Reading, writing and arithmetic

I hadn’t taken any pictures this week, so on the way to Salvador’s (our favorite café) this morning, I snapped some random shots to share. The first are of lunch at our most frequented cafeteria on campus. The food is a sampling of what is available on the first floor. Second level has made-to-order soups, fried rice, dumplings, noodle dishes, etc. The dogs are to show you what Chinese dogs look like. Stray dogs are all little guys with under-bites.

Today I started reading and correcting the 40-plus 500-word essays that I assigned my English Writing class, kicking myself all the while. The topic was, “What I learned about myself in the experience of leaving home and coming to university,” as it’s a freshman class and they all just arrived two months ago. Most of the students expressed their frustrations with leaving home and taking care of themselves, as well as living in a dormitory with so many other students.

As you may know, there is a one-child policy in China. Due to the over population, Chinese families are discouraged to have more than one child through heavy taxation on additional children. This one-child policy has been implemented for a little over 20 years now. It’s interesting to witness a culture where practically every youth is an only child.

Needless to say, our students are experiencing difficulties adapting to the bare-bone facilities of university life, compared to their spoiled luxuries back home – especially the over-crowded dorms. The dormitories consist of one very small room with two bunk beds and a table with four chairs. There are shared toilets, but no showers. Students have to walk ten minutes across campus and wait in a long line to take a shower. There is a shortage of housing on campus, so study halls have been modified to accommodate eight students to one room. For an only child, this is quite a change.

While living conditions are considerably worse for the students, their study loads are considerably lighter. In secondary school, students have class from 7 am – 7 pm and then 5-6 hours of homework each night. The pinnacle of Chinese education is the college entrance exam, which determines their life outcome, at least for middle to upper class students (peasant life is predetermined). If the student finishes in the top 2% of their province, they can choose from any university in the country and their opportunities are endless. The further away their scores are from that, the less choice they have in choosing a university. Keep in mind that only 2% of Chinese youth get the opportunity to go to university at all.

The Yunnan University of Finance & Economics is low down on the scale of desirable universities. Most of my students are here because they did only so-so on the university entrance exam and had no other choice. As it is not a prestigious university and there is no longer the looming qualifying test, students have little motivation to excel and compared to their studies in secondary school, the workload is at most half of what they are used to. To top it off, the International Business School at our university, where we teach, has the most expensive tuition. So not only are our students disappointed, unmotivated and from single children families, but also wealthy in Chinese standards. Spoiled brats. So remove your image of diligent, well-behaved communist students from your brain. It’s not like that. They make American university seem like boot camp.

Besides teaching, we’ve been spending time with our new friend, colleague and next-door neighbor, Gaetan, from French Switzerland. Gaetan studied two years of Chinese at the University of Geneva, two years in China at the University of Chongqing (Sichuan Province) and worked for one year in the northern mountains of Yunnan. As his Chinese is fluent and he’s an extremely friendly person, he comes in handy. With his help, we’ve explored some new restaurants that would have been impossible on our own (menus are written in characters), and found our way around new parts of the city.
On Friday night, we tried some Dai cuisine. Dai are one of the 20-plus ethnic minorities that live in the Yunnan province (more than any other province in China). The Dai live in the south of Yunnan in an area called Xishuangbanna that borders Vietnam and Myanmar. We feasted on pineapple sticky rice, spicy tofu cooked in banana leaves, stir fried wild mushrooms and barbequed pork. Gaetan is also a fan of Baijiu – Chinese rice wine. Both Scott and Gaetan ordered a glass of Baijiu; 16 oz of 80 proof alcohol. Luckily, I opted for the beer. Let’s just say that yesterday; Scott had his first hangover in China.

Need a tailor? They're street-side.


I found a yarn market and started a blanket for the chilly Kunming nights.


Gaetan - our China guru from Switzerland.