The Life of a Student (part one)

After speaking to my mom on Thanksgiving day, I've decided to post this longer piece in parts. She didn't like the already month and a half wait. At this point, I've written enough for three parts, but I expect to add more. 

The Life of a Student: 
At a Polytechnic Vocational School in Tianshui, Gansu, China


Part One: Think of the Thoughts I haven't Had Yet

Over the course of this past month I have taken extra effort to see my students in all of their colors. I’ve striven to observe their habits during class and their moods throughout the day as I encounter them on campus. When I see them engaged in an activity, I stop and watch. I ask them about what they are doing, or, more realistically, they proactively explain what they are doing. With an ecstatic smile a student might pull by my arm to a seat so that I can watch or listen as they practice their class’s song, or a new dance routine, or their special talent for the next event. Their enthusiasm seems to always last just a moment as the stupor of their sleepless student life returns to the forefront.

Throughout these discussions and observations I’ve realized the distinct flavor of their life here. It’s one of a packed schedule, but not out of choice. The mandatory requirements of their days stretch from morning until night. The activities and performances that are relentlessly put on for their fellow students are most often initiated by a teacher or superior while the effort that brings it to life is that of a couple dozen students who skip a few meals and trim off a few hours of sleep for the sake of its success. 

By the time the third student of my day asks me if America is “free,” in a single day, I start to get a better sense of what they mean. Since the vast majority of my students’ time is dictated, when my students ask me if America is “free,” they don’t mean free in a legal or political sense, what they mean is: did I have free time that I, myself, could allocate. I can say with bewildered confidence that yes, America was free for me. I had the freedom to write my own schedule and waste large amounts of time on Netflix. I also had the freedom to invest countless hours into studying Chinese and graduating with honors from UW-Madison. While this might not be the “freedom” that is often talked about, this is what many of my students tell me they want. My students frequently express frustration for how much of their current life has been decided by standardized tests like the college entrance exam (gaokao) and social constraints like familial expectations. One students assured me, she is not going to force her kid down the path that she wants like her mom has. Instead, she looks forward to giving her own child the option to select their own path.

I’ve asked a few dozen of my students if they like their major in the Tourism Department. “Yes. I like travel.” The one male student exploded from the far off corner. His smile drowned out the desert of angst around him. One by one the other students, all female, exhaled a no and then inhaled the reality of their situation. Their path was not chosen but given and, according to their tests, it is the path they are most suitable for. It’s not the doctor or teacher or accountant or pianist that they dream of becoming. Their path is one of quantitative suitability, standardized-test calculated stability. Yes, when looking into the future, their five year plans aren’t balanced on the peak of a bureaucratic or entrepreneurial pyramid. When I ask them what they want from their future, I’ve only heard “happiness” a couple times. What I do hear is "a good job" and "stability" and "family."
And just as I settled into this boxed in definition of my students, I’ll attend another event, or birthday party, or stumble into a calligraphy club, and the outlines vanish, erased away like the penciled lines around a single word on a single page of a 20 year long anthology. 

Comments

  1. Ben ElmakiasDecember 12, 2015 at 5:23 PM

    Thanks for the support, Alan. I'm glad your enjoying the reads.

    ReplyDelete

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