticed instantly. and we're afraid of being noticed.
***
as i was saying, we were waiting for the bus back home - we commute to school everyday, and usually we catch the shuttle bus back from the main campus to the research institute, which is very near our house. the main campus is some 30 plus km away, if we measured the distance correctly on the street directory. there are two drivers covering the route, and the 7 p.m. bus was driven by the very mean one and he didn't allow us on. well, it was very crowded and the shuttle bus is mainly for professors, anyway.
so we trudged out to the bus stop, where jolie and jinni insisted that the express 919 bus service hadn't stopped because it was still too early, but after two of the 919s which plied the normal route passed by, we decided to stop the third and ask. whereupon we found out that the express 919 stopped pretty early, and so we hopped onto that one.
it was already dark at 1930, and because it was 1930, the roads were pretty clear and the journey passed quickly. maybe because we sang chinese songs all the way back on the bus (to prepare ourselves for a karaoke session with our university mates) in the dark, as, for some reason the bus driver turned off the lights. for people to sleep i suppose, but i thought it was a rather strange thing to do. especially since at times the bus took us down roads which came straight from a horror movie - no streetlights, leafless trees, only the headlights of the bus providing some direction.
two chinese nationals sitting in front of us were very amazed at the vast amount of chinese songs we knew.
anyhow, we were just talking about how much we liked faye wong and 我愿意, and i said yah so nice hor she's singing about how she's willing to give up her name for the man she loves. jolie and jinni stared at me, and i said it's wo3 yuan4 yi4 wei4 ni3 fang4 qi4 wo3 xing4 ming2, 我愿意为你放弃我姓名 right? which makes sense, because women give up their maiden names when they get married.
and then it dawned on me that xing4 ming2 in this context was more likely to be 性命, or life.
i'd actually thought she was singing about giving up her life, at first, but then quentin told me that she was singing about giving up her name.
i suppose googling it would solve the mystery, but at this point, would you rather belive girls who came from chinese-ed schools at one point or another in the course of their education or an acs barker boy?
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