The Story of a Chinese Schoolboy

Okay, so it's not really a "story" about any specific "schoolboy." (Just typing "schoolboy" brings to mind the Dumb and Dumber quote by Jim Carey, "I desperately want to make love to a schoolboy.") Actually, I was sitting here in my room on an uneventful Friday night--except that I helped a couple neighbors fix their toilet--and started talking with my roommate and his friend, Yue Yang. He's probably my favorite Chinese friend here in Harbin because he's talks really clearly and doesn't hesitate to help you--and he's just an all around cool guy (He prefers American rap over Chinese music).

Anyway, we eventually got to the topic about college life and what it's like growing up in China--specifically going to school. Some of the stuff they told me was crazy, and some hilarious. I'll share what I've got with you here. (This first picture is HIT's main building--designed by Russians, if you couldn't tell)

Students start out in Kindergarten at about age 3-4--pretty standard, but that's about where the similarities end. Elementary school runs from age 5 or 6 to 11 or 12. This includes grades 1-5. At elementary school students are expected to arrive around 7:15 a.m. and study on their own and get situated until 8:00, when classes officially start. They then sit through 5 classes in the morning, in a similar structure to America where the teachers come to the students. The afternoon holds a 2 hour rest/lunch break, 2 more classes, and individual study time. Students head home around 5:30. Let me just reemphasize, THIS IS ELEMENTARY SCHOOL.

I told Yue Yang and Hongbo that if this was the States, and you told 2nd graders they had "Individual Study Time," it would be mass chaos. They then enlightened me with probably the funniest thing I heard all night. It seems students are instilled with a very strict sense of conduct and personal behaviour. Sitting at your desk with perfect posture, you have two options: you can hold your hands together behind your back, or you can lay your forearms on the edge of your desk running parallel to your body and one on top of the other (they are nice enough to let you choose which forearm you want situated on top). When the teacher asks a question, and you think you know the answer, you are expected to raise your top forearm like your elbow has a hinge connecting it to your other hand's fingers. When you are called on, you are expected to stand up (of course with perfect posture) and answer the question, with arms at your side, and national pride in your heart. This practice usually ends at 4th grade, but my friends said many students continue to do it out of habit, and many college students still stand up when called upon. (This 2nd pic is one of our classes--that's a pretty large one--and has no relation to this story)

Come 4th grade, they start writing long articles with no Pinyin--what students first learn before the Chinese characters, which helps them learn pronunciation. Middle school runs from 6th grade to 9th grade, and it is here that they start learning to form English sentences. Sometime during elementary school they begin learning the alphabet and basic words. At the same time they are continuing to study the Chinese language, and begin learning Chinese and world history. It is also during middle school that they start night study time: an average middle school day would be similar to the layout of elementary school I stated above, except that instead of being done for the day at 5:30pm, you have to return at for class time/individual study from 7:30-9:30pm. Most aspects of high school (grades 10-12) are similar except that night study runs later--10:00pm.

If that's not enough, you have what's called a Cram School, which are popular all throughout Asia. Ten or 15 years ago, this would be an afternoon/night school that focused primarily on math, Chinese, or English language skills. It used to be mostly for poor students or students who want to get ahead, but now, it's the situation where if you don't attend you're falling behind and hurting your chances of attending a good college. Where they fit this into that busy day I'm not sure, but it's an option that's getting more and more popular--especially since these days you can choose other Cram Schools, ones that specialize in art, music, etc. If families choose not to go down that route, parents often times give their children homework they create. My Chinese teacher at Vandy personally told us she gives her son homework almost every day.

And if you noticed the emphasis on math (how they previously could only choose from language or math), it's true that math is king over here. Every large city and province has a Math Olympics (think Spelling Bee) and teachers push students pretty hard to compete and to eventually advance to the national level--it's kind of a big deal.

So arriving at college, most Chinese students think life is pretty sweet. They've already gotten into a college, the fruit of all those night classes and Cram Schools. However, depending on the student, a Chinese college student will attend 20-32 hours of class per week (The U.S. standard is 15). I guess it's necessary when you have 10 different classes (e.g. Economics, Biology, Calculus). When I told my friends I was taking 4 classes for a total of 12 hours per week, they just laughed. And college here in China is a bargain, relatively speaking. At Harbin Institute of Technology, my host college here and one of the top 10 in the country, annual tuition is runs around $750 and annual dorm/books is about $500. Can't argue with that! When I told them that my all inclusive college bill runs around $50,000, and I almost had to check for their pulse. (This last pic is St. Sophia's Cathedral, the most photographed building in Harbin--I still haven't personally seen it)

It seems the hot major is Information Technology. If you graduate with this major or find the right job--one with one of China's monopolies (The oil companies are especially good--there's only 3: PetroChina, Sinopec, and CNOOC)--you can command an annual salary of over $6000. However, pulling this off is tough, and most college grads earn about half that amount. They told me that companies to work for are divided into tiers, according to desirability. The first tier would be a British or American company, under that would be a Japanese or Korean one, then a Hong Kong or Taiwanese enterprise, and on the 4th tier would be a Chinese one.

I hope this gives you a little bit of insight into the details of school life here in China, and I hope I didn't bore you to death with the details. If you've heard different than what I've got here in this post, I'd love to hear what you have to say--maybe some of this info is wrong. But you have to take it with a grain of salt: my friends told me this was their experience, so other students' experiences are certain to have some differences.