Population Crisis in the Chinese Classroom

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival!

Just finished my first week of classes at Peking University and have definitely realized the limit of my Chinese ability. It’s one thing to be in a classroom learning Chinese, in an office speaking with Chinese people, or at a dining table gossiping with Chinese relatives, but listening to 3 hours of a professor speaking on a specialty topic in a foreign language?

Peking University has a shopping period for classes. For my school (international studies), the period is two weeks. So I have been going and listening to a bunch of classes: Chinese diplomacy, international strategy, “New China”, China-Taiwan relations…even one that was called “Mao’s philosophy and strategy.” Yes, I am in a communist country.

It was a lot harder than I had expected it to be. Our program is structured so that we take most of the courses in our international studies major while studying abroad. Before studying abroad, we only take the language requirements and a comparative history course. So when I stepped into my first lecture last Monday, a 3rd-year course on Chinese diplomacy, I was a bit shocked. I had no idea what the professor was talking about.

That wasn’t the only shocking find in the lecture. When I got to the classroom 20 minutes early, I expected to find a lecture room maybe half full. I even thought that I might have to wait until an earlier class was over. That was a huge mistake. Every seat was filled. People were dragging chairs in from the classroom next door. Some had given up and were sitting on the floor. There was still a swarm of students, coming in, looking for seats. A small amount of students–probably international–looked shocked, just like I did.

China’s population crisis in the classroom?

The same thing happened in each of the rest of my classes. No matter how earlier I went, the classes were full.

Apparently there are tricks. People buy sticky notes and write “Class Times 1-3, XXX has this seat reserved”, then stick them on the desks they want. Others have friends come 45 minutes earlier to save seats. This way, by the time the rest of the people come, most seats are reserved and the rest have been taken.

Maybe I should invest in a couple sets of colorful post-it notes?