In the early Fall, all the university student in China are required to undergo full-time military training. So too are beginning students in what they call "upper middle school," an institution students attend in their mid-teens.
Annual military training for students was instituted shortly after what the Chinese call the Tiananmen Square "incident." I think it's supposed to instill patriotism. It involves everyone's putting on camouflage and marching for ten hours each day in the hot sun, while waving the Chinese army flag. Periodically, the kids are allowed to rest and sing military songs. At such times, they appear to be having fun-- as if they're at scout camp. But at other times, they look really tired and complain of exhaustion. The military training dominates the campus. It's difficult to ignore 3,000 Freshman who are drilling with officers from the army.
No one stopped me from using my camera, and I took some great pictures, which I'd love to show you. But I still can't post pictures, and this blog spot goes down periodically. The computers belonging to all foreign teachers were "down" yesterday, although those of the office personnel worked fine. We're all apt to get slightly paranoid
when things like this happen.
3 comments:
Freshman military training? What an interesting idea! I can just picture that at ETSU.
Hang in there, Roz. I look forward to seeing the pictures when you're able to post them.
This fall session sure does sound much different than the summer session.
Michael has a somewhat different picture of the freshmen at ETSU than I do....... or maybe I didn't see that tongue in that cheek....
Peace to you Roz
Post a Comment