blog post 3: very "China"

Blythe, Polaris and her mother on our night out on the town in Wuhan.

I learned a lot about Chinese family life and education in urban areas. When I met Polaris, the daughter of our host family in Wuhan, one of the first things she said to my roommate and I was, “My parents are very China.” We didn’t know exactly what she meant by this, but we soon found out that her mother was a professor of law at a local university and her father worked for the government.

We learned even more about what this meant by the way that they presented their lives and home to us. For example, much of the conversation we had was about school and the classes that we were taking in comparison with the ones Polaris, who was the equivalent to a sophomore in high school, was enrolled in.

Photos from the high school that Polaris attends in Wuhan, and their flag raising ceremony.

The importance of school was apparent in many ways, but especially when, on the second night of our home stay, she did her homework while we socialized with her mother and grandmother.

One of the most “China” things that I noticed about her family was revealed when I asked Polaris about whether she had any siblings. She had been referring to one of her cousins as her sister, and, knowing about the One Child Policy in China, I asked offhand, “So how many siblings so you have?” She looked at me, with shock on her face and said, “Oh no, no siblings!” This, I guess is what it means to have parents and to be a part of a family that is very “China.”

First floor of the library... which like the second floor, is off limits to students.

We also learned a lot about education in China. For example, the library at the high school that we visited was off limits to students. The first floor had no books, and the second floor had a small collection of books that would be useless to the students even if they were allowed to use them because they were so out of date. Additionally, the Chinese do not recognize learning disorders. They believe that every student has the ability to excel, and if they cannot keep up, there is plenty of work in the fields for them.

Painting of graffiti on a student's desk.

Another interesting thing about our visit to the school was the fact that a Communist party member who was employed by the school came to observe our tour. After she joined us, Steve, our guide, clearly shifted conversation from a critique of the school and its practices to a very complementary and light discussion. When she was not with us, however, he was able to tell us the story of the number one student from the graduating class the year before who, due to the many pressures from his family and the school, committed suicide at the end of the year by jumping off a building on campus. The school’s official story was that he fell.

This being said, it was very clear to use that these students were receiving an phenomenal education, and that education in China is everything.